Pubdate: Mon, 04 Dec 2000
Source: Bergen Record (NJ)
Copyright: 2000 Bergen Record Corp.
Contact:  http://www.bergen.com/cgi-bin/feedback
Website: http://www.bergen.com/
Author: Ethan A. Nadelmann
Note: Ethan A. Nadelmann is executive director of the Lindesmith 
Center-Drug Policy Foundation (http://www.drugpolicy.org), a drug policy 
reform organization. This appeared in the Los Angeles Times 
(http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1755/a10.html).

ADVOCATES OF DRUG POLICY REFORM SCORE VICTORIES

ELECTION DAY 2000 was a big day for drug policy reform.

In California, voters overwhelmingly endorsed Proposition 36, the 
"treatment instead of incarceration" ballot initiative that should result 
in tens of thousands of non-violent drug-possession offenders being 
diverted from jail and prison into programs that may help them get their 
lives together. The new law may do more to reverse the unnecessary 
incarceration of non-violent citizens than any other law enacted anywhere 
in the country in decades.

It wasn't just California that opted for drug reform. Voters in Nevada and 
Colorado approved medical-marijuana ballot initiatives, following in the 
footsteps of California, Oregon, Alaska, Washington state, Maine, and 
Washington, D.C. In Oregon and Utah, voters overwhelmingly approved ballot 
initiatives requiring police and prosecutors to meet a reasonable burden of 
proof before seizing money and other property from people they suspect of 
criminal activity -- and also mandating that the proceeds of legal 
forfeitures be handed over not to the police and prosecuting agencies that 
had seized the property but rather to funds for public education or drug 
treatment.

These were not the only victories for drug policy reform at the ballot in 
recent years. California's Proposition 36 was modeled in part on Arizona's 
Proposition 200. In Oregon, the first of 11 states to decriminalize 
marijuana during the 1970s, voters in 1998 rejected an effort by the state 
Legislature to recriminalize marijuana. And in Mendocino County, Calif., 
voters this year approved a local initiative to decriminalize personal 
cultivation of modest amounts of marijuana.

Clearly, more and more citizens realize that the drug war has failed and 
are looking for new approaches. The votes also suggest that there are 
limits to what people will accept in the name of the war on drugs. Parents 
don't want their teenagers to use marijuana, but they also want sick people 
who could benefit from marijuana to have it. People don't want drug dealers 
profiting from their illicit activities, but neither do they want police 
empowered to take what they want from anyone they merely suspect of 
criminal activity. Americans don't approve of people using heroin or 
cocaine, but neither do they want them locked up without first offering 
them opportunities to get their lives together outside prison walls.

So what do drug policy reformers do next? In the case of medical marijuana, 
three things: enact medical marijuana laws in other states through the 
legislative process; work to ensure that medical marijuana laws are 
effectively implemented, and try to induce the federal government to stop 
undermining good-faith efforts by state officials to establish regulated 
distribution systems.

The strategy post-Proposition 36 is somewhat similar. The struggle over 
implementation of the initiative in California has already begun, with many 
of its opponents trying either to grab their share of the pie or to tie the 
process up in knots. Powerful vested interests in the criminal justice 
business, accustomed to getting their way, did not look kindly on the 
challenges the proposition posed to the status quo.

If California's new law is implemented in good faith, with minimal 
corruption of its intentions, the benefits could be extraordinary, saving 
taxpayers up to $1.5 billion in prison costs over the next five years while 
making good drug treatment available to hundreds of thousands.

Proposition 36 also provides a model -- both for initiatives in other 
states where public opinion favors reform but the legislature or the 
governor are unable or unwilling to comply, and in states such as New York, 
where no ballot initiative process exists to repeal draconian and archaic laws.

The initiative victories demonstrated once again that the public is ahead 
of the politicians when it comes to embracing pragmatic drug policy 
reforms. Yet there was also growing evidence this year that even some 
politicians are beginning to get it.

Three states -- North Dakota, Minnesota, and Hawaii -- legalized the 
cultivation of hemp (to the extent permitted by federal law). Hawaii 
enacted a medical marijuana law this year, with the support of Gov. Ben 
Cayetano. And, most significant in terms of potential lives saved, three 
states -- New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island -- each enacted laws 
making it easier to purchase sterile syringes in pharmacies.

New Mexico doesn't have the initiative process, but it does have a 
Republican governor, Gary Johnson, committed to far-reaching drug policy 
reform. Many state Democratic leaders are critical of the war on drugs but 
wary of the governor. The question is whether bipartisan support for 
sensible drug reforms can transcend generic partisan hostilities. The drug 
policy reformers' job is to help make that happen.

Perhaps it's too early to claim that all this adds up to a national vote of 
no confidence in the war on drugs. But the pendulum does seem to be 
reversing direction. Call it a new anti-war movement. Call it a nascent 
movement for political and social justice.

Or simply call it a rising chorus of dissent from the war on drugs. The 
election results have made it clear that drug policy reform is gaining 
momentum -- in California and across the country.

Ethan A. Nadelmann is executive director of the Lindesmith Center-Drug 
Policy Foundation (www.drugpolicy.org), a drug policy reform organization. 
This appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
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