JUST SAY NO TO THE DRUG WAR

The big missing issue in the 2000 campaign is our failed war against drugs. The highest-ranking official with the guts to say so,is New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson - a triathlete, iconoclast and Republican, in that order.

Hearing Johnson talk drugs, as I did on a recent visit, is to experience a level of candor unimaginable in the presidential race.

"Half of what we spend on law enforcement, half of what we spend on the courts, and half of what we spend on the prisons is drug-related," Johnson, 47, says. "Our current policies on drugs are perhaps the biggest problem that this country has."

Everyone tells kids not to do drugs, Johnson explains. Despite this chorus, 80-million Americans have tried them, including more than half this year's graduating high school class. No one condones this, he adds, but do we really want our kids to be branded 14 criminals" for it? If they're not driving or stealing while high, where is the harm?

He points out that 450,000 people died last year from smoking cigarettes; 150,000 as a consequence of drinking alcohol; 100,000 from legal prescription drugs. How many people died last year from the use of marijuana? Few, if any. From cocaine and heroin? Five thousand.

"Yet we are arresting 1.5-million people a year in this country on drug-related crime," Johnson says. "Half of those arrested are for marijuana. And half those arrests are Hispanics." We're locking up nonviolent people senselessly, he argues. "We ought to legalize marijuana," he says. "We need to stop 'getting tough' with drugs."

How did a Republican governor stumble into this?

Last summer, a few months into his second (and final) term, Johnson told state GOP leaders he was determined to make the most of his bully pulpit. Days later, without having thought it all through, Johnson told reporters he'd legalize marijuana and heroin.

Ka-boom! White House drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffery flew in to condemn him. Ed Bradley came down to do 60 Minutes. Meanwhile, Johnson's chief law enforcement official quit in protest; a local sheriff called the governor an "idiot," and his approval ratings sank from 54 to 35 percent.

Johnson, famously persistent (he finishes near the top of his age group in Ironman triathion competitions), hasn't backed down. But he has sought expert advice. Today he seeks legalization for marijuana only and promotes "harm-reduction" strategies for other drugs. "Harm- reduction" advocates see drugs as a public-health, not a criminal, problem and back programs for needle exchange and methadone maintenance, as well as an end to "mandatory minimum" sentences that can leave nonviolent drug offenders in jail longer than rapists or burglars.

Yet drug czar McCaffery views much of the "harm-reduction" agenda as a ploy to pave the way toward full legalization. Johnson's efforts, he told me, are "irresponsible" and "misguided."

But consider: In 1980 we spent less than $5-billion on drug control and incarcerated 50,000 Americans for nonviolent drug offenses; today, we spend $40-billion and jail more than 450,000 (more than Europe, with a larger population, jails for everything).

Blacks are 17 percent of cocaine users but 88 percent of those convicted on crack-cocaine charges. Casual drug use is down, but the population of hard-core addicts (responsible for most drug-related crime) has held steady near 5-million. Drugs remain widely available, at low prices, to those who want them. Half the addicts who need treatment can't get it. Dirty needles are a major culprit in the spread of HIV.

Johnson is only sane to say there's something wrong with this picture. And the issue is gaining steam. A California ballot measure this November would divert nonviolent first-time drug offenders to treatment; New York's chief judge recently introduced a similar system administratively. Johnson, meanwhile, has a task force coming back soon with a slate of reforms, which he says could even include pardons for nonviolent offenders.

If Johnson can pass sensible reforms and see his popularity rebound, he may make the world safe for other politicians to "just say no" to America's costly and increasingly counterproductive drug war.