DRUG PROHIBITION RIPS THE SOCIAL FABRIC

If We Treated Addiction As A Medical Problem, We Would Not Waste As Much
Time Hating Addicts

FOR better or worse, local government in California is escalating state
citizens' fight with the federal government over the old devil, marijuana.

Oakland's city council, in a 5-4 vote declaring a state of emergency over a
federal court's closure of one of the state's largest medical marijuana
clubs, has decided to find new sources of the weed for the 2,200 people
with medical dispensations to use it who were cut off.

In 1996 a state referendum allowed Californians to use marijuana if doctors
said they needed it. It is said, for example, to help eye pressure among
glaucoma patients, and to help people in pain relax and sleep.

Most of the members of the club in question have AIDS, and they say the
marijuana enables them to both eat and sleep better.

But California's popular vote flies in the face of a federal law that bans
the distribution of cannabis.

The council action, news reports say, makes Oakland the first local
government in California to permit medical use of the weed, in apparent
defiance of federal law.

It is the second revolt this local government has staged since May, when a
federal judge barred six clubs from giving out or selling marijuana, saying
it violated federal law.

In the first round, city officials made club officials agents of city
government, intending to place them under a federal umbrella that protects
public officials from liability while enforcing drug laws.

The judge found no enforcement in the club's work, however.

Oakland is now reviewing its options.

And maybe it's time for everyone else to do that, too, just as we once took
a fresh look at Prohibition, when we found it doing us more bad than good.
Just as we rethought welfare.

I don't suggest this from any personal bias. I don't smoke pot or eat it in
brownies. I don't smoke cigarettes. Being in control is my drug of choice,
so I hate even prescription drugs that diminish my senses and sensibilities.

But drug prohibition has ripped the social fabric, criminalized too many,
killed too many, terrorized to many. And it has spawned a vested industry
with a claque as powerful as its performance is poor. We can't rely on it
for much by way of truth.

If we weren't fighting drugs -- and losing, by the way -- we wouldn't have
as many police, as many prisons, as many rehab centers, as many courts, and
surely not as much sanctimony. Taxes, if they did not go down, could be
redirected.

If we treated addiction as a medical problem, rather than one of crime and
punishment, we would not waste as much time hating addicts, and addicts
wouldn't be spending as much time up to no good to finance their illegal buys.

While this view is not popular right now and may never be popular among
people who can't look beyond a loved one lost to drug addiction, public
policy requires re-examination of where we are from time to time, plus an
assessment of where we have been, and a vision of where we are going.

Financier George Soros is not what you'd call a dummy. Neither is writer,
novelist, and social critic Gore Vidal.

Buy Mr. Soros is so convinced that addiction is a medical problem, and not
one of law and order, that he is investing considerable money in support of
public referenda that seek to lift government controls.

Mr. Vidal, for his part, has carried on for more than 30 years against the
criminalization of drugs and drug users. He insists there would be fewer
users and addicts if the drugs were sold at market price with the usual
pro-con warnings on labels.

These would have to be truthful and aboveboard, he says in the recent issue
of Vanity Fair, with officials giving up the absurd contention that
marijuana is addictive. Hyperbole blows credibility. Generations of pot
smokers know it isn't so.

This is not to deny the side effects, but all legit drugs also have them,
including aspirin.

Re-examining premises isn't popular for individuals, let alone politicians
given to righteous rant.

But as any householder would look at efforts to repair a leaky cellar as to
their effectiveness, the better to cal a halt to throwing good money after
bad, nationally we should similarly analyze the costs of the last 20 years
of our fight against drugs in light of its effectiveness.

If we are making measurable headway, then let's keep fighting the fight.
But if the numbers show us throwing good money after bad, let's give up our
vested interest and cherished beliefs in the fight and try something else.

Putting blinders on is a good way to control a team of horses going down a
thoroughfare, but only if the blinders are on the horses, not the driver.

Checked-by: Richard Lake