TAUGHT BY TRAGEDY

When Len Bias died in his Washington Hall dorm room 20 years ago this
week, a sea of questions emerged. Some wondered about the university's
future and many said college athletics had to change.

But whatever reforms at this university that would take hold over the
next several years would be dwarfed by what members of Congress would
steamroll through the House of Representatives in Washington that
summer, part of a legislative frenzy in the wake of Bias' shocking and
tragic death.

When Bias died, the ink had scarcely dried on a just-signed contract
with the Boston Celtics. Along with the grieving university community
here, Boston was buzzing over the loss of the man they saw as the
future of their team. Then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill was roaming the
coffeeshops around his Boston-area district when Bias died and
listened closely to the sadness and confusion in his constituents'
voices.

"How could a man so strong, so full of life and talent, be cut down so
cruelly by a dangerous drug?" many area residents were asking their
powerful Democratic congressman.

O'Neill returned to Washington with a plan: That summer, Congress
would produce legislation so tough, so broad-reaching, no Democrat
could ever be accused of being soft on drugs again.

By the time Congress went back into session July 15, there was such a
sense of purpose among Democratic members of Congress that O'Neill
took action.

"The speaker had decided to make an anti-drug initiative the summer's
project," said Eric Sterling, who was then assistant counsel to the
congressional subcommittee on crime. And he wanted a bill in 30 days.

The push was so hard that Congress lurched to a stop on most other
matters with nearly every committee working on some section of what
was sometimes referred to as the Len Bias Law.

"I had never been a part of such an accelerated legislative effort,"
Sterling said. "It is extremely rare that the Congress suddenly stops
what it's doing and picks up something with the directive from the
Speaker that says, aEI want this in 30 days.'"

A June 26 speech by Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.) that year warned drugs
were "killing our kids and sending violent crime statistics sky high,"
embodying Congress' new tone as the media began to bear down with
daily stories about the dangers of crack cocaine, then a relatively
new drug.

"They wanted to crack down on traffickers," Sterling said. "But we
ended up using very small quantities as the triggers" for strong
sentencing guidelines in felony drug cases.

By the time the Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed the House that Sept. 11,
lawmakers had included sentencing guidelines forcing judges to
sentence convicted drug dealers to a minimum of five years in prison
for possessing five grams of crack. Fifty grams carried 10 years to
life.

For Sterling, who now runs the non-profit Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation in Silver Spring, which advocates for loosening the
nation's strict drug laws, the drug quantities Congress set for
sentencing guidelines "are pathetically low."

"As a result of the Len Bias mandatory minimums, the federal
government has misfocused on low-level street-level dealers and
stopped focusing on high level traffickers," Sterling said.

Officials with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
were not immediately made available for comment for this story, but
Lonise Bias, Len's mother, has been working with the office on a new
campaign she believes will bring about a "a new era of awareness," she
said.

"He was the catalyst that had this nation saying we have to address
this issue of drugs," Lonise said.

When asked about the other legacy aE" the prison population of
convicted drug offenders has nearly tripled since Bias' death aE"
Lonise said she prefers to stay where she has always been: working to
keep young people from even wanting to try drugs in the first place.

"I'm more on the prevention side, and that would be on the political
side," Lonise said of activists like Sterling. "The law went forth and
it was to be enforced . there are many paths to the top of the
mountain, but when you get there, the view is the same."