Pubdate: September 1, 1997 Source: New York Times Contact: CHRISTOPHER S. WREN New Voice in Drug Debate Seeks to Lower Volume When Robert MacCoun, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley, set out to analyze American perceptions about illegal drug use, he found himself treading a political minefield. "I was stunned at how emotional the debate is," MacCoun said. "The emotions are very understandable drugs can cause a lot of serious harm to society. But I think the emotions have made it hard to talk about solutions in an effective way." Now a group of 34 scientists, drugpolicy experts and public officials, MacCoun among them, is moving to stake out the middle ground in the drug debate by asserting that while drugs should not be made legal, the policies adopted to prevent their use have sometimes done more harm than good. The polarized words of the debate have upset drug researchers and policy experts who find themselves caught in a crossfire between those who say the war against drugs has failed and should be abandoned in favor of more liberal policies and those who believe that reconsideration of existing policies is tantamount to a sellout. "It's impossible to talk about any other alternatives without one side accusing you of being a traitor and having a hidden agenda," MacCoun said. The polarization has been illustrated by the refusal of Sen. Jesse Helms to let the Foreign Relations Committee that he leads consider the nomination of William Weld as U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Helms, RN.C., accuses Weld, the former Massachusetts governor, of being soft on drugs because he favors making medicinal marijuana available for seriously ill people. In fact, Weld, as a federal prosecutor, put drug traffickers behind bars. The 34 professionals advocating a new look at drug policy plan to announce 14 "principles for practical drug policies" at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday. Their move constitutes the first attempt in years to bring pragmatism as well as civility to what has degenerated into a shouting match. "It's being done to make clear to people that the argument between the legalizers and the drug warriors isn't where the action is, if what you're really trying to do is reduce the damage that drugs do to American society," said Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Los Angeles. "What we'd like to do is make it politically safe to say something sensible about drug policy." Though the people who have signed the statement are generally known for their work on issues like drug addiction, most have not publicly spoken out about drug policy before. To avoid partisanship, none of the prominent personalities on either side of the drug debate were invited to sign the declaration, which also avoids much of the language of the current heated debate. For example, it speaks of reducing the damage of drugs to society rather than "harm reduction," a phrase that connotes cutting down on the harm addicts do to themselves. The signers said: "The current drugpolicy debate is marked by polarization into two positions stereotyped as 'drug warrior' and 'legalizer.' This creates the false impression that 'ending prohibition' is the only alternative to an unrestricted 'war on drugs,' effectively disenfranchising citizens who find both of those options unsatisfactory." In such a climate, the statement continued, "every idea, research finding or proposal put forth is scrutinized to determine which agenda it advances, and the partisans on each side are quick to brand anyone who deviates from their 'party line' as an agent of the opposing side." The signers included the former New York City police commissioner, William Bratton; Detroit's prosecuting attorney, John O'Hair; criminaljustice experts like John Dilulio Jr. of Princeton, and Francis Hartmann, Mark Moore and David McLean Kennedy of Harvard, and economists like Glenn Loury of Boston University and Philip Jackson Cook of Duke. The signers known for their scientific research into drugs included Avram Goldstein of Stanford, George Vaillant of Harvard, George Bigelow and Solomon Snyder of Johns Hopkins, Lewis Seiden of the University of Chicago and Marian Fischman of Columbia. "I oftentimes think that elected officials never hear from those of us who espouse moderate principles," said one of the document's signers, Charles Schuster, a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. "It's very important to have spokespeople for the moderate positions," said Schuster, who directs clinical research on drug abuse at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. "All they're hearing from are the two other extremes." Several of the signers said that they had begun drafting the principles after voters in California and Arizona approved the ballot initiatives endorsing marijuana for medical purposes last November. Those referendums triggered heated exchanges between government officials and supporters of more liberal availability of marijuana. Jonathan Caulkins, a drugpolicy analyst at CarnegieMellon University, said he signed the statement because he favored a "smarter prohibition" of illegal drugs. His recent analysis of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, published by Rand Corp., concluded that tax money would be more effectively spent on treating minor offenders for drug abuse than on locking them up for long periods. "One of my frustrations is that the druglegalization groups are intellectually irresponsible in a lot of their thinking, except they raise valid criticisms of the current regime," Caulkins said. "And the current regime is intolerant of criticism. It feels that even constructive criticism is an act of treason." The signers said: "We cannot escape our current predicament by 'ending prohibition' or 'legalizing drugs."' Lifting controls, they contended, could increase drug use. But they said that law enforcement and punishment should be designed to minimize overall damage. "The use of disproportionate punishments to express social norms is neither just nor a prudent use of public funds or scarce prison capacity," they said. Other principles make these points: Policies to curtail drugs should be judged by the results they produce, and not by their intentions. Social disapproval, while a powerful, economical means of reducing drug use, should not breed indiscriminate hostility toward drug users. But people who violate the rights of others while under the influence of drugs or while trying to obtain them should be held responsible. Policies should be tailored for different drugs, because every drug carries its own risks and has its own patterns of use. Treatment that reduces drug use but fails to produce lasting abstinence should be considered an incomplete success, not a failure. Drugprevention messages should reflect accurately what is known about specific drugs. Several signers expressed hope that their statement would provide a cover for politicians who have been reluctant to discuss the nation's drug problem more openly for fear of sounding soft on drugs. "A lot of politicians have avoided talking about drug policy because there is no articulated middle ground, so they just stay silent on the issue," MacCoun said. "We want to make clear to them that there's a whole palette of choices, and any criticism of the status quo doesn't have to imply endorsement of drug use." Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company