Subj: US: Anti-war movement; Protesters say it's time for the government to halt drug battles



Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune, US



Date:  January 16, 2000







Anti-war movement; Protesters say it's time for the government to halt drug battles

BYLINE: Mark Sauer



In 1932, Democratic presidential challenger Franklin D. Roosevelt called for

an end to Prohibition, the ban on alcohol that Republican President Herbert

Hoover embraced as "the noble experiment."



FDR swept into office declaring "happy days are here again" and presided over

the repeal of Prohibition as the noble experiment was declared an utter failure.



Arguments are being made now across the political spectrum that America's war

on drugs -- the federal prohibition on marijuana and other illicit substances --

has proved similarly disastrous.



As with Prohibition, critics decry a lucrative black market run by ruthless

gangsters, widespread police corruption, an explosion in the prison population,

erosion of civil liberties and continued drug use as evidence that the drug war

has failed.



Could history repeat itself this election year?



With hundreds of thousands of Americans locked up on drug offenses and tens

of billions of tax dollars spent annually on the drug war, a burgeoning anti-

war movement is screaming "enough!"



The question is whether movement leaders, who call the drug war our "social

Vietnam," are yet loud enough to be heard.



They are cheered by new challenges to drug prohibition by two prominent

Republicans, by the success of the medical-marijuana movement and by evidence of

a greater awareness of the war's costs and consequences.



"Eventually, the failure of the drug war will cause its own demise," said

Eric E. Sterling, who from 1979 to 1989 was counsel to the House Judiciary

Committee, which was principally responsible for anti-drug legislation.



"All kinds of pressure is being exerted on the current (anti-drug) strategy.

Even Gen. (Barry) McCaffrey (President Clinton's drug czar), has said the drug

war is not working.



"But as long as this is considered an electrified third rail -- suicide for

politicians -- there will be no rational debate on drug policy," added Sterling,

now president of the nonprofit Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.



Adam J. Smith, associate director of the Internet-based Drug Reform

Coordination Network, hopes for some kind of national drug-war debate in the

2000 campaign.  He is not optimistic.



"But by the next election cycle, we may well see at least one major

presidential candidate, and many others in the states, running on a drug-law-

reform platform," Smith said.



Dan Baum, author of "The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure" (Little

Brown; 1996) said that like Vietnam at its late-'60s peak, the drug war is vast,

complex and highly resistant to a swift armistice.



"We have allowed this to grow into too big a monster and we ain't going to

kill it in one political season," Baum said.



Baum's drug-war monster can be measured in several ways:



** In 1980, the federal government spent about $1 billion on drug control and

50,000 Americans were incarcerated on the federal, state and local levels for

drug offenses.  Today, the federal drug-war budget is nearly $18 billion (an

estimated $20 billion is spent by state and local governments) and about 400,000

Americans are behind bars for nonviolent, drug-law violations.



** In 1998, 1.6 million Americans were arrested for drug violations, compared

with 581,000 in 1980. Drug arrests account for about one-third of all arrests in

America, more than any other category of crime, according to the FBI.



** The number of women in state and federal prisons increased from 12,300 in

1980 to 82,800 in 1997, a rise of 573 percent.  Drug offenses accounted for

one-half of the state incarcerations.



** African-Americans are eight times more likely to be prosecuted and

incarcerated than whites arrested for drug-law violations.



** By Feb. 15, 2 million Americans will be behind bars, nearly a tenfold

increase in the inmate population in a quarter-century.  Because of the drug war

and the get-tough-on-crime climate that spawned it, the anti-war movement says

the land of the free has become the world's largest gulag.



Critics from both the right and left contend that the war on drugs has failed

in its mission, but succeeded in damaging Constitutional protections against

illegal search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment and the right to

privacy.



People aren't locked up for abusing alcohol, they say, why should they be

jailed for using or abusing drugs?



But the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, headed by

McCaffrey, counters that "the first duty of government is to provide security

for citizens."



