JUDGE ADDRESSES WAR ON DRUGS

Judge John Kane Jr. can remember the day his mind changed about the
War on Drugs. It was the late 1980s. Kane was on the bench listening
to arguments in a drug conspiracy case involving almost 20 defendants.
Among them were a grandfather, his sons and his 17-year-old
granddaughter.

One of the sons was serving time in the Colorado State Penitentiary
and smuggling heroin into the prison with the help of his family.

"They had corrupted at least one prison guard," Kane said. Kane was
repulsed as he listened to the story of how the family had used the
girl in the case. She hid the heroin in her body, went to the bathroom
when she was inside and put it in her mouth. She would kiss her uncle
on the mouth and the drugs would be exchanged.

As Kane listened, horrified, he scanned the audience and saw three
children younger than 10 years old who were members of the family on
trial.

"They were all looking at me with so much hostility because of what I
was doing to their family," Kane said. "When it came time for
sentencing, I saw all the repeat offenses, and I realized that prison
sentences were not doing any good. There was no end to it. That's when
I had my Saul on the way to Damascus moment, my epiphany, and I
started researching the matter."

Kane now serves as a senior judge with the U.S. District Court in
Denver and has become an outspoken advocate for changes in
the nation's drug policies.

He will speak at 5 p.m. tonight about the drug war's effects on the
criminal justice system, based on his personal experience.

What faced him when he started his research was a wall of
misinformation about drug use, he said. "In the statistics, there was
no differentiation between addiction and experimentation.

"All kinds of people experiment with drugs, primarily adolescents, and
most of them do not develop into addicts. Yet the law makes no
distinction. There is this mythology out there that you do one snort
of heroin, and you're an addict. It's simply not true. There are more
highly addictive drugs that are legal."

In Kane's opinion, the criminal justice system is clogged and almost
paralyzed with a growing number of petty drug cases.

Kane advocates for treating drug abuse as a public health issue rather
than a criminal one.

Prosecution and severe criminal penalties should be maintained for the
illegal manufacture, distribution and importing of drugs, but the use
of drugs should be decriminalized.

"We're putting people in jail for using this stuff, and it's costing
us in two ways," Kane said. "These are essentially nonviolent people,
and we are filling up our jails with them while police don't have time
to focus on pedophiles or violent crime. It's a question of
priorities."

During a sentencing hearing of a mid-level drug dealer, Kane told the
man, "What bothers me is that you are getting these young people to
sell for you."

The dealer responded that for every street dealer who's arrested, he
had five people who wanted the job.

"When you are dealing with that kind of distribution," Kane said, "the
fact that drugs are illegal drives up the price and makes selling them
all the more inviting."

Kane said examination and change of drug laws will be slow because the
government has a vested interest in the War on Drugs.

"They are spending in excess of $50 billion a year on this," Kane
said. "They have employees and cars and the equipment. I don't think
they will change."

Opinion polls show that 70 percent of people think the War on Drugs is
a failure, but they don't know what to do about it, Kane said. "As
long as it remains a matter of behavior for the economically
disadvantaged. If as many children of the upper- and
upper-middle-class power base were sent to prison, the attitude would
change. The drug war would end tomorrow."