A PLEBISCITE ON DRUG WAR

A two-part PBS documentary, broadcast last week, graphically demonstrated
what anyone with common sense already knows: America's decades-long,
multibillion-dollar "war on drugs" has been an abject failure.

Not only have efforts to lock up drug users, intercept drug imports and
catch dealers failed miserably but failure has had negative social
consequences, including crimes that drug users commit to support their
habits, violence involving those in the high-profit illicit drug trade, the
corruptive effects on governments, and the waste of hundreds of billions of
dollars in tax money.

The misuse of drugs is essentially a health issue, best approached through
public education, social pressure and, as a last resort, medical and
psychological treatment of those who succumb to temptation. Perhaps the most
intriguing point of the PBS series was that when the drug war began in the
late 1960s, its chief focus was treatment -- an approach that PBS
journalists found was still popular even with drug warriors who acknowledge
the failure of interdiction. Jack Lawn, who headed the Drug Enforcement
Administration during the Reagan administration, says in one televised
interview that 90 percent of anti-drug funds should go for education and
treatment.

"Would that work?" Lawn asks. "We won't know unless we try it. But 20 years
of doing it the other way certainly has not worked."

California is on the drug war's front lines. It has an estimated 20,000 men
and women behind bars for illegal drug use, a long coastline and a border
with Mexico that make it a prime entry point for illegal drugs, countless
marijuana farms and a burgeoning methamphetamine industry.

The state's leading politicians continue to advocate hard-line approaches --
whether out of personal conviction or pandering to perceived voter
attitudes, only they know for certain -- but there are exceptions. One is
the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Congressman Tom Campbell, who
unveiled a television ad Monday in which he stresses a non-punitive
approach.

Taking direct aim at Sen. Dianne Feinstein's long advocacy of tough drug
laws, Campbell says in the ad that Feinstein "is in denial about my record
on drug policy, just like drug users deny they have a habit. Dianne can't
admit the war on drugs has failed. She's ready to spend billions more to
send American troops to Colombia."

Campbell has almost no chance of unseating Feinstein, who labels his drug
policy as "bizarre," so we'll never know whether his softer approach would
sway many voters. As it happens, however, Californians will have a more
direct opportunity to vote on the drug war in the form of Proposition 36,
which would create a diversion and treatment program for adults convicted of
a "non-violent drug possession offense," as an alternative to jail.

Proposition 36 was placed on the ballot by several wealthy men who believe
in at least the partial decriminalization of the drug problem. And it's
backed by roughly the same groups who successfully persuaded California
voters to allow personal use of marijuana as a medical treatment for chronic
pain.

Reasonable people can disagree on how society should deal with drug abuse.
And the disagreement often has little to do with other aspects of political
ideology. While Republican Campbell and liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters
advocate treatment and end to the expensive drug war, actor and liberal
activist Martin Sheen, whose son Charlie Sheen was ordered into drug rehab
two years ago after violating probation on a battery conviction, is
campaigning vigorously against Proposition 36, saying the threat of jail is
needed to force drug abusers into treatment.

However, no one -- save a few die-hard drug warriors whose jobs would be at
stake -- can reasonably argue anymore that America's war on drugs has been
anything other than an expensive failure.