"Drug abuse, drug trafficking and their consequences destroy personal liberty

and the well-being of communities," according to the drug czar's office.  "Drug

abuse spawns global syndicates and bankrolls those who sell drugs to young

people.



"No person or group is immune. ... When the nation fails to pay attention and

guard against it, drug use tends to spread."



War resisters



In 1930, Morris Sheppard, a Texas congressman and a sponsor of the amendment

banning alcohol, made this prediction:



"There is as much chance of repealing the 18th Amendment as there is for a

hummingbird to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument tied to its

tail."



Obviously, public opinion can quickly change.



But the debate 70 years ago over Prohibition seems more straightforward than

issues and questions surrounding the war on drugs.



One reason is the nature of illicit drugs and Americans' attitudes toward

them.



The federal government, in extensive anti-drug campaigns, has worked hard to

lump all illegal drugs together.  But many Americans -- especially the 75

million adults who have admitted use of marijuana -- distinguish between " hard"

and "soft" drugs.  And many distinguish between drug use and drug abuse.



Polls show that most people are more skeptical about easing the prohibition

of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other "hard" drugs than they are about

marijuana.



Seven states, California being the first, have passed laws allowing the use

of marijuana for medicinal purposes (though it remains illegal under federal

law).



Similar initiatives, along with proposals to reform mandatory-sentencing laws

for marijuana and other drug traffickers, are headed for the ballot in several

more states this year.  And Alaska voters are expected to consider a proposal to

legalize marijuana in that state.



Despite such reform efforts regarding marijuana, political observers say the

broader drug war has yet to catch fire as a mainstream political issue.



"Nothing I've seen in the polling or focus groups suggests to me that the

American public is willing to drastically change the way government policy deals

with drug use, particularly with respect to interdiction," said Garry South, a

Democratic political consultant and campaign director for Gov. Gray Davis in

1998.



"The media may shine a light on this issue in the 2000 campaign.  But it's

hard to expect political candidates to go out on a limb when there is not

broad-based support for it."



Two politicians, both of them Republicans, have gone out on a limb, however.



Gary Johnson, the lame-duck governor of New Mexico, shocked members of both

parties last fall when he blasted the drug war on a speaking tour, calling for

the legalization not just of marijuana, but also of cocaine and heroin.



Johnson, a 46-year-old triathlete and father of two who admits to having used

marijuana and cocaine in college, insists he is against drugs, that drugs "are a

bad choice, they're a handicap," and he counsels kids against their use.



But Johnson, now a teetotaller, said locking up people for using drugs is

morally wrong, terribly costly and ineffective.  "Legalization means we educate,

regulate, tax and control the estimated $400 billion a year drug industry," he

said in a recent speech.



Meanwhile in California, Tom Campbell, the leading GOP candidate to challenge

Diane Feinstein for her U.S. Senate seat this fall, is calling for a different

approach.



Instead of overhauling current policies and laws, Campbell proposes that

localities be allowed to experiment with plans that would make drugs available

for addicts at government facilities.  The current U.S. congressman from San

Jose also favors providing intravenous users with clean needles to stop the

spread of AIDS and other diseases.



Campbell said his idea, based on successful programs in Europe, is to

eliminate the profit incentive for drug dealers while educating addicts on the

danger of drug use and offering them treatment.



"I've taken a lot of criticism," Campbell said.  "But the present system is

not working and I believe it is the responsibility of someone who wants to lead

to present new ideas.



"If all you do is repeat what's being done when it isn't working, you are

hardly a leader."



Unlikely coalition



Political scientists say that because of its liberal roots, the Democratic

Party has long been vulnerable to charges of being "soft" on crime in general

and drugs in particular.



Democrats have worked hard in recent years to overcome that image, as

demonstrated by President Clinton's dramatic escalation of the drug war -- his

current anti-drug budget is six times that of the Bush administration.



For this reason, anti-war leaders say, it will probably take a Republican to

launch a national debate on the drug war, much as it took avowed anti- communist

Richard Nixon to open the door to China.





