LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS JUST DOESN'T WORK

On a recent summer tour through south London, I saw the future of drug
legalization. A young couple injected heroin inside the filthy ruins of an
abandoned building. In this working-class neighborhood, residents weave in
and out of crowded sidewalks, trying to avoid making eye contact with
dealers who openly push heroin, marijuana and crack.

Scotland Yard aggressively targets international drug traffickers, and I
applaud its strong overall anti-drug policy. But last year, a local police
commander initiated a pilot program in which people caught possessing
marijuana were warned rather than arrested. Often, they were just ignored.
In news reports and my interviews, residents criticized the program for
bringing more drug dealers, more petty criminals and more drug use.

The one-year Lambeth pilot ended Aug. 1, but Britain has announced it will
relax the country's marijuana laws. That move has given fuel to those in
the United States who believe America should follow suit. Some have called
for the legalization of marijuana. People could buy dope over the counter
as they do in Amsterdam.

What these legalization advocates do not talk about are the disturbing
problems that people in Lambeth lived with every day. They ignore the sad
misery of young people addicted to drugs. They ignore the serious problems
that countries such as the Netherlands are experiencing - problems that are
leading them to reconsider their own liberal drug laws.

The culture of drug use and acceptance in the Netherlands has played a role
in that country becoming the world's top producer of Ecstasy. It's
interesting that, in a 2001 study, the British Home Office found that
violent crime and property crime increased in the late 1990s in every
wealthy country except the United States. No doubt effective drug
enforcement had a part in declining crime in the United States.

Maybe it's time Europeans looked to America's drug policy as their model.
The U.S. approach - tough drug laws coupled with effective education
programs and compassionate treatment - is having success. Overall drug use
is down by more than a third since the late 1970s. That's 9.5 million fewer
people using illegal drugs. Cocaine use is down by an astounding 70 percent
in the past 15 years.

America has still not done enough. Drugs are still readily available, and a
new survey shows that American kids are increasingly using drugs such as
Ecstasy. As long as there is despair, poverty and frustration, as long as
there is teenage rebellion, there will be problems with drugs. But we must
also keep some perspective about U.S. drug use. Less than 5 percent of the
population uses illegal drugs. That's 16 million regular users of all
illegal drugs, compared with 66 million tobacco users and 109 million
alcohol users.

Emerging drug threats such as Ecstasy and methamphetamine are going to
require even more resolve and innovation. We do have new ideas: from drug
courts to community coalitions; from more investment in education to more
effective treatment; from drug testing in the workplace to drug counselors
in schools. These are ideas that work.

What doesn't work is legalization. It's a well-kept secret that America
tried it before. In 1975, Alaska's Supreme Court held that under that
state's constitution, an adult could possess marijuana for personal
consumption at home.

The court's ruling became a green light for marijuana use. A 1988
University of Alaska survey showed that the state's teenagers used
marijuana at a rate more than twice the national average for their age
group. Fed up with this dangerous experiment, Alaska's residents voted in
1990 to recriminalize the possession of marijuana. But 15 years of
legalization left its mark - increased drug use by a generation of youths.

Legalizing drugs is simply a surrender. It's giving up on the hope of a
drug-free future for our next generation. It's writing off those still in
the grip of addiction and despair. Isn't every life worth fighting for?