ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT; PROTESTERS SAY IT'S TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO HALT DRUG
BATTLES

In 1932, Democratic presidential challenger Franklin D. Roosevelt called
for an end to Prohibition, the ban on alcohol that Republican President
Herbert Hoover embraced as "the noble experiment."

FDR swept into office declaring "happy days are here again" and presided
over the repeal of Prohibition as the noble experiment was declared an
utter failure.

Arguments are being made now across the political spectrum that America's
war on drugs - the federal prohibition on marijuana and other illicit
substances - has proved similarly disastrous.

As with Prohibition, critics decry a lucrative black market run by ruthless
gangsters, widespread police corruption, an explosion in the prison
population, erosion of civil liberties and continued drug use as evidence
that the drug war has failed.

Could history repeat itself this election year?

With hundreds of thousands of Americans locked up on drug offenses and tens
of billions of tax dollars spent annually on the drug war, a burgeoning
anti-war movement is screaming "enough!"

The question is whether movement leaders, who call the drug war our "social
Vietnam," are yet loud enough to be heard.

They are cheered by new challenges to drug prohibition by two prominent
Republicans, by the success of the medical-marijuana movement and by
evidence of a greater awareness of the war's costs and consequences.

"Eventually, the failure of the drug war will cause its own demise," said
Eric E. Sterling, who from 1979 to 1989 was counsel to the House Judiciary
Committee, which was principally responsible for anti-drug legislation.

"All kinds of pressure is being exerted on the current (anti-drug)
strategy. Even Gen. (Barry) McCaffrey (President Clinton's drug czar), has
said the drug war is not working.

"But as long as this is considered an electrified third rail - suicide for
politicians - there will be no rational debate on drug policy," added
Sterling, now president of the nonprofit Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.

Adam J. Smith, associate director of the Internet-based Drug Reform
Coordination Network, hopes for some kind of national drug-war debate in
the 2000 campaign. He is not optimistic.

"But by the next election cycle, we may well see at least one major
presidential candidate, and many others in the states, running on a
drug-law-reform platform," Smith said.

Dan Baum, author of "The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure" (Little
Brown; 1996) said that like Vietnam at its late-'60s peak, the drug war is
vast, complex and highly resistant to a swift armistice.

"We have allowed this to grow into too big a monster and we ain't going to
kill it in one political season," Baum said.

Baum's drug-war monster can be measured in several ways:

In 1980, the federal government spent about $1 billion on drug control and
50,000 Americans were incarcerated on the federal, state and local levels
for drug offenses. Today, the federal drug-war budget is nearly $18
billion (an estimated $20 billion is spent by state and local governments)
and about 400,000 Americans are behind bars for nonviolent, drug-law
violations.

In 1998, 1.6 million Americans were arrested for drug violations, compared
with 581,000 in 1980. Drug arrests account for about one-third of all
arrests in America, more than any other category of crime, according to the
FBI.

The number of women in state and federal prisons increased from 12,300 in
1980 to 82,800 in 1997, a rise of 573 percent. Drug offenses accounted for
one-half of the state incarcerations.

African-Americans are eight times more likely to be prosecuted and
incarcerated than whites arrested for drug-law violations.

By Feb. 15, 2 million Americans will be behind bars, nearly a tenfold
increase in the inmate population in a quarter-century. Because of the
drug war and the get-tough-on-crime climate that spawned it, the anti-war
movement says the land of the free has become the world's largest gulag.

Critics from both the right and left contend that the war on drugs has
failed in its mission, but succeeded in damaging Constitutional protections
against illegal search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment and the
right to privacy.

People aren't locked up for abusing alcohol, they say, why should they be
jailed for using or abusing drugs?

But the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, headed by
McCaffrey, counters that "the first duty of government is to provide
security for citizens."

"Drug abuse, drug trafficking and their consequences destroy personal
liberty and the well-being of communities," according to the drug czar's
office. "Drug abuse spawns global syndicates and bankrolls those who sell
drugs to young people.

