RUSH LIMBAUGH DRUGS ARE ISSUE OF HEALTH, NOT CRIME

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.