HARSH DRUG LAWS GETTING DESERVED ATTENTION

IF Gov. George W. Bush were to tell the truth about his rumored youthful
brush with drugs, would prison doors start swinging open for the hundreds
of thousands of young Americans now imprisoned, in Texas and the 49 other
states, for mere possession or small-time selling of illegal drugs?

That's the possibility the Rev. Jesse Jackson has grasped, depicting Bush
as "a rich man's son caught in a poor man's trap."

Jackson claims the Bush case provides a straightforward choice:

"Forgive him (Bush) if he asks for it, and change the laws" -- the
statutes, federal and state, that now force possessors of minor drug
amounts to spend years, even decades behind bars.

The other choice, says Jackson: "Enforce the law," pursue any provable drug
case against Bush himself, "because we must all play by one set of rules."
And because Bush, as a governor or prospective president, "can't enforce a
law he doesn't adhere to."

But realistically, does the Bush case offer an opportunity to change the
nation's draconian drug laws?

Starting in the '70s, federal and state legislators fearful of being called
soft on crime have stiffened drug penalties, thrown aside judges'
discretion, set harsh mandatory sentences and disallowed probation. And
they launched a prison-building spree without parallel in American history.

Over 1,000 new prisons have been built in America since the '70s. While the
number of violent prisoners entering our prisons has doubled, the number of
persons incarcerated for drug offenses has tripled. Last year, according to
the Justice Policy Institute, American taxpayers spent $24 billion to
incarcerate over 1 million nonviolent offenders.

Texas has the country's largest criminal justice system, with 545,000
people in prison or jail or on probation or parole -- a point of pride to
many Texans, Tony Fabelo, Bush's top criminal justice adviser, tells The
New York Times. Texas prisons hold 724 inmates for every 100,000 residents,
second only to Louisiana's 736.

Americans seem comfortable with the price tag -- prison and jail budgets up
from $5 billion in 1979 to $31 billion in 1997. California, Maryland and
New York are among the states that now spend more on prisons than
universities. During the '90s, New York's prison budget grew by $761
million, while its higher education budget dropped $615 million.

Indeed, even though surveys show whites and blacks use illegal drugs at
about the same rate, black men are five times as likely to be arrested for
drug offenses. The incarceration rate for black males is eight times the
rate for white men.

Blame overzealous cops if you will. The fact is Congress -- that means us
- -- has refused to alter a 1986 law that imposes the same five-year minimum
sentence for possessing five grams of crack cocaine (popular on city
streets, and among blacks) that it imposes for having 500 grams of powder
cocaine (popular among the white middle class).

Half the black males in some neighborhoods have been forced to do time. And
as Jackson reminds us, it's no joke: "You cannot get a post office job, you
cannot play college football, you cannot keep your Olympic gold medal, you
cannot get promoted in the military if you, in fact, have been dealing with
cocaine."

So would even a revelation of earlier drug use by Bush make a difference?
Maybe not. But it demonstrates palpable, gross injustice to many Americans
who've never paused to grasp how we discriminate in drug arrests. Or
perhaps never noticed research (by the Rand Corp.) showing that drug
treatment is actually eight times more cost-effective than incarceration.

Already, says Jackson, Bush's situation has triggered "renewed discussion,"
rethinking of our "extreme" anti-drug policies by some proponents of "zero
tolerance" and mandatory sentencing.

Maybe there's a historic pattern. Americans long knew about the terrible
injustice of slavery, and finally waged a civil war to cure it. They knew
of Jim Crow laws, and the continued subjugation of African-Americans -- and
in the '60s they finally passed the civil rights laws to set things straight.

As the grossly discriminatory application of our harsh drug laws becomes
clear, affecting African-American, Hispanic- American, even poor white
families so unfairly, there'll surely be a tipping point, a regaining of
America's moral compass.

Jackson is right to hold his grip on Bush's trouser leg, like a determined
bulldog. Urban policy in today's America, argues Jackson, "is not about
health-care policy. It's not housing policy. It's not education. It's
essentially a drug-driven policy."

Look at any devastated inner-city neighborhood of this country, and you
know he's right.

Bush could help America a lot by staying in the presidential race, perhaps
even winning it. That way, the Jesse Jacksons of America can keep alive the
issue of justice for everyone, in a nation that proclaims equal protection
of the laws.