`FRONTLINE' ASKS IF DRUG WAR IS GOING TO POT

Marijuana clouds the mind and probably isn't what you'd want to smoke while
working at an airport control tower, or watching "Nightly Business Report."

On ``Frontline'' (10 tonight on Channel 9), a doctor who's researched pot
for 30 years goes on to say that it's a ``powerful drug'' and possibly a
societal evil.

Still, ``Frontline'' seems to wonder: Is growing pot a worse crime than murder?

Reasonable question. In 15 states, nonviolent marijuana offenders are
subject to life sentences in prison. Or merely 93 years, which is what
Oklahoman Will Foster is serving for cultivating marijuana. At 125 or so,
he may be a free man again.

Those are state penalties. Since passage of the 1986 Drug Abuse Act,
mandatory minimum terms for federal offenses can also put a pot grower
behind bars longer than murderers.

The ``Frontline'' installment, called ``Busted: America's War on
Marijuana,'' says that since that legislation went into effect, the federal
prison population has tripled. Seventy percent of the inmates there now are
drug offenders, many of them with no history of violence.

Not coincidentally, 10 to 30 million Americans use marijuana, which is
probably the nation's biggest cash crop. Double the value of the corn crop,
says one Illinois expert.

``Frontline'' finds veteran law enforcement officers who admit to doubts
about equating marijuana with cocaine and heroin, and interviews a federal
district judge, Thelton Henderson of San Francisco, who says the mandatory
minimum sentences are ``unduly harsh.''

But if ``Frontline'' lights up and takes a puff, it never exactly inhales.
Henderson, who wishes judges had their old latitude back, is balanced by
Senator Orrin Hatch, who harrumphs about ``soft-on-crime judges'' and a
drug culture that's ``wrecking our country.''

``In all honesty I think when you have people who are pushing drugs on our
kids, or pushing at all, we ought to get tough as nails on them, and I
think in many respects we ought to lock 'em up and throw away the keys,''
Hatch says.

Which seems to be about the same fate Hatch wishes on the voters of Arizona
and California, after the successful initiatives allowing the medical use
of marijuana.

Hatch claims the initiative has led to ``a lot of indiscriminate use of
marijuana'' in California, which in turn will undermine societal discipline
and drive people to hard drugs.

So, coming soon to San Francisco, on the heels of the Cannabis Club: the
Crackhead Club, public welcome. ------ But that's just half the fun on PBS
tonight, because two hours earlier on Channel 9 . . . Sir David Attenborough
. . . crocodiles. Oh boy.

It's ``Nova,'' and it's important to remember that there are two categories
of animals on PBS. One, animals that eat other animals. Two, animals that
eat us.

One is a 5 share. Two is a 10 share.

The best piece of business in tonight's program, aside from hearing
Attenborough enthuse about crocs as ``an early evolutionary bull's-eye,''
is a night shot of African crocodiles scuffling with lions over a fresh
kill. Mathematically, that should be a 20 share.

As far as I can tell, though, it's an outrageous slander to say that
crocodiles eat their young. Not at all. They eat other crocodiles' young.

``Frontline'' 10 p.m. today on Channel 9 ``Nova'' 8 p.m. today on Channel 9

©1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page E1