"It has to come from the Republicans, that's the key," said Smith of the Drug

Reform Coordination Network.



"But the interesting thing is drug-war issues touch so many constituencies.

Libertarians and hard-core conservatives look at it and say it's not the

government's business; fiscal conservatives are shocked at the costs; liberals

are upset over the exploding prison population; blacks are angry that minorities

are heavily targeted," Smith said.



"People who are not philosophically aligned on anything else can agree on

this."



The anti-war movement is basically split into two camps: Those who want to

legalize all drugs and strictly control their sale; and those wishing for reform

of drug policy and laws by shifting priorities from arrest and prosecution to

treatment and education.



This latter "harm-reduction" wing appears to enjoy a much broader base of

support, with hundreds of Internet sites devoted to position papers, essays,

news roundups, commentary from drug prisoners, research reports, etc., urging

politicians and the public to reassess the drug war's consequences.



Among the most visible proponents of harm-reduction is Ethan Nadelmann,

director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug-policy institute financed by

billionaire George Soros with offices in New York and San Francisco.



"The idea that the drug war has failed and we need to reform is becoming the

new conventional wisdom, there's plenty of evidence of that," Nadelmann said.

"But there is a long way to go.



"The entire drug-policy reform movement in this country spent less than $15

million getting our message out in 1998, less in '99 and will spend a bit more

this year," he added.  "We're getting outspent by, what, a hundred to 1? A

thousand to 1?"



The movement's relatively meager funds, Nadelmann said, should be directed at

scuttling the "zero tolerance" rhetoric, though he agrees that anyone

endangering lives by driving under the influence should be prosecuted to the

fullest.



Nadelmann would replace the notion of "a drug-free America" with the idea

that drugs are permanent in our society and ways must be found to live with them

so they cause the least possible harm and greatest possible benefit.



Harm reduction, he said, involves decriminalizing marijuana and taxing and

regulating it; providing "honest and effective drug education rather than

feel-good programs like DARE"; not treating adults who sell drugs to other

adults as "predatory criminals"; and treating drug abuse as a public-health

problem rather than a criminal-justice problem.



Child protection issue



One of the anti-war movement's biggest hurdles is the government's argument

that if prohibition ended children would suffer.



"Drug warriors understand the power of PR. They've convinced the public that

prohibition is the thin blue line protecting children from becoming zombies,"

said Smith, who added that experiences running a teen center in New York

inspired him to oppose the war.



"The truth is if average middle-class parents wanted to buy marijuana now,

they'd do well to ask their teen-age kids.  But kids can't get Demerol or other

pharmaceuticals.



"Under prohibition, the decision of whether drugs are sold to your 15-year-

old is not in the hands of a physician, pharmacist or parent, but a drug dealer.

We have yet to get that message out."



Sterling, the former congressional aide, said fear "is the politicians'

favorite drug and they are very good at exploiting it, especially when it comes

to issues involving children.  And they are afraid themselves."



"On every other issue, there are at least a couple of sides.  But you run the

real risk of offending voters and contributors when you take a position against

the drug war."



In order to address voters' fears and the child-protection issue, leaders in

the anti-war movement say that eventually they have to go beyond attacking the

negative consequences of drug prohibition and provide alternatives to the drug

war.



"You can't beat something with nothing," Sterling said.  "To say the war on

drugs is a failure and this is the end of the war, that's not going to happen.

But the problem exceeds my ability to describe a solution.  I say we need to be

willing to experiment."



But others, notably Nadelmann, offer myriad reform proposals in speeches,

op-ed pieces and seminars.



"This is like other American political and social movements -- women's

suffrage, civil rights, gay rights, Prohibition itself," Nadelmann said.  " You

start by using facts to educate people, you use science, common sense. It takes

time to build consensus.



"My gut feeling is that when the phrase 'drug prohibition' appears in a news

story rather than in an op-ed piece in the newspaper, we will take a big step

forward.



"People can then make the analytical leap toward a more sensible policy."