Pubdate: Fri, 03 Nov 2000
Source: Record, The (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Record
Contact:  P.O. Box 900, Stockton, CA 95201
Fax: (209) 547-8186
Website: http://www.recordnet.com/
Author: Michael Fitzgerald,  For Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act items: 
http://www.mapinc.org/prop36.htm

PROP. 36 HELPS CHANGE DUMB DRUG POLICIES

Just as swallows annually flit home to San Juan Capistrano, and Mr. Jack 
Frost comes a-nippin' during fall, I practically froth at the mouth every 
year during Red Ribbon Week.

This year, though, I did not burst into my annual rant about the failed and 
illiberal War on Drugs. This year we have Proposition 36. Wise Prop. 36 -- 
treatment not jail for minor, first-time drug offenders -- has been my 
calming Prozac.

It's likely victory (a recent L.A. Times poll shows 58 percent of 
Californians supporting it, 28 percent no, the rest undecided) means we can 
look forward to at least one drug policy that actually works. A drug policy 
that does not hemorrhage tax money, expand the ominous California gulag or 
apply the state jackboot to our sacred civil liberties.

No thanks to government, of course. No, the grim generals are busy plotting 
to invade Colombia, while the increasingly tyrannical feds fight the killer 
bunny of voter-approved medical marijuana in the courts.

Yet change is coming. Finally.

Spine grower

Arizonans passed a version of Proposition 36 in 1996; preliminary studies 
say more than half the druggies who complete treatment stay drug-free.

Because treatment works, Proposition 36 may rehabilitate not only 
California's druggies but its spineless politicians. They know the war on 
drugs has failed. They merely consider saying so a political taboo.

When they see that voters support smart alternative drug policies, they no 
longer will need to ape the call for tougher laws, tougher punishments, no 
matter what the cost.

Proposition 36 is part of something bigger: a national campaign to undo the 
worst excesses of the War on Drugs. A measure similar to 36 is on the 
Massachusetts ballot. Measures in Oregon and Utah seek to overhaul the 
unAmerican asset-seizure laws.

Under these illiberal laws, police can seize your money, home and other 
assets because they suspect you're a drug crook. You, poor sap, are guilty 
until proven innocent.

The Oregon law restores due process, requiring conviction before asset 
forfeiture. In Utah, the proposed law will give seized assets to schools, 
not police.

Those funny feds

Sanity, at last. Naturally the feds will fight it.

Loopy from squandering $19.2 billion a year on its stunningly ineffective 
drug war, the federal government is fighting California's 1996 decision to 
give suffering patients needed marijuana all the way to the Supreme Court. 
If they're going to the wall to stop AIDS sufferers from eating marijuana 
brownies, God help Colombia.

Yet this appallingly anti-democratic campaign has a silver lining. When the 
feds threatened California's doctors over medical marijuana, doctors fought 
back, winning the right to recommend marijuana to needy patients. 
Consequently, so did doctors in all states. Rulings in federal court become 
the law of the land.

So those honest enough to admit the need for change in the War on Drugs 
need not schlepp to every state to drive a stake through bad drug policy. 
And columnists in all 50 states need not degenerate into bitter harangues 
every Red Ribbon Week as I do. A few Proposition 36s here and there and we 
might just turn this crazy thing around.

Fitzgerald's column runs Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Mail: P.O. Box 900, 
Stockton, CA 95201. Phone: 546-8270. Fax: 547-8186. E-mail:  ---
MAP posted-by: Jo-D