"No person or group is immune. ... When the nation fails to pay attention
and guard against it, drug use tends to spread."

War resisters

In 1930, Morris Sheppard, a Texas congressman and a sponsor of the
amendment banning alcohol, made this prediction:

"There is as much chance of repealing the 18th Amendment as there is for a
hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to
its tail."

Obviously, public opinion can quickly change.

But the debate 70 years ago over Prohibition seems more straightforward
than issues and questions surrounding the war on drugs.

One reason is the nature of illicit drugs and Americans' attitudes toward
them.

The federal government, in extensive anti-drug campaigns, has worked hard
to lump all illegal drugs together. But many Americans - especially the 75
million adults who have admitted use of marijuana - distinguish between "
hard" and "soft" drugs. And many distinguish between drug use and drug abuse.

Polls show that most people are more skeptical about easing the prohibition
of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other "hard" drugs than they are
about marijuana.

Seven states, California being the first, have passed laws allowing the use
of marijuana for medicinal purposes (though it remains illegal under
federal law).

Similar initiatives, along with proposals to reform mandatory-sentencing
laws for marijuana and other drug traffickers, are headed for the ballot in
several more states this year. And Alaska voters are expected to consider
a proposal to legalize marijuana in that state.

Despite such reform efforts regarding marijuana, political observers say
the broader drug war has yet to catch fire as a mainstream political issue.

"Nothing I've seen in the polling or focus groups suggests to me that the
American public is willing to drastically change the way government policy
deals with drug use, particularly with respect to interdiction," said Garry
South, a Democratic political consultant and campaign director for Gov.
Gray Davis in 1998.

"The media may shine a light on this issue in the 2000 campaign. But it's
hard to expect political candidates to go out on a limb when there is not
broad-based support for it."

Two politicians, both of them Republicans, have gone out on a limb, however.

Gary Johnson, the lame-duck governor of New Mexico, shocked members of both
parties last fall when he blasted the drug war on a speaking tour, calling
for the legalization not just of marijuana, but also of cocaine and heroin.

Johnson, a 46-year-old triathlete and father of two who admits to having
used marijuana and cocaine in college, insists he is against drugs, that
drugs "are a bad choice, they're a handicap," and he counsels kids against
their use.

But Johnson, now a teetotaller, said locking up people for using drugs is
morally wrong, terribly costly and ineffective. "Legalization means we
educate, regulate, tax and control the estimated $400 billion a year drug
industry," he said in a recent speech.

Meanwhile in California, Tom Campbell, the leading GOP candidate to
challenge Diane Feinstein for her U.S. Senate seat this fall, is calling
for a different approach.

Instead of overhauling current policies and laws, Campbell proposes that
localities be allowed to experiment with plans that would make drugs
available for addicts at government facilities. The current U.S.
congressman from San Jose also favors providing intravenous users with
clean needles to stop the spread of AIDS and other diseases.

Campbell said his idea, based on successful programs in Europe, is to
eliminate the profit incentive for drug dealers while educating addicts on
the danger of drug use and offering them treatment.

"I've taken a lot of criticism," Campbell said. "But the present system is
not working and I believe it is the responsibility of someone who wants to
lead to present new ideas.

"If all you do is repeat what's being done when it isn't working, you are
hardly a leader."

Unlikely coalition

Political scientists say that because of its liberal roots, the Democratic
Party has long been vulnerable to charges of being "soft" on crime in
general and drugs in particular.

Democrats have worked hard in recent years to overcome that image, as
demonstrated by President Clinton's dramatic escalation of the drug war -
his current anti-drug budget is six times that of the Bush administration.

For this reason, anti-war leaders say, it will probably take a Republican
to launch a national debate on the drug war, much as it took avowed
anti-communist Richard Nixon to open the door to China.

