Pubdate: Thu, 17 May 2001
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2001 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198

ENDLESS WAR: MIDDLE GROUND BETWEEN DRUG LEGALIZATION AND PRISON

The recent movie Traffic was total fiction, but its themes were rooted in 
reality: The endless war on drugs takes a tremendous toll on American lives 
and treasure, not to mention the tragedy taking place in Latin America, and 
compassion and treatment often are more soothing balms for those in the 
throes of addiction than prosecution and imprisonment.

President Bush acknowledged as much in a speech last week in the White 
House Rose Garden, saying that the best way to reduce the supply of drugs 
in the United States was to reduce this country's demand for those drugs. 
He announced that his administration would seek to direct more money to 
drug treatment, prevention and education.

At the same time, however, the president appointed John Walters to head the 
White House office of drug control policy. Walters, a veteran of the 
anti-drug effort in the first Bush White House, is a staunch advocate of 
jail time for drug users and calls harsh sentences for drug users an "urban 
myth."

The disjunction between President Bush's announced policies and the views 
of his appointee will not long survive. Either Walters will work to put the 
president's stated ideas into effect, or Bush will learn to see things 
Walters' way.

Whatever policies the administration pursues, they should not be blind to 
these inarguable truths:

If the United States cannot keep drugs out of its prisons, it has little 
hope of keeping drugs from crossing its porous borders.

The dangerous drugs growing most swiftly in popularity -- Ecstasy and 
amphetamines -- are produced domestically.

Polls indicate that U.S. drug use dropped during the administration of 
Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush, but actual, enumerated violent 
crimes associated with drugs -- armed robberies, muggings and homicides -- 
grew during that period and plunged during the Clinton years, when federal 
resources and treatment were focused upon hard-core addicts. A reasonable 
conclusion is that the societal plagues of drug addiction and crime obey 
cycles of their own and do not respond readily to changes in White House 
policy.

Even before the first screening of Traffic, many jurists, social workers, 
doctors and other Americans had reached the conclusion that there must be 
better ways to combat drug addiction, and that a useful middle ground must 
exist between legalization and zero tolerance.

Both President Bush and his newly appointed drug czar say they have faith 
in the ability of religious organizations to treat society's ailments. In 
at least one sense the war on drugs resembles the church's war on sin:

Final victory can never be won, but the aim of the exercise is to redeem 
the sinners, not to destroy their lives.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager