DO DRUGS, DO TIME?

Tough Drug Stance Has a Price

A study by the federal Department of Health and Human Services found that
about 70 percent of Americans who had used illegal drugs in 1997 held
full-time jobs. That's over 6 million people.

A similar study by the state Department of Health Services put the
percentage of fully employed Arizona drug users even higher, 80 percent. In
commenting on the study findings, federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey said
that it demonstrates that "the typical drug user is not poor and
unemployed. He or she can be a co-worker, a husband or wife, a parent."

It's an ironic sentiment coming from McCaffrey, who is the nation's
foremost advocate of retaining criminal penalties for drug use. If
McCaffrey's policies were perfectly enforced, these co-workers, spouses,
and parents wouldn't be gainfully employed. They'd be in jail.