THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE'S FIRST CLASS ISSUE

A candidate for statewide office in Connecticut spoke about drugs and
race during a campaign stop the other day.

A candidate for governor.

Yes, this qualifies as news.

He wasn't a Democrat or a Republican, of course. He's a third-party
candidate. And he's not a big-time politician like Lowell Weicker or
a movie star like Arnold Schwarzenegger. So he may have trouble
getting many voters to listen to what he has to say.

But in our limping democracy, serious discussion of pressing issues
that require painful self-examination can be hard to find. So it's
worth listening to what a third-party candidate like Clifford
Thornton has to say.

Especially when it's about drugs and race in Connecticut.

"Connecticut has a population of 3.4, 3.5 million people," Thornton
told me after his public appearance. He doesn't need a roomful of
voters to rev up his outrage. "Of that population, black and Latino
males make up less than 6 percent. But they account for almost 68
percent of the prison population, with almost 70 percent of them
being there for drug-related charges.

"I ask you, is race and class a factor?

"If, in fact, whites were arrested and incarcerated [at the same
rate] per illegal drug use and sale, we wouldn't be having this
conversation because there would literally be armed insurrection in
the streets. For instance, when they have these rock concerts in the
Meadows, you will see where they arrested 10 or 15 or 20 people for
drugs. Within a 24- to 48-hour period, most of those children are out
because most of them come from the suburbs, and their parents will
not tolerate that. If the same thing happened to an inner-city youth,
chances are he would be doing some time.

"Am I lying?"

Third-party candidates rarely win statewide elections. But they have
managed to force issues onto the radar and have even seen some of
them become law. Social Security happened that way. Ross Perot forced
Bill Clinton to tackle the budget deficit. In New Haven, the Green
Party got ruling Democrats to embrace campaign finance reform.

So third-party candidates like Cliff Thornton - who's seeking to
become the Green Party's candidate for governor - should not, must
not be discounted.

His campaign stop the other day was before a room of 25 like-minded
potential voters at Yale, a mix of drug-policy types and
criminal-justice-reform activists. They nodded their heads instead of
squirming in their seats when he spoke of how "race privilege" keeps
white suburbanites (many of whom drive into cities to buy their dope)
"from getting arrested or going to jail.

"Money lets you hide your problems. And race and money are Siamese twins."

There's good reason you don't usually hear candidates for statewide
office talking like that. They make people uncomfortable. It's easier
to win office feeling the pain of Gold Coast commuters stuck in
traffic jams (as long as you don't mention that they're stuck there
because they don't want to pay higher taxes to support mass transit).
Plus, winning statewide office requires persuading white suburban
voters to support you. The balance of power lies in the suburbs.

But this is exactly the kind of uncomfortable debate that Connecticut
should have. And why shouldn't an election campaign be the forum?

Since retiring from the former Southern New England
Telecommunications Corp. nine years ago, Thornton, 61, has crusaded
to end the drug war. He's cared about the issue since his school days
in Hartford's North End, when his mother died of a heroin overdose
two weeks before his graduation from Hartford Public High School.

These days he lives in Glastonbury and runs a Hartford-based group
called Efficacy . He travels the country and the world to make a case
that the war on drugs, as it's now structured, overcrowds our jails
without helping anybody, fails to stem drug use and consigns people
of color to dead-end lives.

Who can argue with this? Who can argue as the professorial Thornton,
dressed in a suit, shirt collar opened, decries the spiral:

1. Parents are jailed on drug charges. 2. Their children, left
behind, do badly in school, and are expelled. 3. They get involved in
the drug trade. They're busted. 4. With a felony record, they have
trouble opening a checking account, which makes it hard to rent an
apartment. 5. They can't get loans to go back to school, which makes
it harder for them to find a legitimate job.

Thornton was nearly yelling that day at Yale as he chided politicians
for failing to confront voters with uncomfortable truths about the
doomed and expensive war on drugs, for failing to deliver more
treatment and urban aid programs.

"Politicians have to be willing to risk their jobs!" Thornton cried
out, pounding on a table. "We need politicians like that!"

Thornton's solution: Connecticut should legalize marijuana and hemp;
"medicalize," meaning treat users for cocaine, heroin,
methamphetamine and ecstasy abuse; and conduct further debate and
"honest" medical study of other illegal drugs.

He cites a series of "Circle for Change" house-party conversations
organized last year by Hartford's A Better Way Foundation in Avon,
West Hartford, North Branford, Trumbull and other suburbs to discuss
the drug war. These conversations spurred suburbanites to lobby the
governor and legislators to pass the law that eliminated stark
differences in mandatory minimum sentences for people who use
powdered cocaine vs. crack cocaine, whose users are
disproportionately black and Latino.

Which shows that people's minds can change. Hearts can open. A
statewide political campaign may not be the usual stage for such
miracles, but here's wishing Cliff Thornton luck.

He could probably use a good campaign slogan to start. So far he's
playing off his initials and toying with "CT for CT" and "Are you
children safer today than they were 40 years ago from illegal drugs?"
Have something snappier? E-mail it to me
(p.bass@newhavenindependent.org), and I'll pass it along.