NEW WEAPONS FOR WAR ON DRUGS

Since it was founded four years ago, the Drug Policy Project at the King
County Bar Association has targeted the decades-old war on drugs, pushing
for treatment instead of punishment and proposing radically different
policies for addicts and abusers.

The project -- a coalition of lawyers, doctors and social-welfare groups --
has researched the effects of the war on drugs in King County and helped
drive new drug policies.

In 2002, the project helped fuel the passage of a bill reducing sentences
for some drug offenders and using the saved money to help fund drug courts.
And most recently the project helped divert millions of dollars in the 2005
two-year budget to bolster voluntary treatment facilities run by the state
Department of Social and Health Services outside the criminal-justice system.

As a result, Seattle has since gained a national reputation for rethinking
drug policy and the war on drugs, and other cities are listening.

The project's director, Roger Goodman, has been traveling the country to
help create similar efforts and influence policy changes at other bar
associations.

"It's really the approach that's been taken in Seattle that's most
intriguing, and the ability to really pull together different segments of
the community," said Jim Gocker, a lawyer with the Monroe County Bar
Association in Rochester, N.Y.

"I think King County has taken a very large step at reassessing how to
address drug issues and drug policy," Gocker said.

Anna Saxman, of the Vermont Bar Association, said she was introduced to
Seattle's project when the American Bar Association held its winter 2003
meeting in Seattle. During that meeting Goodman presented the Seattle
project's research and recommendations.

After Goodman visited Vermont, Saxman held a conference with a coalition of
lawyers and doctors to begin a dialogue about the war on drugs. She is now
director of the newly founded Drug Policy Project in Vermont and is excited
about the idea of changing what she says are ineffective and failed
policies that focus only on costly arrests and incarceration.

"We are looking for ways to treat addicts safely in the community, and
we're looking at interesting ways for what works in prevention," Saxman
said. "After spending billions and billions of dollars on the war on drugs,
it appears that drugs are stronger, they're cheaper to get, and they're
more available to kids."

Goodman said he is either replicating or adapting the approach in Seattle
to other places.

And while he is not prescribing any solutions in those areas, he said the
main point is to foster dialogue about the war on drugs.

Malcolm Mackenzie, chair of the Savannah, Ga., Bar Association's drugs and
law committee, said even that dialogue can be difficult.

"It's a delicate area, because politically speaking, it's anathema for
politicians to do anything for people who are perceived to be in violation
with the law. No one wants to be plastered as a soft-on- crime politician
in Georgia," Mackenzie said.

After Goodman visited Savannah, the group formed the drugs and law
committee to begin discussing the war on drugs and its local effects.

"Unless there's some thoughtful discussion and examination of the status
quo and the possibilities of some other approach to these social issues ...
we kind of harness ourselves with doing the same thing over and over
again," Mackenzie said.

Goodman said he thinks much of the project's success has hinged on the
credibility of the bar associations.

"The fact that the bar association is speaking about it, and has created a
coalition with all these different groups, that holds a lot of weight,"
Goodman said.

In the coming weeks, Goodman will visit Washington, D.C., Alabama, Miami
and Portland. In November, he is scheduled to meet with the House of Lords
in London.