"It has to come from the Republicans, that's the key," said Smith of the
Drug Reform Coordination Network.

"But the interesting thing is drug-war issues touch so many constituencies.
Libertarians and hard-core conservatives look at it and say it's not the
government's business; fiscal conservatives are shocked at the costs;
liberals are upset over the exploding prison population; blacks are angry
that minorities are heavily targeted," Smith said.

"People who are not philosophically aligned on anything else can agree on
this."

The anti-war movement is basically split into two camps: Those who want to
legalize all drugs and strictly control their sale; and those wishing for
reform of drug policy and laws by shifting priorities from arrest and
prosecution to treatment and education.

This latter "harm-reduction" wing appears to enjoy a much broader base of
support, with hundreds of Internet sites devoted to position papers,
essays, news roundups, commentary from drug prisoners, research reports,
etc., urging politicians and the public to reassess the drug war's
consequences.

Among the most visible proponents of harm-reduction is Ethan Nadelmann,
director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug-policy institute financed by
billionaire George Soros with offices in New York and San Francisco.

"The idea that the drug war has failed and we need to reform is becoming
the new conventional wisdom, there's plenty of evidence of that," Nadelmann
said. "But there is a long way to go.

"The entire drug-policy reform movement in this country spent less than $15
million getting our message out in 1998, less in '99 and will spend a bit
more this year," he added. "We're getting outspent by, what, a hundred to
1? A thousand to 1?"

The movement's relatively meager funds, Nadelmann said, should be directed
at scuttling the "zero tolerance" rhetoric, though he agrees that anyone
endangering lives by driving under the influence should be prosecuted to
the fullest.

Nadelmann would replace the notion of "a drug-free America" with the idea
that drugs are permanent in our society and ways must be found to live with
them so they cause the least possible harm and greatest possible benefit.

Harm reduction, he said, involves decriminalizing marijuana and taxing and
regulating it; providing "honest and effective drug education rather than
feel-good programs like DARE"; not treating adults who sell drugs to other
adults as "predatory criminals"; and treating drug abuse as a public-health
problem rather than a criminal-justice problem.

Child protection issue

One of the anti-war movement's biggest hurdles is the government's argument
that if prohibition ended children would suffer.

"Drug warriors understand the power of PR. They've convinced the public
that prohibition is the thin blue line protecting children from becoming
zombies," said Smith, who added that experiences running a teen center in
New York inspired him to oppose the war.

"The truth is if average middle-class parents wanted to buy marijuana now,
they'd do well to ask their teen-age kids. But kids can't get Demerol or
other pharmaceuticals.

"Under prohibition, the decision of whether drugs are sold to your
15-year-old is not in the hands of a physician, pharmacist or parent, but a
drug dealer. We have yet to get that message out."

Sterling, the former congressional aide, said fear "is the politicians'
favorite drug and they are very good at exploiting it, especially when it
comes to issues involving children. And they are afraid themselves."

"On every other issue, there are at least a couple of sides. But you run
the real risk of offending voters and contributors when you take a position
against the drug war."

In order to address voters' fears and the child-protection issue, leaders
in the anti-war movement say that eventually they have to go beyond
attacking the negative consequences of drug prohibition and provide
alternatives to the drug war.

"You can't beat something with nothing," Sterling said. "To say the war on
drugs is a failure and this is the end of the war, that's not going to
happen. But the problem exceeds my ability to describe a solution. I say
we need to be willing to experiment."

But others, notably Nadelmann, offer myriad reform proposals in speeches,
op-ed pieces and seminars.

"This is like other American political and social movements - women's
suffrage, civil rights, gay rights, Prohibition itself," Nadelmann said. "
You start by using facts to educate people, you use science, common sense.
It takes time to build consensus.

"My gut feeling is that when the phrase 'drug prohibition' appears in a
news story rather than in an op-ed piece in the newspaper, we will take a
big step forward.

"People can then make the analytical leap toward a more sensible policy."