ROCKY ROCKS THE BOAT

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson made the Utah Democratic Party smoking
mad last week by suggesting that the decriminalization of marijuana
deserves serious consideration.

State Democratic Chairwoman Meg Holbrook called Anderson's comments at the
Shadow Convention in Los Angeles "irresponsible," but the same could be
said of the mainstream political parties' refusal to address what the mayor
had the courage to point out: The government's punitive approach to
fighting drug abuse has failed miserably.

Anderson's call for a policy geared toward prevention and treatment makes
sense. Consider some facts about the current tactics:

The government has spent tens of billions of dollars in its 30-year war on
drugs, including $18.5 billion this year, but while the population of
Americans convicted of drug charges has increased tenfold, the street price
of cocaine has fallen the surest measure of a plentiful supply.

In 1998, the last year for which statistics are available, 975,000
Americans used heroin, double the number from 1993.

About 13 million Americans one in 20 regularly used illegal drugs in 1998.

The Shadow Convention, an alternative to the mainstream Democratic
Convention that Anderson predicted would "avoid the tough issues," tackled
the drug problem head-on. New Mexico's Republican Gov. Gary Johnson used
the L.A. forum to continue his yearlong crusade to legalize all drugs. He
argues that the $65 billion spent by Americans on drugs each year could be
taxed and the money used for prevention and treatment programs.

Legalization would end organized crime's lucrative involvement, he says,
just as it drove criminals out of the alcohol trade when Prohibition was
lifted in 1933. Fewer cops, courts, jails and prisons would be needed, and
the cumulative savings could be funneled into preventing people from trying
drugs in the first place.

Critics of the approach, including U.S. drug warrior Barry McCaffrey, fear
that addictions would explode if drugs were legalized, and he believes that
the only effective treatment programs are those which addicts are forced
into by the courts.

A better option might be one Anderson touched upon in Los Angeles,
decriminalizing marijuana. Eight states and the District of Colombia have
already done this for those whose medical conditions are eased by the drug.
Critics who fear that legalization of marijuana will lead to greater abuse
can look to Amsterdam, where pot and hashish have been sold legally in
coffee shops for 20 years. Less than 3 percent of Dutch admitted to using
drugs in 1998, compared with 5 percent of Americans.

The arguments from all sides could fill a book, but most would agree that
the current anti-drug strategy isn't working. Before anything can change,
more politicians must be willing to buck the establishment to hammer that
message home.