THOMAS RAVENEL: LEGALIZE DRUGS

Ex-S.C. Treasurer Says Prohibition Is Destructive, Costly and Futile Strategy

Former S.C. Treasurer Thomas Ravenel is breaking his silence and
taking on America's drug war, saying he advocates a repeal of the
prohibition on drugs and calling the government's response a failure.

"Drug abuse is a medical, health care and spiritual problem, not a
problem to be solved within a criminal justice model," he said.

Prohibition is "our government's most destructive policy since
slavery," he also said.

Ravenel's comments -- detailed in an opinion column running on today's
Post and Courier Commentary page -- come as he is still under three
years of federal probation for the
cocaine conspiracy charge that ended his political career and led to a
10-month prison sentence.

In a separate telephone interview from South Florida, where he is
visiting, Ravenel said he opted to go public with his stance now
because he has been studying the drug war extensively, determining
that after billions of dollars spent over decades prohibition is a
fruitless strategy.

"We can't afford it anymore," he said Friday.

He also hopes the celebrity of being a former rising star in the
Republican Party who went to prison will help advance his position --
namely, that the prohibition of drugs helps perpetuate violent street
gangs and other factors that keep people trapped in the criminal cycle.

"They're not making anybody safer with all this," he said of law
enforcement's tactics.

Regulating marijuana and cocaine for adults are among his advocacy
points. "Every drug dealer will be out of business in America" if such
narcotics were legalized, he said.

Ravenel's position -- voiced similarly by others in liberal,
conservative and libertarian circles -- is nothing new but comes from
the perspective of someone who has seen the drug war from the
perspective of both a politician and a user who has spent time behind
bars.

"All I want to do is open up a debate," he said. "I want people to
start asking their politicians questions."

Some say Ravenel's prohibition position is unrealistic given the
continuing criminal nature tied to street narcotics, along with the
dependency and misery that go with them.

"The simple truth is that legalizing narcotics will not make life
better for our citizens, ease the level of crime and violence in our
communities nor reduce the threat faced by law enforcement officers,"
the International Association of Chiefs of Police says. "To suggest
otherwise ignores reality."

A spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy also said
the government's combined anti-drug efforts are paying off without
resorting to widespread legalization.

"Today, drug use in America is half of what it was thirty years ago,
cocaine production in Colombia has dropped by almost two-thirds, and
we're successfully diverting thousands of non-violent offenders into
treatment instead of jail by supporting alternatives to
incarceration," said Rafael Lemaitre, associate director for public
affairs.

Ravenel, of Charleston, was elected treasurer of South Carolina in
2006 but resigned his post in July 2007 following an undercover probe
of cocaine use. He eventually served 10 months in federal custody
after pleading guilty to conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine.
Prosecutors contend Ravenel shared the drug with friends, including at
parties in his South of Broad home, but did not peddle it.

During the phone interview Friday, Ravenel repeated statistics from
numerous sources and experts he said back up his argument. Many of
those stats are included in his column, as is his underlying argument
that making drugs legal would take away the worst of the violence that
has sprouted around them.

"How often do Anheuser Busch and Jack Daniel Distilleries have
shootouts with innocent children being killed in the crossfire?" he
wrote. "Of course it never happens, because these companies deal in
legal commerce and resolve conflicts through the courts, not through
shootouts."

Ravenel declined to get into details of his case but did say what
happened to him is reflective of the drug war as a whole, saying it is
a crime without a complaining witness, pursued by authorities who are
tasked by politicians to get results.

He also spoke of meeting drug dealers in prison who were spending
multiyear sentences, saying those extended terms were out of whack
when measured against other crimes, such as murder.

He singled out marijuana as a drug that's been overly criminalized.
"An overdose of marijuana will drive someone to sleep," he said.

Another point he raised is that while whites use drugs at a greater
rate than blacks, blacks are bearing the brunt of the thrust in
prosecutions.

"I think we're going to see a day and time in the not too distant
future when we're going to repeal drug prohibition," he predicted.