Report: LEGALIZING POT WOULDN'T CUT CRIME

WASHINGTON (AP) - People convicted of marijuana possession make up only a
tiny percentage of the nation's prison population, drug experts said in
arguing that legalizing or decriminalizing the drug would not ease
overcrowding in prisons.

Of the 1.8 million people in the nation's prisons and jails, only 3% are
incarcerated on drug possession charges and fewer than 1% for marijuana
possession, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia University said in a report released Tuesday.

These and other factors - such as the fact that most possession convictions
involve large amounts or are the result of plea bargaining from more
serious offenses - ''make it very unlikely that decriminalizing marijuana
would have any discernible effect on the nation's prison population.''

Advocates of legalization and decriminalization argue that non-violent drug
offenders are unnecessarily taking up space in the nation's already
overcrowded prisons at great cost to taxpayers.

The report's release coincided with a House hearing in which law
enforcement officials said they rarely seek prison terms for possession of
illegal drugs. Still, advocates of easing drug laws said arrests for
marijuana possession are at record levels, disrupting the lives of
thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Thomas Constantine, recently retired head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, said those serving federal and state sentences for
possession were ''infinitesimal'' in number. ''Virtually all of our
investigations are geared to individuals who sell drugs at enormous
profits,'' he told the hearing of a House Government Reform subcommittee.

In New York State, which has some of the nation's toughest mandatory
sentencing laws, fewer than 10% of people with no prior felony record who
are arrested for a felony drug offense receive state prison sentences, said
state director of criminal justice Katherine Lapp. Those convicted and
sentenced to time usually receive local jail time or probation, she said.

Of those serving time for drug possession, 76% were arrested on more
serious sale or intent to sell charges, she said.

''In my county, we neither seek nor expect jail time for simple first-time
possessors or addicts,'' said Charles Hynes, district attorney of
Brooklyn's Kings County.

Ethan Nadelmann, director of the New York-based Lindesmith Center, a
research project of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, said in an
interview that the reality is that a high minority of those incarcerated
for breaking drug laws in New York state were not convicted of violent or
predatory crimes and are not major drug dealers.

''We have just swept tens of thousands of people into this prison system,''
he said. Soros has been active in promoting drug policy reform.

R. Keith Stroup of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws, which supports decriminalization and regulated legalization, said
marijuana arrests have doubled since President Clinton took office and
that, according to FBI figures, police arrested a record 695,000 in 1997 on
marijuana charges, most for possession.

Most members of Congress are out of touch with their constituents, who
''know the difference between marijuana and more dangerous drugs, and who
oppose spending $25,000 a year to jail an otherwise law-abiding marijuana
smoker,'' he said.

But focusing on arrests ''skews perception of what decriminalization or
legalization would mean for the criminal justice system'' because few
marijuana arrests end in felony convictions, the Columbia University center
concluded.

The center's chairman, former health department secretary Joseph Califano,
said he did oppose mandatory sentences for young people possessing small
amounts of marijuana, saying prosecutors and judges should be given wide
discretion in order to encourage teens to stop using the drug.