RAISING IRE: AREA GROUP SUPPORTS LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

When Barbara Corey became convinced that her husband's drug addiction would
insinuate itself into her daughter's life, she fled Indiana for Texas.

Still worried, she took her 13-year-old daughter to a recent drug forum at
Arlington's Bowie High School.

Rick Day was at the forum, too, albeit on a different mission. The director
of the new North Texas chapter of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas challenged
a comment from a Drug Enforcement Administration agent that marijuana is
dangerous, asserting that "use is not abuse."

Outraged, Corey shouted at Day across the school auditorium.

"The message that you are trying to give goes against what we are trying to
do here," said Corey, 44.

At a time when school districts, law enforcement agencies and parents are
wringing their hands about how to halt the heroin epidemic and the
escalating use of other drugs among young people, Day and other members of
the Drug Policy Forum of Texas say they aren't afraid to stir things up and
say things that they know are unpopular -- and that police officials say
are dangerous.

Whatever it takes, Drug Policy Forum members want to get noticed. When that
happens, they say, they can share their beliefs: that the war on drugs has
been more dangerous than the illicit narcotics themselves and that the U.S.
government is wasting billions of dollars on a battle it can't win. They
want to see drug use decriminalized.

"For 20 years or more, parents have been subjected to half-truths and
propaganda about drugs," said Day, 43, of Dallas. "If we can get people
talking about this issue, then we can get people galvanized on it. It's
like abortion, Vietnam and civil rights."

The group, which has about 65 members, wants a place on the podium along
with law enforcement officials, drug rehabilitation specialists and
educators when drug policy issues are discussed, said Day, a barbecue caterer.

To draw attention to their cause, members of the North Texas chapter
picketed in front of the DEA's Dallas office during the agency's 25th
anniversary commemoration.

As police officers at anti-drug forums display illegal narcotics and tell
parents how to spot signs of drug abuse in their children, group members
ask why marijuana is demonized while alcohol and tobacco are legal. They
also try to make a case for what they call responsible drug use.

"We'd rather them [kids] not to take drugs, but I'd rather have them
smoking pot in their room than out in the car drinking or smoking tobacco,"
Day said.

The group suggests treatment rather than punishment for users and
government control of drug distribution through medical regulation.

Prisons are jammed with small-time drug users and dealers, and long prison
terms can hurt families, the group says. The "forbidden fruit" message of
drug interdiction has succeeded only in luring more teen-agers to drugs and
in creating a booming black market, the group contends.

"It's the last bastion of the old vs. the young," Day said. "It's the old
moldy men who insist on thumping the Bible and telling us how we should
live our lives, and the baby boomers, the Gen Xers and others are coming up
to take their place. And this is the last stand, right here." Law
enforcement officials say they worry that the group's message will confuse
children and will lead them to believe that drug use is acceptable.

"I just don't see how people can debate anything that is potentially
harmful for our kids," said John Lunt, resident agent in charge of the
DEA's Fort Worth office. "To try to say that there is an acceptable level
of drug abuse by anybody is sending the wrong message."

Lunt, a speaker at the Bowie High forum, also had a heated exchange with
Day and other group members. "Is there responsible use of heroin?" he
countered.

Lunt said he disagrees with the group's contention that a tough law
enforcement stance on drugs has created a thriving black market.

"Alcohol is a legal drug with an age cutoff, and there's a black market for
that with young people," Lunt said. "If they legalize marijuana, at what
age should they legalize it? There will always be a black market."

Members of the North Texas group have various philosophies and missions.
They include a former Highland Park school administrator, a retired
certified public accountant, a software designer, an advertising firm owner
and a financial analyst.

Most say they do not use drugs, and many shy from the term drug
legalization, preferring harm reduction, medicalization or decriminalization.

"If there is anything I have learned about it is that the drug reform
movement makes for very strange bedfellows," said Rod Pirtle, 64, of
Farmers Branch, a Rotarian who retired in 1990 after working as an
administrator and principal for Highland Park schools.

"My overriding theme is we've got to save our kids from this awful scourge,
and the war on drugs is not doing that," Pirtle said.

He said he believes that the string of heroin deaths in the Metroplex could
have been prevented if drug abuse had been treated as a medical, not
criminal, problem.

"In my humble opinion, none of those kids had to die," Pirtle said. "The
problem is, they don't call the medical people. First of all, everybody
runs because they are going to be arrested."

Sue Wills, 54, of White Rock said she believes it is time to acknowledge
that young people experiment with drugs.

She points to the decision by the Dutch government to legalize marijuana,
described in Mike Gray's book, Drug Crazy, as a model to keep young people
from using harder drugs.

"What he [Gray] was saying about the kids' being cut off from hard drugs
when the less addictive, less dangerous drugs are made available is borne
out by the policy in Holland," said Wills, a retired accountant.

Robert "Col." Mason, 54, of Lewisville said his goal is to get the
"government to stop lying to our children."

When we tell kids that drugs are bad, bad, bad, they know we are lying to
them because they turn on the television and see that drugs are good, good,
good," said Mason, who owns a promotions firm and has a "Legalize Drugs"
sign on his car.

"You can take a drug to go to sleep," he said. "You can take a drug to
wake up. You can take a drug to be regular. You can take a drug to make
your hair better."

Day, an imposing figure at 6 fee 8 inches, is outspoken about marijuana
decriminalization. The father of two has a "victory garden" in a bedroom
closet, where he cultivates herbs and miniature roses but hopes to one day
grow marijuana--if and when it becomes legal.

When asked whether he takes drugs, Day answered: "Anything I've ever bought
didn't have a label or a bar code."

Day said he was arrested 20 years ago on a marijuana charge. The charge
was dropped because police officers did not have a search warrant, he said.

The Drug Policy Forum of Texas, formed five years ago in Houston, has a
monthly newsletter and a Web site, which is the way many of the Metroplex
members said they were introduced to the group. The group hopes to add a
Fort Worth chapter by spring, Day said.

Barbara Corey said she isn't buying any of the Drug Policy Forum's
messages. She said she has seen her husband and his friends abuse
everything from marijuana and alcohol to cocaine and heroin. Some of his
friends have died from overdoses or have been shot because of drug
disputes," she said.

The mention of drug legalization sparks more outrage.

"Oh, God forbid," Corey said. "It's bad enough now that you're trying to
get it illegally. It will be twice as bad. If it's legalized, you're
saying it's OK. It's not OK."

Corey said she was disappointed that other parents at the Arlington drug
forum didn't challenge group members and that the forum organizers weren't
better prepared for the group's questions.

"They are definitely going to take you by surprises, that's their purpose
- -- to get legislation changed, to get people to their way of thinking," she
said.

Day said he wishes that Corey had heard his whole message.

"If I'd had a chance to go up to that lady, I would have given her a hug
and said, 'Darling, we don't live in a utopia. There's always going to be
drugs and there are always going to be people who abuse things, whether
it's eating, working, alcohol, tobacco or heroin.'"

Corey wasn't the only one who was discouraged after the disruption at the
forum. Jennifer Aragon, 17, Bowie High School's Student Council president,
attended the forum with a friend and said afterward, "It really is almost
like a slap in the face to me."

"I felt a lot of of parents came to fight something and to hear other
parents' suggestions," Aragon said. "I don't think they [the group
members] came because they cared about the students. They just wanted to
be heard because of their cause."

Checked-by: Richard Lake