THIS IS TWO-TIERED JUSTICE

The important drug question is not, "What did George sniff and when did he
sniff it?" It is, "How do we handle the legion of nonviolent drug offenders
who are now crowding our prisons?"

This long-overdue discussion has become an electrified third rail of
American politics--a subject neither party has been willing to touch for
fear of being incinerated on contact. Bush can change that by redirecting
the media spotlight off the issue of his past substance abuse and onto an
issue of actual substance--namely, the racial and economic injustice of our
present drug policy.

In the name of toughness in the drug war, mandatory federal sentences of
five years are meted out to anyone caught with more than five grams of
crack cocaine. For the same sentence, you would need to possess 500 grams
of the more upscale powder form of the drug.

The result has been a two-tiered sentencing system, disproportionately
affecting African American men, who are five times as likely to be arrested
for drug violations than white men, even though their rate of illegal drug
use is about the same.

Despite a decline in violent crime, a record 1.82 million inmates are now
in our state and federal jails. And of all federal prisoners, 60% are there
for violating drug laws.

"Bush should take a compassionate look," Jesse Jackson told me, "at the
thousands of young Americans paying the price in our jails for a mistake
that--if he made it--did not mar his life."

Jackson, for one, intends to use this moment to spotlight the horrors of
the "jail-industrial complex which is driven by the incarceration of
nonviolent drug users."

And there are many conservative voices calling for mandatory minimum
sentencing to be repealed or at least reexamined--including Supreme Court
Justice Anthony Kennedy, criminologist John DiIulio and former Reagan Atty.
Gen. Ed Meese.

"The different sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine is something
that there's no doubt needs to be addressed," Dan Bartlett, Bush's campaign
spokesman, told me from Austin. "We do not have mandatory sentencing down
here because we don't want to handcuff judges."

But by signing legislation in 1997 that made it possible for judges to send
to jail even first-time nonviolent offenders carrying less than one gram of
cocaine, Bush has opened himself to charges of a double standard--if, that
is, he ends up admitting that the youthful mistakes he has alluded to
include being in possession of less than one gram of cocaine.

It would be a truly defining moment if Bush were to use any personal
confession he might make not only to express his regret but to decry our
present drug policy that makes second chances and learning from one's
mistakes nearly impossible.

If he chooses instead to stand behind the "zero tolerance" of our
$40-billion-a-year war on drugs--which is every day looking more and more
like a domestic Vietnam--and continues to advocate harsh sentences for
first-time nonviolent offenders, then he will expose himself as the worst
kind of hypocrite, forfeiting any claim of moral superiority over the man
he seeks to succeed.