NATION MUST RECAST THE WAR ON DRUGS

When you say, "A priest, a minister, a rabbi and a nun," it's usually
the lead-in to a joke -- but here they were, seated in the pews of St.
Mary's Episcopal in Harlem. We had called them together for an
interview about the drug war and we would have been hard-pressed to
find a group that knows more about the damage drugs can do. As prison
chaplains and community organizers, these clergy members have seen it
up close, and their thinking about how to deal with the problem is
undergoing an evolution. The teenage slaughter in Chicago -- 26
students shot dead this year -- is a reminder of the state of siege
that has turned our inner cities into free-fire zones.

Rabbi Michael Feinberg believes drug prohibition is at the root of
this chaos. Feinberg, who heads the Greater New York Labor Religion
Coalition, said: "The war on drugs has caused as much devastation to
communities around this country as the drugs themselves."

As a Catholic chaplain at Riker's Island Correctional Facility for 20
years, Sister Marion Defeis has seen an endless parade of dazed young
women facing major time -- often for having been duped by a boyfriend
into carrying a package through customs. After watching this
meat-grinder in action, she could see that the outside world was as
violent and drug riddled as ever -- nothing had changed. Today she is
an outspoken advocate for reform.

She and other community leaders are alarmed by the open warfare
between youth and law enforcement. "My father was a New York City
policeman," Sister Marion said, "and the police, many years ago, were
the people we went to if we were in trouble. And unfortunately, we see
that's not the case today."

The Rev. Eddie Lopez , a United Methodist pastor, who works with young
people in the Bronx, said: "It's amazing when you get youth groups
together, whether it's in our churches or our communities, and how
they talk about police abusing them and stopping them and frisking
them. We know we have a drug problem but war is definitely not the
answer. We need to find the moral, just, and effective way to solve
this problem, and I think that lies outside the criminal justice system."

The Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, who hosted the gathering at the church in
Harlem, is white, but he's familiar with the inequality of drug war
punishment.

As Sister Marion put it: "The word on the street is, if you're white
and you're famous you go to rehab. If you're poor, you're black,
you're Hispanic, you go to jail."

For these spiritual leaders, that is a central issue. They believe we
have infected our society with a deadly virus called "disrespect for
the law."

The positive lesson kids should be learning -- crime does not pay --
is false. Crime pays very well and everybody knows it. On the street
you can't conceal the fact that the guy with the babes, the bling, and
the bundle of cash is the dealer.

Charles Thomas, head of the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative in
Washington, sees a groundswell for reform with more than 750 clergy
working to help change laws in Congress and in their states. He noted
that the United Methodist Church has taken an official position
opposing criminal penalties for drug use.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, a spokesman for Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, calls the drug war, "arguably the
single most devastating, dysfunctional, harmful social policy since
slavery."

What these people of faith and public servants have in common is a
vision of the future in which drug addiction is seen as a medical
problem to be treated by doctors instead of cops.

The Rev. Edwin Sanders, senior pastor at Nashville's Metropolitan
Interdenominational Church, said the world would be totally different
if that adversarial relationship did not exist between law enforcement
and young people. He looks forward to a time when our inner cities are
no longer occupied military zones, addicts have access to treatment
and drug dealers can't make a nickel. "I think of the term peace
officer," he said.

Mike Gray lives in Los Angeles and is chairman of the Common Sense for
Drug Policy. He can be contacted at gray@csdp.org.