THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 3, 1994 TAG: 9408030003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
America has an illegal drug problem and politicians are endlessly seeking to trump one another in showing how ``tough'' they can be on the problem. The latest manifestation of this tendency is Republican U.S. Senate candidate Oliver North's proposal for cracking down on drug users.
``There's no stigma attached to the use of drugs,'' he told a Matthews County audience the other day. ``There needs to be. I'm not talking about just inner-city folks. I'm talking about white yuppies that live in the suburbs'' - people, he said, who drive ``the Porsches and Audis, the BMWs, Mercedeses and Cadillacs that are buying that stuff.'' North reasoned: ``If (the yuppies) had to forfeit their car and put a $100,000 to $200,000 bond up - maybe mortgage their luxurious house in the suburbs for that recreational buy when they get caught - things would turn around rapidly.''
But drug use is stigmatized. Schools drum anti-drug messages into the young. Public-service announcements on television and radio transmit the same message. So do many billboards. Employers test new hires for drugs. The armed forces do not tolerate drug use.
Yes, millions of Americans are illicit-drug users. But they constitute a minority. What size minority is impossible to know for sure, just as there's no knowing how many tons of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other outlawed mind-altering substances are traded in the flourishing underworld drug market. Studies by the University of Michigan and elsewhere, however, have shown that recreational drug use among middle-class ``yuppie'' types has been declining in recent years as health-consciousness has taken hold.
Drug abuse does indeed impose burdens on health, welfare and public-safety institutions. The direct cost of arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating drug-law violators now exceeds $20 billion a year. The prison population already contains a very high percentage of inmates arrested for drug or drug-related offenses.
Getting tough on users is not exactly a new idea. In the early days of the modern drug war, in the 1960s, users were imprisoned at a very high rate. In the mid-1980s, the Reagan Justice Department announced a ``zero-tolerance'' policy that resulted in widespread confiscation of property. The most notable seizure was the Monkey Business, the yacht on which former presidential candidate Gary Hart ran into trouble because the remains of a marijuana cigarette were found under a seat cushion.
Such campaigns have petered out, however, because Americans have generally shown themselves unwilling to impose Draconian penalties on people who are basically law-abiding citizens. Police are already overburdened chasing the real evildoers.
It's time to take a fresh look at the whole strategy of fighting drugs. Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, a former prosecutor, has urged studying the legalization of some drugs as a way of removing the black market that breeds violence. A blue-ribbon national commission should look at the drug scene afresh and recommend policies designed to diminish drugs' damage to individuals and society. Cracking down on drug users would not ``turn things around.'' It would likely only add to the immense damage already done. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MR. NORTH
by CNB