DRUG LAW REFORM: THE MEANING BEHIND THE MOVEMENT

From the Washington State Bar Association's backing of medical
marijuana use to the more extreme stance of former Seattle Chief of
Police Norm Stamper, many Americans are voicing their opinion that
current drug laws are not working, and their opinions are becoming
more of a mainstream movement.

"Drug laws attack drug use rather than the [symptoms] leading the
person to use the drugs," said Cameron Collins, a third-year law
student at SU. "We should be looking at the socio-economic conditions
that lead to the drug use rather than the drug use itself, along with
the problems of prisons and their lack of actual rehabilitation of
their inmates."

Supporters of drug reformation believe that the government's "war on
drugs" is expensive, ineffective and criminalizes a public health
issue, filling already-overfilled prisons. More than 2.2 million U.S.
citizens are currently incarcerated and every year an additional 1.6
million are arrested for nonviolent drug offenses - more per capita
than any country in the world.

Some supporters of drug law reform believe that all drugs should be
legalized, while many less extreme supporters believe that marijuana
should be legalized - or at least decriminalized. Legalizing would
make it legitimate to use, possess and sell. While decriminalizing
means marijuana would still be illegal, but a violator would only incur a fine.

Using marijuana might not have severe physical effects on students at
SU, but as of now, getting caught using will still hurt.

For instance, drug violators are ineligible to receive federal
financial aid. Michael Duncan, a financial aid adviser at SU, said
there has been talk of changing the federal policy, but no decisions
have been made yet.

SU has no official policy of denying financial aid to students with
drug convictions, and Duncan is not aware of any occasions that the
issue has come up.

"Unless, of course, through the conviction they had to leave school," he said.

However, for students who are in or considering joining Reserve
Officer Training Core (ROTC), the penalties are severe.

"You have to pass a drug test to be allowed in and if you get caught
with any illegal substance once you are enlisted in ROTC you will be
discharged immediately," said Emma Schmidt, sophomore mathematics
major and first-year enlistee with the Air Force ROTC.

Seattle proved to be a pro-marijuana city in 2002 when Seattleites
voted in favor of making marijuana use, the city's lowest law
enforcement priority. Although state and federal law would not permit
Seattle to legalize the drug, Seattle's policy allowed the SPD to
look the other way.

In 2003 the Washington State Bar Association drafted a proposal in
support of medical marijuana use and called on Washington's
congressional delegation to support any legislation that would allow
chronically ill patients to use medical marijuana.

At the extreme of drug law reform is Stamper who, using his insight
as a police officer for 34 years, wrote an opinion piece - which
first ran in the Los Angeles Times and was then published in the
Seattle Times last December - in favor of legalizing all drugs.

"We're making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder,
manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel
safer?" Stamper stated in his article. "[Legalization] would extract
from today's drug dealing the obscene profits that attract the needy
and the greedy and fuel armed violence."

While the United States doesn't seem ready for such a dramatic change
in drug law, support for the legalization of marijuana has been
growing over the years, especially in Seattle.

Hemp Fest, which began in the early '90s with a mere 5,000 people in
attendance, has grown into one of the largest marijuana festivals in
the world with hundreds of thousands of attendees.

Another organization that has been prevalent in drug law reform is
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
Founded in 1970, NORML is a non-profit advocacy group with the goal
of providing a voice in the debate of marijuana prohibition and
lobbying for "more rational and cost-effective marijuana policies."

Supporters of drug law reform may not agree about how to restructure
the way our nation deals with drug use, but they all agree that
current policies are not working.

"As a nation, we're long overdue for a soul-searching, coldly
analytical look at both the 'drug scene' and the drug war," said
Stamper in his article. "Such candor would reveal the futility of our
current policies, exposing the embarrassingly meager return on our
massive enforcement investment."