TIME TO REVISE TACTICS IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

While New York missed another opportunity to reform the state's draconian
Rockefeller Drug Laws because of political infighting, states throughout
the country are pursuing treatment instead of incarceration alternatives
for nonviolent drug offenders.

Rockefeller's defenders claim the harsh laws fight crime. Make no mistake,
so-called drug-related crime is invariably prohibition-related. With
alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer terrorize inner
cities with drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking
unregulated bathtub gin.

A Rand Corporation study found that every additional dollar invested in
substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.46 in societal costs. There is
far more at stake than tax dollars. The drug war is not the promoter of
family values that some would have us believe.

Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders alongside hardened criminals is the
equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in criminal
behavior. Turning drug users into unemployable ex-cons is a senseless waste
of tax dollars. It's time to declare peace in the failed drug war and begin
treating all substance abuse, legal or otherwise, as the public health
problem that it is.

Robert Sharpe

Program officer Drug Policy Alliance Washington, D.C.