THE STATE OF DRUG REFORM

The Drug Czar is not a man given to particularly inspiring speeches, but on
the topic of marijuana, John Walters gets downright fired up. On a
nationwide tour to promote the Office of National Drug Control Policy's new
25-Cities Initiative, Director Walters says he's on a mission to combat the
national disease of addiction.

That disease, as he believes fervently, is bred by non-addictive use of
drugs. And the carriers of the disease are those peers who spread what
Walters calls "The Lie": "That drug use is fun, that you can handle it, and
everybody does it. The friend of those people don't realize what The Lie is
until is until it's too late."

In Seattle recently to promote the latest effort in the War on Drugs,
Walters was able to lock onto his target during his September 10th press
conference. In the multipurpose room of a neighborhood detox center, the
Drug Czar placed particular emphasis on Seattle City Initiative 75. The
citizen initiative demands that local police and prosecutors lay off pot
smokers by making marijuana possession the lowest law enforcement priority.
Walters alternately called the initiative "a con" and "phony."

"I think Seattle is as responsible and sensible place as any other city,
and I believe the voters will make the right decision [on I-75] if they
have the right information."

The Sensible Seattle Coalition -- an ad-hoc group of drug reform advocates
backed by the ACLU of Washington, the League of Women Voters of Seattle and
the King County Bar Association -- had thought the exact same thing. In
this case, it seems the voters had a bit more faith in their homegrown
initiative than in Walters' dire warnings: With nearly all of the votes
counted, I-75 passed handily with a 59 to 41 percent majority in the Sept.
16 elections.

"[This was] a grassroots statement from the people to their employees --
the police -- that they're no longer buying the Nixon-era rhetoric that
marijuana poses an overwhelming threat to public health and safety,"
explained attorney and I-75 supporter Alison Chinn Holcomb, whose clients
have included many college students facing denial of financial aid for
marijuana use.

When viewed in context, the success of this carefully worded initiative --
which only applies to possession, and not to selling or trafficking --
extends far beyond Seattle City limits, and helps to explain why Director
Walters would spend as much time as he did lambasting this "silly and
irresponsible" effort.

According to a "State of the States" report released this week by the New
York-based Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the vast majority of state
legislatures passed significant drug policy reforms between 1996-2002.

The report details more than 150 changes in 46 states on a wide range of
drug-related issues, including medical marijuana, needle exchange and
possession, alternatives to incarceration, bans on racial profiling, and
the restoration of benefits and voting rights to ex-offenders. As the
authors of the report found, reforms were initiated, sponsored and
supported by progressive to ultraconservative Democrats, Republicans,
Libertarians, Greens and Independents.

Seattle's passage of I-75, said DPA Director of State Affairs Katherine
Huffman, is a "continuation of a national trend."

"More and more people want to look at drug issues in terms of health and
human rights rather than in the [realm] of the criminal justice system,"
said Huffman.

Statewide drug policy reforms have been gaining momentum since Arizona
voters passed Proposition 200 in 1996, which mandated treatment instead of
incarceration for first- and second-time offenders. California's
Proposition 36, passed by 61 percent of voters, followed along similar
lines. Stark fiscal realities for cash-strapped states seem to have
contributed to the wave of policy reforms. With costs of incarceration
reaching an average of $30,000 per year (and more for seriously ill and
elderly inmates), taxpayers in states ranging from Hawaii to Indiana have
concluded that spending as little as $4,000 annually on treatment per
person simply made more sense.

But this shift in drug policy hasn't been entirely focused on the fiscal
bottom line. The wave of reform-minded bills seem to have also used
compassion and civil rights as guiding concerns, as evidenced by medical
marijuana laws passed in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Those laws have withstood concerted federal
efforts and Drug Enforcement Agency raids intended to disrupt the
operations of medical marijuana clubs -- and to arrest those who use
marijuana to alleviate symptoms of chronic illnesses.

President Clinton's 1996 federal welfare reform bill resulted in the
permanent denial of welfare benefits or food stamps to anyone ever
convicted of a drug offense. In response, citizens and legislators in
states including Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New
Mexico, and Washington passed laws that allowed them to partially opt out
of the ban because it was perceived as being unnecessarily harsh and too
broadly applied. If people who had raped and murdered could be eligible for
public benefits, as the logic went, why should drug users be demonized and
punished to an even greater extent?

According to the DPA, ten states (and the federal government itself) have
also moved to enact asset forfeiture reforms, usually by putting the burden
on law enforcement to prove the necessity of property confiscation. And of
particular significance to the almost 1.4 million disenfranchised African
American -- 14 percent of the entire Black male population -- states
including Connecticut and New Mexico (and, most recently, Florida), have
enacted laws to return voting rights after incarceration.

