Pubdate: Sat, 13 Jan 2001
Source: Albuquerque Tribune (NM)
Copyright: 2001 The Albuquerque Tribune
Contact:  P.O. Drawer T, 7777 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
Website: http://www.abqtrib.com/
Author: Gilbert Gallegos

WILSON'S NOT COPACETIC WITH EX-BOSS'S DRUG POLICY

U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson says the difference between her approach to drug 
policy and that of her former boss, Gov. Gary Johnson, boils down to a 
simple question.

Would legalization lead to more or less drug abuse?

"I think it would lead to more, and I don't see that as anything positive 
for the state of New Mexico," Wilson said this week after reading of 
Johnson's plan to change some of New Mexico's laws dealing with drugs.

Johnson is not proposing outright legalization of drugs in New Mexico, 
although he'd like to see it happen.

Rather, among his package of reform measures to be pitched to the 
Legislature is a plan to decriminalize the possession and use of 1 ounce or 
less of marijuana.

As a Johnson aide described it, a pot user caught in a public area with 
marijuana would be slapped with a citation and a fine, rather than being 
whisked away to Albuquerque's crowded City-County Jail.

Johnson also favors a slew of other reform measures that generally favor 
sentencing reform, so-called "harm reduction" efforts, treatment and 
prevention.

Wilson, on the other hand, supports a three-pronged approach that focuses 
on interdiction and reducing drug supplies in other countries; strong 
enforcement, including tough sentences for drug traffickers; and prevention 
and treatment programs to help reduce demand for drugs in the United States.

That strategy is more in line with the official national drug-fighting 
agenda that Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the outgoing White House drug czar, has 
championed.

Coincidentally, McCaffrey, who has been hostile to Johnson's suggestions to 
change drug policies, held a news conference earlier this month on the same 
day Johnson unveiled his legislative approach to reform.

McCaffrey made a passing reference during his speech to drug reformers, 
like Johnson, who, he said, preach "nonsense." McCaffrey said claims that 
millions of people are arrested and incarcerated for simple possession of 
drugs are exaggerations.

McCaffrey said that during his tenure as director of the Office of National 
Drug Control Policy, he fought for several new alternatives to incarceration.

Of course, McCaffrey has never argued strongly for the kind of alternatives 
- -- expanding needle-exchange programs and ending enhanced sentencing for 
drug-related crimes -- that Johnson is advocating.

Obviously, there is a gulf between Johnson's reform ideas and the national 
drug strategy, espoused by McCaffrey and Wilson, that goes beyond the 
legalization debate.

Another telltale sign of that gulf is the dueling conclusions about how 
well, or how poorly, the nation's so-called "war on drugs" has fared.

McCaffrey said he thinks strides are being made, and he provided a new set 
of statistics that he said shows a reversal of adolescent drug use.

Wilson said she tends to put stock in national data on drug use, although 
it is usually dated.

Johnson believes the opposite. He is convinced the war on drugs is a 
"miserable failure."

And according to the Governor's Drug Policy Advisory Group, which 
recommended the reform package to Johnson, much of the information that 
guides the federal government's drug policies is false.

That group's chairman, retired state District Judge Woody Smith, wrote in a 
letter to Johnson: "We believe that it is our ethical imperative to reject 
false data and misleading information no matter what the source, and to 
increase the availability of accurate and meaningful information to all New 
Mexicans and policy-makers."
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