WHY IS BUSH DODGING QUESTIONS ABOUT COCAINE?

If he answered, he might prompt a useful discussion about the wisdom of our
War on Drugs. George W. Bush is in a tough spot. He did some things when he
was young that have come back to haunt him. He acknowledges that, but won't
talk about it in detail.

What he particularly won't talk about -- what he in fact seems indignant
that anyone would bring up -- is whether as a young man he used drugs.

Unfortunately for him, he also wants to be president, so he has to face
nagging inquisitors who refuse to let the past stay buried.

What's he to do?

He might try telling the truth.

All of us were young once, and many of us foolish, and we understand about
youthful illusions of freedom and invulnerability. Maturity may not bring
wisdom, but for most people it does bring responsibilities that restrict our
inclination to do wild and crazy things.

We Americans are a forgiving people. Just ask Bill Clinton, who has turned
sin, confession and redemption into a campaign tool.

So what if George W. Bush sat down with Charlie Rose or Oprah Winfrey or
Barbara Walters and said, "Look, I want to level with the American people."
He might say, "When I was a young man, I behaved the way many young men of
the time did. I caroused. I drank too much. I did a few drugs."

So? Surveys report that some 77 million Americans -- a third of the
population, including me -- have used illegal drugs at least once. Most of
them tried marijuana.

But suppose Bush didn't just smoke marijuana, a crime that politicians these
days are lining up to confess. Suppose he did harder drugs -- say, cocaine.

That would present a problem. He did something that has landed a lot of his
fellow Americans in prison for a long time.

If that were the case, his confession would raise an issue that few
politicians want to confront -- the wisdom of our War on Drugs.

Today, the mandatory minimum penalty under federal law for using crack
cocaine is five years in prison. That's mandatory -- a federal judge can't
say, well, you're from a good family and you have no criminal record, so
I'll put you on probation. If you're convicted of possession -- not sale,
mind you -- of crack cocaine, you go to prison for five years.

So if Bush were to admit to using cocaine, the obvious question would be,
"Do you think, Mr. Bush, that young men who are not so lucky as you should
be put behind bars for doing what you did?"

Back in 1977, Jimmy Carter said something imminently sensible about drugs.
"Penalties against possession of a drug," he said, "should not be more
damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."

Prison sentences for drug use fail the Carter test.

It's not just aging ex-hippies who think mandatory prison sentences for
drugs are outrageous.

The Judicial Conference of the United States, which represents federal
judges, has endorsed repeal of mandatory prison sentences. So has each of
the 12 Federal Judicial Conferences. In protest against harsh minimum
sentences, 50 senior federal judges refuse to hear drug cases.

How effective is our War on Drugs? It's hard to guess what might have
happened without it. But Scott Ehlers, senior policy analyst for the
Washington-based Drug Policy Institute, testified before a congressional
subcommittee in June about what has happened with it.

The number of drug arrests has risen sharply, he said, from 580,900 in 1980
to nearly 1.6 million in 1997. So has the number of drug offenders in state
and federal prisons, from 12,475 in 1980 to 281,419 in 1997, a 2,000-plus
percent increase.

The effects? In 1975, according to one survey, 87 percent of high school
seniors said it was easy or fairly easy to buy marijuana. Twenty-four years
and millions of arrests later, a poll found that 90.4 percent of seniors
said obtaining marijuana was easy. A survey by the National Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse found that it's much easier now for high
school students to buy marijuana than beer.

Over two decades, the street price of drugs has fallen. Ehlers cited Drug
Enforcement Agency reports showing that in 1981, cocaine cost $378 per pure
gram on the street. In 1998 a gram cost $169. The street price of heroin
dropped by nearly half over the same period.

If Bush used hard drugs years ago and admitted it, he'd be besieged by
difficult questions about national drug policy.

No wonder he'd rather criticize reporters than answer their questions. Such
a discussion might be good for the country, but it would be hell for a
presidential campaigner.

Ed Williams is editor of The Observer's editorial pages. Write him at P.O.
Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or by fax at 704-358-5022, or e-mail at
ewilliams@charlotte.com.