Pubdate: Sun, 26 Aug 2001
Source: Sun News (SC)
Copyright: 2001 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://web.thesunnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Author: David S. Broder

WAR ON DRUGS IS IN NEED OF NEW STRATEGY

The high esteem in which former Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas is held by 
his colleagues was demonstrated by the 98-1 Senate vote confirming him last 
month as the new director of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In his 4 years in the House, Hutchinson, a former U.S. attorney, earned an 
estimable reputation as a thoughtful conservative and a fair-minded advocate.

Hutchinson will need all his skills in his new job, for the nation is 
clearly about to embark on a long-overdue debate on the so-called "war on 
drugs." The DEA is, as the name implies, primarily a law- enforcement 
agency, but John Walters, Bush's choice to head the White House Office of 
National Drug Control Policy, has been in limbo, awaiting a confirmation 
hearing since May. Many of the same Democrats who welcomed Hutchinson's 
nomination have argued that Walters' hard- line approach, emphasizing 
interdiction and incarceration over education and treatment, makes him the 
wrong choice for "drug czar." At least until Walters' fate is resolved, 
Hutchinson is in the hot seat on Bush administration policy toward drugs.

During the past three decades, the United States has invested billions in 
fighting the scourge of drugs, and more and more serious people are 
questioning its effectiveness.

A Pew Research Center survey in February found that three out of four 
Americans believe "we are losing the drug war," and by a margin of 52 
percent to 35 percent they said drug use "should be treated as a disease, 
not a crime."

Hutchinson was dodgy in his confirmation hearing on the question of sending 
federal agents out to arrest doctors who prescribe marijuana as a pain- and 
nausea-relieving agent for cancer patients and other seriously ill people, 
as eight states now allow. The Supreme Court held earlier this year that 
the feds have that authority. When Hutchinson was asked if he would use it, 
he said it was something on which he needed to confer with the attorney 
general.

But Hutchinson also applauded a bipartisan bill, crafted by Leahy and the 
Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, to 
expand funding of drug treatment programs, especially for prisoners and youths.

Hutchinson took over his DEA duties last week at the same time the 
Department of Justice bragged that more people than ever are in federal 
prison on drug charges and are serving longer sentences. That report showed 
there were more suspects arrested in 1999 on charges involving marijuana 
than for powder or crack cocaine. A higher portion of the marijuana 
suspects who wound up in federal prison were simply users than was the case 
with any of the hard drugs.

No one seems to know how many people are in state prisons for simple 
possession of marijuana.

But in 1998, those prisons held 236,800 people convicted on drug charges 57 
percent more than had been there in 1990.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University 
estimated in 1998 that 70 percent to 85 percent of all state prison inmates 
not just those convicted on drug charges need treatment, but only 13 
percent of them get it.

The whole "war on drugs" cries out for re-examination.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart