Source:   Los Angeles Times
Contact:    Sun, 31 Aug 1997

A Tale of Two Wars 

By ROBERT A. JONES
Los Angeles Times 

 We don't have a drug war in America. We have drug wars. One war gets
waged against kids and street creeps. It's a tough war. You don't
want to get caught in that one. An entirely different war gets fought
against malefactors who happen to be ballplayers, politicians or
anyone whose face appears on TV. This is a softy war, a pretend war.
Lately, Southern California has produced wonderful examples of these
different wars playing themselves out. First and foremost, of course,
is the case of City Councilman Mike Hernandez. We got to watch on TV
as Hernandez toted his baggie across an apartment parking lot, then
climbed into his citypurchased car, where the cops say he engaged in
a curious sniffing behavior. This ritual continued for weeks, the
cops say. So what are the consequences for Hernandez? First he gets
showered with lovenot even tough love!from his fellow council
members, none of whom raise the question of whether Hernandez is fit
for office. Jackie Goldberg calls his problem an "illness" and takes
the occasion to scold "American society" about its failure to "grow
up" on the drug issue. When it turns out that Hernandez could,
indeed, be forced from office by a rule that requires leavetaking of
anyone convicted of a felony, the appropriate loophole is found.
Hernandez can't be "convicted" if he pleads guilty to the felony,
see? Everyone seems delighted with this moral wiggle and assumes
Hernandez will employ it successfully as soon as he emerges from rehab.

 I could also recap the recent saga of Tony Phillips, leadoff hitter
for the Angels, but you already know it. The same kind of bust,
pretty much, and the same kind of outcome. Phillips continues to
play. Let's switch now to the other war. Down in Costa Mesa,
16yearold Maureen Flynn was president of her class at Estancia High
School. Then she drank a beer after a varsity soccer match. The
soccer match took place in the summer when school was out. Didn't
matter. Flynn and seven other girls were tossed out of school.
Estancia's a zerotolerance school. No arguments, no appeal. So
crushing was the expulsion that one family packed up and moved to
Arkansas. All because of a beer. Not that you can escape this version
of the drug war in Arkansas or anywhere else. My favorite story of
the crushtheyoungandpowerless variety comes from Portland, Ore.,
where 13yearold Adam McMakin headed for his school locker to wash
his mouth with Scope. "Lunch kind of tasted bad," he said. Sounds
just like the school lunches I used to eat. Anyway, he needed a rinse
with Scope. How many of you know that Scope contains some alcohol?
Neither did Adam. Pity. He was tossed. The consequences of the two
wars show up in other ways too. No one even pretends, for example,
that Hernandez or Phillips will do jail time if convicted. After all,
they are first offenders. Switch now to Todd McCormick, the
27yearold cancer victim who was growing a nursery of marijuana
plants at his rented house in BelAir. McCormick says he believed
that the California marijuana initiative protected him from
prosecution. Whether he was right or not, we'll never know because
McCormicka firsttime offender like Hernandez and Phillipswas
turned over to the feds for prosecution rather than to the state. And
what is the punishment if he is convicted in federal court? A
mandatory 10 years. What's happening here, I think, is a splitting
that stems from our utter confusion over drugs in the 1990s. We know
our drug war strategy, after 30 years of battle, has failed. But we
don't know what will succeed. So we wash back and forth between the
extremes. We get tough, then we go easy. We go after supply, then we
go after demand. We blame the user, we blame his mother; we blame the
Colombians, we blame the Mexicans; we blame TV; we blame the press;
we blame the President, all in order. And in the confusion, we let
some off easy, and we squash others like a bug. A baseball star has a
lot of power in our culture. So does anyone who's been elected to
office by the people. They will be blessed in their infractions. But
God help anyone who's 16 years old and makes a single mistake in the
wrong place, at the wrong time. No Jackie Goldbergs will appear to
excuse your error. No baseball arbitrator will declare that, by prior
agreement, you will be cut some slack. You will get zero slack. You
may even get slapped into a room where you watch TV through the bars.
But don't despair. Maybe the TV will have an Angels game on. Catch
the fever.