OREGON NOT ONLY VICTIM IN HOUSTON'S FAILED DRUG WAR

THE city of Houston is now a victim of America's War on Drugs as it
defends itself against a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed by the
family of Pedro Oregon. Houston taxpayers will pay for a drug war that
cannot be won under present practices and leadership. Another victim,
Pedro Oregon, was shot to death by Houston Police Department officers
after a false accusation of drug activity against Oregon led to an
illegal police entry and gun battle. Other victims of this failed
effort at drug prohibition are the criminal justice system and the
rule of law in Harris County.

Make no mistake about it, Pedro Oregon died in his own home at the
hands of Houston's finest as a consequence of a drug war that has
trashed the Constitution and devastated the innocent along with the
guilty. At the end of the war's third decade a $17 billion federal
budget continues to subsidize state and local law enforcement efforts
to harass, arrest and incarcerate their fellow citizens for reasons of
state that can no longer be supported by rational argument.

The failures of the war are all around us. The Texas Department of
Corrections is full of drug offenders who are the staple of a poorly
conceived prison expansion that was the ultimate jobs program for
failing rural economies all too eager to accept the social outcasts of
urban Texas. Police officers, poorly trained and supervised, all too
often violate the Constitution in their arrests of a mostly minority
underclass of offenders and, on occasion, take an innocent life.
Harris County district judges routinely revoke and send to prison
drug-offense probationers who fail to live up to standards of
probation behavior that most law-abiding misfits would find impossible.

To fight a drug war effectively, citizens must accept the reality that
the battles are local and not national. The real general in this war
is Houston Police Chief Clarence Bradford and not Drug Czar Gen. Barry
McCaffrey in Washington, D.C. It is the budget for DARE that must be
vetoed, not the one for the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. It is the
locally elected judiciary, not House Republicans in Washington, D.C.,
who must be monitored and critiqued. In this strategy, it is more
important to make advocates of Councilmembers Chris Bell and Anise
Parker than U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. It is District Attorney
Johnny Holmes rather than Reps. Jackson Lee and Tom DeLay that is the
more appropriate target for attention by the electorate.

The war on drugs is fought locally by a City Council and mayor who
approve a budget for HPD; by the collaborative efforts of a variety of
law enforcement agencies; by local judges who sentence offenders and
supervise their probation for drug offenses; and by Harris County
grand juries who indict for possession and delivery of prohibited
substances. Critics of the drug war can have the greatest impact by
monitoring the performance of these governmental units and
disseminating accurate information to budgeting authorities and
decision-makers.

This war's dirty work is being filtered through the courtrooms of our
system of justice. In 1997 and the first six months of 1998, Harris
County criminal district judges filed motions to revoke probation in
3,460 drug possession cases. They revoked and sent to prison 2,243 --
67 percent of the total cases in 1997 and 61 percent in 1998. If the
sentence for each was the minimum of two years, and undoubtedly many
were much longer, the state spent in excess of $100 million in
incarceration costs on people who could be treated locally, at less
expense. They could be given additional community-service hours or
sentenced to time in the county jail rather than warehoused in a
maximum-security prison.

The elected judges of Harris County criminal courts grease the wheels
of law enforcement's machinery, processing people in and out of jail
and prison for "drug crimes" that common sense and social science tell
us should be handled with greater compassion and efficiency. These
judges are almost exclusively former assistant district attorneys
trained by the same office which presents evidence in their
courtrooms. Both the judiciary and district attorney have been
barraged by the media and self-interested opinion leaders about the
dangers of drugs in our society. Much of that information cannot be
critically examined in courtrooms where elected officials follow
public opinion.

A system of justice managed by politicians influenced by inflamed
public opinion is corrupting to the rule of law. The principle of two
roughly equal advocates advancing their arguments before a neutral
magistrate is sacrificed to politics and expedience under the current
arrangement of powers in the Harris County Courthouse.

There are simple measures that can be used to attack such practices.
All that is required is imagination and the courage to confront
leaders in your community about their failure. The correct focus of
political will and resources can improve the performance of our
institutions and enlighten public opinion.

The citizens who serve on Harris County grand juries can demonstrate
the totality of this war's damage. The county has several grand juries
which meet every week. They can refuse to charge cases presented to
them. They have the power to issue reports in the public interest on
any issue of the administration of justice that confronts them.

Every grand juror's name and address is public record. Citizen-action
groups like the Drug Policy Forum of Texas should demand of grand
jurors that they question the charging practices of the district
attorney, who currently prosecutes small amounts of controlled
substance as felonies eligible for 25 years in prison. The cost to the
taxpayers for such incarcerating appetites can only become public when
citizens research and publicize these facts.

Houston City Council must challenge the priorities of HPD in its work.
There is no greater opportunity than their scrutiny of HPD's budget.
Council can conduct hearings on the performance of drug-enforcement
task forces, report on violations of civil liberties, and fund city
clinics for drug treatment. They can defund the DARE program and
reward HPD for arrests of major offenders rather than small-time users.

Criminal-defense attorneys must once again become the conscience of
the community. They see the totality of damage to individuals and
community inflicted by the war on drugs: Families destroyed, bread
winners locked up, jobs lost and children abandoned are daily events
in their working lives. Sharing more of these stories with the news
media and with opponents of the drug war can change public opinion
over time.

Republican primary voters must accept responsibility for the current
policy of fighting this losing and destructive battle. Since 1994, the
judges of Harris County have been chosen exclusively by Republican
primary voters. The judges nominated by them have been easily elected.
Those same voters nominate and elect one-half of state legislators,
who vote on key issues defining the parameters of the state's
prosecution efforts. Legislators vote on budgets that can either
authorize treatment or incarceration. This terribly small numbers of
people should be the focus of education and political efforts to
relieve the pressure that today supports the status quo.

Former U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill once said that all
politics is local. In Harris County, the elected district attorney
publicly provided the defense arguments to the shooters of Pedro
Oregon. A Republican judge who once worked for the district attorney
picked the grand jury that heard the case. Unlike most nonpolice
shootings of defenseless citizens, the entire case was tried privately
before the grand jury without a recommendation from the district
attorney to indict.

No one in authority in this city -- neither politician nor media
representative -- has reacted critically to these events and their
significance. Until they do, the drug war will continue to pile up
casualties.

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Jones is a Houston attorney.
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