LET'S HOPE RUSH WILL SEE THAT THE RIGHT IS WRONG ON THE DRUG WAR

Limbaugh Drug Controversy Should Remind
Us Of The Failed 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.

Not surprisingly, Limbaugh has given (loud) 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."

Limbaugh went on to question the claim that too many people of color
were being locked up on drug charges, but concluded that if that were
the case, it simply meant that more white drug offenders had to be put
behind bars, too.

Maybe now Limbaugh will want to reconsider his position. If so, he
could 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 themselves ensure that
people will do time once convicted. Mandatory-minimum-sentencing laws,
enacted in the mid-1980s as politicians fell over themselves proving
they were tough on crime, guarantee that the prisons will fill up, but
do little to get most drug addicts the help they need to kick their
destructive habits.

Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, and even the
conservative William Rehnquist have questioned the wisdom of
one-size-fits-all 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 government's rigid
sentencing guidelines.

Ashcroft's opposition to greater sentencing flexibility makes certain
that nonviolent drug offenders will continue to be dealt lengthy
prison terms--and that will hurt lots of us in these tough times,
because money spent warehousing convicts is money that won't be used
to build schools, provide health care, or close yawning budget gaps.

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.

Postscript: Speaking of drug abuse, what's Pat Robertson on? In a recent
broadcast of "The 700 Club" television program, he repeated a desire to
have the State Department nuked.

Can we please send Pat into exile along with his pal and business
partner, Charles Taylor? (See the latest issue of Ms. magazine for an
overview of his relationship with the warlord who ravaged Liberia.)

Rick Mercier is a writer and editor for The Free Lance-Star.