WE MUST BE WILLING TO CONSIDER DIFFERENT ANSWERS TO DRUG-ABUSE PROBLEM

THIS PAST Sunday was one of those crisp, clear autumn days often heralded
here in Northeast Pennsylvania, but rather than spend my day outside the
way I prefer, I joined a crowd of about 50 people at the Barnes and Noble
Bookstore in Wilkes-Barre Township.

We had come to hear the words of James Gray, an Orange County, Calif.,
Superior Court Judge and former prosecutor, who was in town to speak about
what he considers our country's failed drug war. He is the author of "Why
Our Drug Laws Have Failed, And What We Can Do About It," a book critical of
our nation's drug laws.

A few in the audience were there to debunk Gray's arguments; a few others
were there by accident, having come in search of a particular book only to
find their interest peaked by the subject matter, but most of us were there
because, like Gray, we are searching for an alternative to a drug policy
that has done nothing to significantly reduce drug use and abuse in our
country.

Having spent decades in the trenches of the drug war, first as a federal
prosecutor in Los Angeles and then as a trial judge in Orange County, Gray
has seen firsthand the waste in terms of dollars and lives. He has seen the
increase in crime, disease and despair despite tougher laws to combat the
use of illegal drugs.

According to Gray, the United States has been following basically the same
Drug Prohibition policy since 1914, but there are more drugs available
today than ever before.

The number of prisons has greatly expanded, but their cells are
overflowing. "Our government," argues Gray, "has attempted to combat the
critical problem of drug use and abuse with a program of massive prisons,
demonization of drug users and prohibition of debate about our options."

The common rhetoric from those who oppose any type of discussion regarding
drug policies is that those of us who favor dialogue are liberals looking
to legalize drugs.

There is, however, a workable middle ground between zero tolerance on the
one hand and legalization on the other. Like Gray, I don't support the
complete legalization of drugs, but I do believe that the government needs
to find a way to regulate them the way it regulates alcohol.

The cold, hard reality is that we have never been a drug-free society and
we never will be, whether the drug of choice is alcohol, marijuana or
heroin. We cannot look at drug use and abuse without looking at the social
foundations that embody our drug culture.

We must acknowledge this fact and look to ways that will most successfully
reduce the deaths, disease and crime caused by its presence in our communities.

According to Gray, "Every neutral study in the United States in the past
hundred years has recommended that some form of drug decriminalization be
adopted because of the dangers of these drugs, and because prison is the
worst and least effective approach."

Instead of viewing drug use as a criminal justice problem, we should be
viewing it as a health problem. Incarcerating drug users without providing
adequate drug treatment only exacerbates the problem.

Whatever we choose to bring to the table with respect to combating drug use
and abuse in this country, we must include education, prevention and
treatment, individual responsibility and positive incentives in our
discussions. Like Gray, those of us who support reform believe that we
should approach the issue not as moralists, but as managers.

Countries such as Switzerland have forgone the obsession with morality and
focused instead on coming up with practical solutions to their drug
problems. Among them are drug-maintenance programs in which addicts take
their drugs in controlled, safe, hygienic conditions that are regulated by
the Swiss government. Applicants must be at least 21 years old,
drug-addicted for at least two years, show demonstrable health or social
damage as a result of their addiction, and have failed repeated attempts at
other drug treatment.

Results of these maintenance programs have been very favorable. Stable
employment among addicted people went up, criminal activities went down and
the total amount of monies spent on medical and social care decreased
dramatically. Even more significant, many of those who left the program
began treatment in another therapy and were able to abstain from drugs
entirely. The people who make up these maintenance programs are not
occasional drug users. They are chronically addicted people similar to
those who are overcrowding our prisons.

No policy we enact will be perfect, but as a society, we should be willing
to at least look at alternatives to our current failed system, to at least
ask ourselves the tough questions, and change what is not working. Those in
attendance on Sunday were looking to do just that. They were teenagers,
senior citizens, community leaders, homemakers, parents, business men and
women, and former drug users, who came together as part of a grass-roots
movement to rethink how we deal with the multifaceted and complex issues
surrounding illegal drugs.

They came to ask questions, but more importantly, they came to find answers.