Point of View: DRUG 'LEGALIZERS' MAKE A WEAK CASE

WASHINGTON -- Too many of the arguments in favor of drug legalization these
days ring nostalgically from the 1960s. Readers are told to pity the "poor
frozen political establishment," and the drug issue is couched in "war"
rhetoric, as though peace were the alternative to controlling drugs. The
proverbial emperor -- those in authority who oppose drug legalization -- is
always naked, and only the young aren't blind.

Why do we need to see the world this way, with bumbling leaders and
righteous followers? In a democracy, no less, where you and I choose the
"best and brightest" to represent ourselves and our views! Why do "they"
always get it wrong? In the drug debate, we seem to need the enemy "that's
filled our land with vice and greed," and if he's nowhere in sight we'll
just close our eyes and imagine him in the most unlikely places.

In point of fact, the government has been working to achieve just what many
of its critics demand. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy, and Attorney General Janet Reno have called on
Congress to reduce the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder
cocaine, for example. McCaffrey helped double the number of drug courts
that offer treatment rather than imprisonment for first-time, nonviolent
offenders.

Likewise, McCaffrey is calling for expansion of drug treatment in prisons
so that every inmate who seeks help -- and even those who don't seek help
but need it-- can be cured from the addiction that fuels the cycle of drugs
and crime.

For more than two years, McCaffrey has been repeating that the effort to
reduce drug abuse in America is not a "war." This man knows war, having
nearly lost an arm in combat and having led the famed "left hook" that won
the Persian Gulf war. Instead of fighting, McCaffrey speaks of prevention
and treatment in medical terms akin to the search for a cancer cure. This
is not Vietnam.

Where are those "naked emperors" when we need them? The archetypal conflict
between stodgy elders and clear-eyed youth may help insecure adolescents
break free from parental authority -- or rejuvenate aging revolutionaries
by identification -- but reality is more complex than myth.

More often than not, successful leaders who dedicate lives to their
countries and hard-working staffs who studied at the best schools in
America are likely to act with integrity.

The medical marijuana referendums in various states are something of a hoax
because Marinol -- the real "medical marijuana" -- has been available for
15 years. The active form of cannabis, THC, can be prescribed legally by
physicians and taken in measured doses as well as guaranteed purity.

It isn't prescribed often because new and better medications -- like
ondansetron and grenisetron -- (with fewer adverse side effects) have been
invented, but that's beside the point. No one argues that patients should
have the right to bypass pure forms of penicillin so they can grow it on
moldy bread at home. We don't need to endanger our entire pure food and
drug system, which has made American medicine among the safest in the
world, for a drug that is already available.

Comparison between drug control and alcohol Prohibition of the 1920s and
early '30s misses the fact that Prohibition worked, in terms of reducing
rates of alcohol consumption and alcoholism; it wasn't repealed because it
was a flop, but because the country wanted liquor to be legal.

When substances are sanctioned and available, use goes up -- including
abuse by children. The hard truth here is that legalizing psychoactive
substances would increase abuse among young people, and the age of
initiation has dropped steadily -- so we're talking about teens and preteens.

The overwhelming majority of Americans don't want to pay that price, so
they oppose legalizing drugs.

The National Drug Control Strategy elaborates the country's sound,
balanced, long-range plan.

Checked-by: Richard Lake