LIBERTARIAN SHERIFF JUST SAYS NO TO THE DRUG WAR

Aug. 28, 2000 - TELLURIDE - When Bill Masters was just a little towheaded
shaver growing up in Los Angeles, he had a curious habit that signaled
where he was going in life.

Crossing streets, he would clutch his mother with one hand and direct
traffic with the other.

Some 45 years later, he still puzzles about this. He grew up in a family of
academics, not cops.

But law enforcement drew Masters and turned him into a county sheriff who
breaks out of the box - a sheriff who thinks, and more importantly says,
that the war on drugs is ludicrous, the criminal justice system is a farce
and the law-making arm of the government has run amok.

Masters' philosophy has played well in San Miguel County and its famous
county seat of Telluride, a town that has gone from hard-working,
hard-playing mining burg to chic playground-of-the-rich resort in the 25
years Masters has been in law enforcement here.

He is now in his fifth term as sheriff. He has the distinction of being the
nation's only registered Libertarian Party sheriff. And he holds the
highest elected office among Colorado Libertarians.

Since he "came out" as a Libertarian candidate in the 1998 election after
previously having to run as a Republican to be included on the ballot, his
popularity has only grown. He won with 80 percent of the vote, his largest
margin ever.

Masters, who favors Hawaiian shirts over staid uniforms, doesn't order
people to obey Colorado's 33,000 laws - many of which he believes are
unnecessary. His message instead is that citizens be responsible.

Excuses such as "alcohol made me do it" won't fly in his county, where
violent crime falls well below the national norm and the average sheriff's
log is made up of motorist troubles, illegal campfires and burglaries.

"Libertarians say there is no excuse if you hurt someone or their property.
You have to be held accountable," said the 49-year-old Masters, a
Libertarian for half his life.

Masters extends that gospel of personal responsibility to victims.

In a "message from the sheriff" printed on the back of a victims' rights
pamphlet, Masters tells citizens of his county: "It is your responsibility
to protect yourself and your family from criminals. If you rely on the
government for protection, you are going to be at least disappointed and at
worst injured or killed."

The one area of the law that really sets Masters apart - the subject that
spurs him to wave his arms and roll his desk chair back and forth to
punctuate important points - is drugs.

When he was first appointed and later elected sheriff in the late 1970s,
Masters said he wanted to prove he could be tough on drugs. He helped bust
the former town marshal, a former town board member and a number of
wellknown citizens. He even received a framed certificate of appreciation
from the Drug Enforcement Administration that now hangs on a wall of his
spare office along with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, the poem "If," and a
small sign advising his employees to GOYAKOD (get off your a-- and knock on
doors).

"Just look at how much good those arrests did," Masters said with a wry
laugh. "We spend $50 billion a year on drug enforcement in this country,
and we let pedophiles and murderers out of prison because there is not
enough room. The prisons are full of drug users."

Masters said a number of other Colorado sheriffs have told him in private
that they agree with his drug stance. But they won't say it publicly. If
they did, they might not be re-elected.

Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis is one of the few openly in Masters' corner.

"I share his philosophy. If you have a drug problem you should go to the
doctor, not to jail," Braudis said. "Bill has let that genie out of the
bottle and not suffered politically for it. He has an awful lot of courage
for stating this."

Ron Crickenberger, national political director of the Libertarian Party,
said Masters has become a "shining example" for other Libertarians across
America who are considering running for law enforcement positions while
openly opposing drug laws.

Masters spoke about that stance when he addressed the National Libertarian
Convention in June.

He told convention attendees a story about a trip he made to the FBI
training academy in Quantico, Va., several years ago.

He said he was brokenhearted to find the academy swarming with bright,
enthusiastic young agents-in-training for the DEA but only a handful of
older, overworked agents assigned to a case dealing with suspected child
abductions by a serial killer.

Masters, a man known for his infectious giggle, doesn't try to hide the
tears running down one cheek when he repeats the story in his office.

He had gone to Quantico for help with the case of a young Montrose woman
whose murdered body was found in his county two years after she was
abducted from a Montrose parking lot.

The Buffy Rice Donohue murder case is one that Masters, a father of four,
has refused to let die even after other law enforcement officials have
washed their hands of it.

The man believed to have killed Donohue is facing a death sentence in two
other murders and has never been prosecuted for Donohue's murder. His
former girlfriend, whom Masters said he believes was an accomplice in the
murder, has been sentenced only for being an accessory.

Masters is continuing to investigate to bring some overdue justice in
Donohue's murder.

He showed the same dogged determination in the 1990 murder of Eva Berg
Shoen, a resident of the Telluride Ski Ranches. It took five years of
meticulous investigative work to arrest and convict a New Mexico man for
the slaying.

Masters said solving that case was possible because his deputies were able
to focus on the crime because they didn't have to spend half their time
chasing after drug dealers. He also said that he doesn't allow them to
spend their time on "touchy-feely" extra programs such as drug education in
schools.

Jill Masters, who worked as a sheriff's investigator before marrying Bill
Masters 10 years ago, said she doesn't view what her husband is doing as
radical.

"It's actually old-fashioned. It's the way law enforcement used to be
practiced," she said.

But Braudis said he expects Masters to be recognized someday as "an early
pioneer" for his cutting-edge stance on the drug war.

Crickenberger said he expects even more.

"I would certainly like to see Bill run for a higher office - for state
representative or Congress," Crickenberger said. "We will be encouraging
him to do so."