RECONSIDERING LIMBAUGH'S WAR ON DRUGS

So the National Enquirer was right - Rush Limbaugh does have a drug
problem. As you probably know by now, the archconservative radio
personality has admitted having a painkiller addiction.

Though it may take a bit of self-discipline for some of us, we should
resist any temptation to revel in Limbaugh's misfortune - or vilify
him for his apparently illegal behavior (it seems inconceivable that
he could have fed his habit without illegally obtaining the drugs).
Like millions of Americans, Limbaugh has a serious health problem - a
debilitating dependency on addictive substances.

Limbaugh's admission should be greeted as an opportunity to
acknowledge a few truths: 1) drug abuse is primarily a public health
problem; 2) the get-tough criminal-justice approach to the problem
causes more harm than good; and 3) the war on drugs disproportionately
targets those who don't fall into the same demographic as Limbaugh.

For years, while our prisons have filled to the point of overflowing
with nonviolent drug offenders who tend to be poor and nonwhite, the
right wing has gotten gobs of political mileage out of pushing a
lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key agenda.

Limbaugh has given voice to this zealotry. In the mid-1990s, he said:
"There's nothing good about drug use. And we have laws against selling
drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are
good because we know what happens to people in societies and
neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are
violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused, and they
ought to be convicted, and they ought to be sent up."

Maybe Limbaugh now will want to reconsider his position. If so, he can
start by digesting this information:

Drug offenders make up nearly 60 percent of all federal inmates,
according to The Sentencing Project, which advocates alternatives to
the mandatory-minimum-sentencing laws that are filling up our prisons.
The group also notes that there has been a thirteenfold increase in
the number of drug offenders in state prisons since 1980, and that
they now account for a fifth of all state prisoners.

Most of the people who wind up in the slammer for drug offenses are
small fish in the narcotics trade and generally have no prior record
of committing violent crimes, The Sentencing Project reports.

Three-fourths of all convicted drug offenders are people of color, a
ratio vastly disproportionate to their share of drug users in society,
according to The Sentencing Project.

If race and, to a large degree, class are major factors in determining
who gets busted on drug charges, the laws ensure that people will do
time once convicted.

Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and William
Rehnquist have questioned the wisdom of mandatory-minimum-sentencing
laws. But that exemplar of the moralistic right, Attorney General John
Ashcroft, last month instructed federal prosecutors to rat out judges
who depart from the harsh guidelines.

Given the staggering cost of keeping so many Americans locked up
($30,000 a year, on average, for a state inmate), it should come as
little surprise that 18 states and the District of Columbia have
implemented reforms since the mid-1990s that offer more flexibility in
sentencing and alternatives to incarceration.

We need to rethink not only mandatory minimum sentences but also a
drug war that targets certain racial and income groups and approaches
a public-health epidemic almost exclusively from a criminal justice
perspective.

Limbaugh now is in a position to be a persuasive advocate of a more
sensible strategy for combating our nation's drug problem. Here's
hoping that he gets cleaned up - and that a sober Limbaugh becomes
more susceptible to reason on the drug issue.