STAY TOUGH ON DRUGS

D.C. Superior Court Judge Jeanette J. Clark ruled Monday that the D.C.
government cannot implement a voter-approved drug-treatment proposal because
it would intrude on the prerogatives of the mayor and the D.C. Council.
Supporters of Initiative 62, which won 78 percent voter approval in November
and would have granted drug treatment instead of jail time to hard-core and
violent addicts, are weighing an appeal. That means, while the judge's
decision clearly spells victory, D.C. lawyers must now begin preparations
for a possible protracted court battle. Do they know who and what they are
up against?

Opio Lumumba Sokoni, an activist-lawyer from Howard law school who
coordinated the voter initiative, has a lot of nationally known heavyweights
in his corner - including wealthy drug-legalization gadfly George Soros, the
Rev. Jesse Jackson, former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and Judge Robert W.
Sweet, former deputy mayor of New York (who, in the 1980s, led dozens of his
fellow jurists in refusing to hear drug cases because of mandatory
sentencing guidelines). Mr. Sokoni et al plan to lobby the D.C. Council,
telling The Washington Post that lawmakers "can deal with funding any way
they want."

Judge Clark, however, disagrees - as do many of her colleagues, particularly
those who rightly know that drug treatment minus criminal sanctions does not
work. Implementing the initiative "would constitute an improper intrusion
upon the discretion of the mayor and the council to allocate the amount of
funding for drug treatment that they determine can be provided," the judge
declared in her opinion.

Had Judge Clark ruled the other way, the city would have been forced to
provide drug treatment for users and dealers of heroin, PCP, as well as
other drugs, and those addicts already in treatment who hustle their free
methadone would have gone scot-free. In fact, sanctions would have been left
to health-care professionals instead of the courts. Funding such a program
for an estimated 60,000 abusers would have placed an enormous burden on
taxpayers for three major reasons: 1) the city has a treatment-on-demand
policy; 2) addicts can chose public or private programs; and 3) the health
department would have had to considerably boost its bureaucracy.

As things now stand, the 10-year-old drug court is doing the best it can -
granting treatment when judges see fit and incarcerating offenders who
relapse. That is the law, and that is as things must be.

To be sure, D.C. policymakers, law-enforcement agencies and lawyers must be
aware of who they are up against - people who are determined to,
state-by-state, legalize federally controlled drugs. Period.