ORGANIZATIONS SEEK BLACK VOICE IN DRUG LAWS

Representatives Meet To Devise Plan For Changes

WASHINGTON - Amid the policy-makers and legal professionals who devise
the tactics of the nation's "war on drugs," Tara Andrews thinks one
voice hasn't been heard.

African-Americans as a group have been silent for too long, said
Andrews, director of the Maryland Justice Coalition, a Baltimore
organization pushing the state to give nonviolent drug offenders
treatment instead of jail time.

Yesterday, representatives of 15 black professional organizations that
formed the National African American Drug Policy Coalition in the fall
met to devise a strategy for changing drug laws they say unfairly
punish African-Americans.

Among the group's leaders is Kurt L. Schmoke, who while mayor of
Baltimore in 1988, called drug addiction a public health problem and
advocated decriminalizing drugs. The group includes doctors,
attorneys, social workers, treatment specialists and judges who
endorsed some of the same solutions Schmoke advocated nearly 20 years
ago. Schmoke, who was unable to attend the conference, urged the group
to be a catalyst in reforming drug policy.

The discussion yesterday was part of a weekend summit discussing such
issues as the effect of drug policy on women and families, faith-based
approaches to dealing with drug abuse, and how to prevent underage
drinking.

Today they will wrap up the conference at the Marriott Metro Center
with recommendations for policy changes.

The goal is to work in a handful of cities, including Baltimore, to
urge judges to offer treatment rather than incarceration for drug
crimes, while pushing policy-makers on a national level to change
mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

"This is the second drug policy conference I've been to in two months,
but this is the first one I've ever been to that was publicly and
unapologetically for and by African-Americans," Andrews said. "People
may say this is just another black group trying to do something for
black folks, but I am encouraged that we have finally stepped up. We
want to have a voice, and we want to have an impact on these policies."

Many of the participants at a town hall meeting yesterday said they
were glad to finally see groups coming together for change.

Retired Montgomery County police Chief Clarence Edwards, president of
the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said
his group has been trying to draw attention to these problems for
years, with little success. "We joined together as a fraternal base to
have a place to discuss these issues without fear of condemnation," he
said. "Because, let's be real, on the enforcement end they don't want
to talk about treatment. They want to know how many people did you
lock up."

Although studies show that the majority of drug users are white, the
nation's fight against illegal drugs focuses on street-level offenders
in inner-city communities, said Julius Debro, a professor in the
Society and Justice Program at the University of Washington. Blacks
make up a disproportionate percentage of those incarcerated on drug
crimes and on average receive longer sentences than whites, he said.

Others reflected on the past to explain today's problems.

"You cannot understand the implications of today's policies if you don't
know history of drug policies in general," said Deborah Peterson Small,
executive director of a New York-based group called Breaking the Chains:
Communities of Color and the War on Drugs.

"The history of U.S. drug policy has always targeted racial
minorities," she said. "We created these laws to control these groups
of people."

As an example, she discussed cocaine, which was made illegal in the
early 20th century amid paranoia that the drug made blacks violent,
she said.

Transforming today's drug policies will take a long-term push, said
Judge Arthur L. Burnett of Washington, D.C., the group's executive
director. He said the next step is pushing lawmakers for change.

"I've heard people call us a stealth organization - no one really
understands what we're about," he said. "They say it's a talk group.
But we're not. We have muscle and we're making change happen."