DRUG REFORM GROUP TO ADDRESS ROTARY IN SCHOHARIE

SCHOHARIE - George McIntosh lived through Prohibition. He saw people die
from drinking bathtub gin.

Those deaths stopped when alcohol was made legal again in 1933.

The 90-year-old man does not wear hemp bracelets or tie-dyed shirts, but he
thinks making drugs legal might not be such a bad idea.

"Drugs would be so cheap, smugglers wouldn't have a market," McIntosh said.

He said he would have to know more before becoming a staunch advocate of
legalization, but when his Rotary Club hosts a speaker from a drug-law
reform group next Tuesday, he will be listening very closely.

The Schoharie Rotary Club is traditionally regarded as a conservative group,
but when it was approached by ReconsiDer, a Syracuse-based drug-reform
group, the group decided it would at least listen to what the speaker had to
say.

"Drugs are a real problem in our society and there's different points of
view. The laws against them seem to be more prolific than ever," said
Maynard Jones, past president of the Rotary.

The retired brush salesman said he is not sure that he is in favor of
legalizing crack, cocaine and heroin, but also is uncertain that the current
laws are doing the job.

Jones doesn't drink - ever - and says he thinks prohibiting the use of all
drugs, including alcohol, is a good idea in theory.

"If you can enforce it. But if you can't enforce it, I'm not sure it does
much good," he said.

Jones said he is fairly certain he is not in favor of legalization, but that
he wants to hear why some think it's a good idea, anyway.

"I want to listen to what they've got to say," he said.

Mike Smithson was arguing in favor of the nation's drug laws, especially New
York's minimum sentencing laws, until 1994.

"I was in a debate with someone who supported legalization and I got blown
out of the water," he said.

Since then, he has changed his views, joined ReconsiDer and become the
group's spokesman.

He, and his group, think drugs are a social problem, not a criminal one.
"We've asked the criminal justice system to do something it was never meant
to do," Smithson said.

He said that instead of helping people with their addictions, the criminal
justice system puts addicts in jail, which just worsens the problem.

"We feel public health should be the tool," he said.

But ReconsiDer has no plan for how it will attack the drug problem once
drugs are decriminalized.

"We haven't gotten that far yet. First we're trying to get people to be in
support of the idea," Smithson said.

Schoharie County District Attorney James Sacket said decriminalization would
lead to a nation of addicts.

"I think it would encourage drug use," Sacket said.

He said the minimum sentencing laws act as a deterrent for would-be drug
users and pushers.

Sacket pointed out the recent sentencing of Robert D. Frascella, who pleaded
guilty in Schoharie County Court to having LSD and intending to sell it, as
an example. He will serve 2.5 to five years in prison.

"That is close to the maximum he can get," Sacket said.

He said people will see what happened to Frascella and think twice.

For more information about the speaker and the Rotary Club dinner, call
President Floyd A. Guernsey II at 295-7401.