THE LONG ARM OF COCAINE

Isn't It Time To Reconsider Our Draconian Drug Laws?

The question lit up by the rumor about Gov. George W. Bush and the use of
cocaine, followed by his refusal to talk about the subject, have opened up
broad discussions in which the governor is integrally involved. Now the
question has become less, Did George W. do it back then? than, Does George
W.'s situation merit a re-examination of drug policy?

Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico volunteered his own history on a radio
program. Yes, he had used marijuana, has also used cocaine. He regretted
having done so but thought the time had come to ask the central question: Is
it good policy to pursue and handle drug users in the way we are now
pursuing and handling them?

Sixty percent of the prison population in Texas is there for drug abuse.
Eighty million Americans have used illegal drugs. Now Mr. Bush is centrally
involved in the drug-policy question because, of course, he is running for
office as chief law-enforcement agent and has staked out a position on law
and order. That position has been described aphoristically as "incarceration
is rehabilitation," which translates to: Put them in jail, and crime will
decrease, inasmuch as criminals can't practice their profession while in jail.

But the fundamental question, neatly raised by Gov. Johnson, has to do with
the definition of crime. If possession of marijuana is a crime - which it is
47 states - then 80 million Americans are going about our business
notwithstanding a "criminal" past. On the graduated question of cocaine, one
notes that the United States has 5 percent of the world's population and
consumes 50 percent of the world's production of cocaine.

Conceive a fantasy: You are required to push the A button or B button. The A
button would incarcerate all illegal drug users. The B button would drop
charges against illegal drug users. Which button would you depress? Does
your allegiance to law and order propel you to put millions of people in
jail? Or are you inclined to modify your opinion about what should be a
jailable offense?

Gov. Bush is up against it. One letter-writer in St. Paul, Minn., put his
point acidulously: "I think a cocaine-besmirched George W. Bush should run
for president only after he has waited out the number of years that a
cocaine possessor might be sentenced to under his own Texas drug-prohibition
law." The writer engages in a paralogism - George W. isn't asking the public
to condone past behavior, no more than St. Augustine did in his
"Confessions." But the governor could contribute something on the order of
an Augustinian review of the moral history of the whole problem, and it
would begin by acknowledging that mandatory sentences for drug offenses are
miscast ideas, requiring among other things a new look at what is or ought
to be a drug offense.

Gov. Bush could do this, could comment on the recommendation of the Nixon
commission back in 1973, which argued against the wisdom of prison sentences
for those found in possession of marijuana for their own use. Certainly he
could opine on the disparity in the federal law against cocaine use and
against crack cocaine.

The temptation, surely, will be to say that as chief executive of the state
of Texas, his warrant is to apply the laws, as passed by the Legislature.
But just as, if he becomes president, he is called upon to make
recommendations to the Congress, he has made recommendations to the
Legislature in Austin, and two of these have touched on the drug problem.
Gov. Bush signed in 1997 a bill mandating that judges sentence first-time
felons convicted of possessing a gram or less of cocaine to a minimum of 180
days in a state jail.

It is, of course, possible that after three, five, 10 weeks, the problem
will simply go away, even as Mr. Clinton's problems - adultery, draft
evasion marijuana, lying - went away. But Gov. Bush has the special hardship
Republicans (and indeed conservatives) have, which is that they tend to be
judged by tougher standards. That is as it should be, but San Mateo, Calif.,
letter-writer Dr. Tom O'Connell writes persuasively in the Chicago Trubune:
"Speaking as the parent of three now-mature Baby Boomers, [I say that] I'm
reluctant to vote for anyone who grew up during that era in our history and
never experimented with drugs even once. The only person I'm even more
reluctant to vote for is someone who did - but now refuses to come clean."

But then that is Pontius Pilate time: How do you define clean?