Of all the states in the union, New Mexico and Washington State have led
the pack in drug policy reforms, according to DPA's Huffman. With a record
11 changes or additions to state law, New Mexico saw the start of its
reform during the tenure of Republican Governor Gary Johnson and his
Democratically-controlled state legislature, much to the chagrin of his
conservative allies. Current Democratic Governor Bill Richardson has
eschewed an aggressive drug policy reform approach, although he has
expressed support of sentencing reform. Under Richardson, the New Mexico
state legislature shot down two reform bills -- including a revived medical
marijuana bill -- earlier this year.

In Washington State, the legislature enacted six drug policy reforms
between 1996-2002, including a recent law cutting sentences for nonviolent
drug offenses. The state expects to save an estimated $50 million and plans
to divert the funding into drug treatment.

Significant national changes on drug and criminal justice policy
notwithstanding, advocates of reform still have their work cut out for
them. For one, progressive voters and legislators in California have been
up against Democratic Governor Gray Davis' record-breaking vetoes of drug
policy reforms. (Gov. Davis has issued more such vetoes than any other
governor in U.S. history, including bills on overdose prevention,
restoration of public benefits, asset forfeiture and racial profiling.)

Nationwide, with 450,000 people in jail or prison for nonviolent drug
offenses, and a grand total that exceeds 2.1 million, the U.S. continues to
arrest and incarcerate its residents at a stupendous rate.

Without doubt, thousands of middle-class recreational users and sellers
have been sucked into the vortex of the Drug War. But none have been more
impacted than Americans struggling to get by on marginal incomes and low
education levels.

New analysis from the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) points out that by
1999, one in 10 European American male high school dropouts -- and fully
half of African American male dropouts -- had prison records by their early
thirties. Nearly 70 percent of the nation's prisoners do not have a high
school diploma.

"If we want to create a more effective response to crime, we should divert
people from prison into treatment, and provide educational opportunities to
those currently incarcerated," said JPI Director of Policy and Research
Jason Ziedenberg. Ziedenberg co-authored the report, "Education and
Incarceration," with Princeton sociology professor Bruce Western.

Their research also found that African American men in their early 30s are
now nearly twice as likely to have prison records than undergraduate degrees.

The incarceration phenomenon has gotten to such a point that even Supreme
Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy recently felt compelled to speak out on
the issue.

Justice Kennedy, a moderate conservative Reagan-appointee to the Supreme
Court, used his appearance at the annual American Bar Association
conference in August to call on the association to lobby Congress for a
repeal of mandatory minimum sentencing.

"I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory
minimum sentences," he told the attendees, according to the Associated Press.

"It is no defense if our current system is more the product of neglect than
of purpose," Justice Kennedy said, noting the fact that roughly 40 percent
of the prison population is African American.

Gross racial and class disparities in incarceration rates didn't fit into
the scope of the Drug Czar's pre-election visit to Seattle.

Instead, Walters devoted most of his energy to explaining how "big money"
had tried to influence Americans into believing that marijuana is a soft,
harmless drug. Walters also remarked that drug policy reform efforts like
I-75 represented a thinly veiled effort to legalize marijuana and other drugs.

In his remarks, Walters zeroed in on three well-known philanthropists who
have backed many of the city and statewide drug reform initiatives in
recent years: billionaire banker George Soros, University of Arizona owner
John Sperling, and Peter Lewis, head of Ohio-based Progressive Auto
Insurance. Lewis helped to fund pro-I-75 outreach efforts along with the
Washington D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).

"A fair debate [should not be] silenced by big money," Walters said.

Bruce Mirken, Director of Communications for MPP, responded that charges of
undue influence by "big money" in drug policy reform are ludicrous. "ONDCP
spends more on advertising in one week than the Marijuana Policy Project
spends on its entire operating budget for a full year," Mirken said. "And
we're the 'big money' outsiders?"

Walters still strongly criticized the involvement of the three men for
engaging in "experiments on public policy."

"Children here will be the payers of the price," he charged, in reference
to the suggestion made by both him and Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr that
I-75 would eventually result in children accepting and partaking in
marijuana use.

Walters also publicly challenged the three men to a national debate about
marijuana and drug use, alleging that he had made such efforts in the past
and been ignored or turned down.

"When you have truth on your side, speak the truth," Walters declared to
assembled reporters. He added that journalists had the responsibility to do
their due diligence to help prevent a phony picture of drug use from
reaching the people.

In a move that Walters may not have expected, the MPP took him up on the
challenge this week, sending Walters an invitation to participate in a
nationally televised debate on drug policy.

There's no word yet on whether Walters will accept.

"We'll soon know if he's serious," said Mirken.