NO LIGHT AT THE END OF DRUG-WAR TUNNEL

The theme of last week's United Nations special session on drugs was
simple: 'A Drug-Free World: We Can Do It." President Clinton
enthusiastically echoed that goal in his address to the meeting. Clearly,
government leaders are not about to let their grandiose plans be inhibited
by petty concerns like cost, practicality or personal liberty. Nothing will
be allowed to stand in the way of the effort to force people to do what
their rulers have decreed is good for them.

The American drug war has been a failure, but that doesn't stop the U.S.
government from pressing other countries to adopt its methods. Clinton
called for greater cooperation among law enforcement agencies, expanded
programs to eradicate fields of marijuana, coca and opium abroad,
additional money for anti-drug propaganda and, of course, more arrests.
"With determined and relentless effort, we can turn this evil tide," he
insisted.

Don't bet on it. Despite huge increases in spending on both law enforcement
and prevention, drug use in the United States has been rising in recent
years, particularly among the teen-agers and young adults who have been
bombarded since birth with the message that drugs are a demonic force.

Foreign governments, at our urging, are burning more drug crops, but the
amount grown still overwhelmingly exceeds the amount destroyed. Every time
soldiers descend on one area, production merely shifts to a different part
of the country - or a different country entirely. If U.S. military and law
enforcement agencies had slowed the flow of drugs into this country, the
shortage would push up prices on the street - but prices have declined.

Meanwhile, non-violent offenders are being incarcerated on a vast scale.
More than half a million people are arrested annually for merely possessing
marijuana, a drug far safer than many legal ones. The number of drug
offenders behind bars has skyrocketed by 700 percent since 1980.

The zealotry of the "zero tolerance" approach allows no compromise with
rationality. The Department of Health and Human Services has long refused
to acknowledge the scientific evidence that allowing addicts access to
clean hypodermic syringes can slow the spread of the AIDS virus - and when
it finally admitted the truth this year, it nonetheless refused to spend a
nickel of federal AIDS prevention funds on this proven strategy. Marijuana
has been shown to have a variety of legitimate medical uses, but the
Clinton administration has done its best to prevent California and Arizona
from allowing the therapeutic use of pot.

If the punitive approach were the answer, we would no longer have a
problem. But the punitive approach, to a large extent, is the problem. Most
of the crime associated with the trade stems not from the physiological
effects of drugs but from the laws against them. This illegality keeps
prices artificially inflated, forces addicts to turn to crime to pay for
their habits and assures the advancement of hard-core criminals willing to
employ violence as a business strategy.

We saw the same problems during Prohibition - and we solved them by
accepting that we would never achieve an alcohol-free society. As a direct
result of the repeal of the Volstead Act, crime plunged, and it stayed down
for decades. But so intense is the paranoia about drugs that the option of
tolerance is treated as unthinkable.

Why is that? We assume that only the threat of severe punishment can deter
people from mass addiction. But forbidden fruit can be alluring simply
because it is forbidden. Alcohol consumption actually rose during
Prohibition.

In recent years, the drugs that have declined in popularity are the ones
that are legal - alcohol and tobacco. Thanks to a growing awareness of the
hazards of drinking and smoking, Americans have become more cautious and
responsible in their conduct. In the Netherlands, where marijuana can be
legally sold and consumed, teenagers are less likely to use pot than
adolescents here. If marijuana were treated the same way here, the likely
result would not be more drug use but a shift in use from cigarettes and
booze to cannabis - a net plus for public health.

But the drug warriors refuse to consider any moderation of their policy.
Like the generals and politicians who got us into Vietnam, they pretend
that if we just redouble our efforts, we can achieve whatever we want. So
Americans should expect to be at this task indefinitely, looking in vain
for that light at the end of the tunnel.