Drug Policy

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.-- Gary Johnson used marijuana and cocaine in his younger days. Now Johnson, 46, shuns illegal drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, Coca-Cola -- even candy bars.Not that unusual a transformation for a man who came of age in 1960s America.Today, he advocates decriminalizing marijuana, cocaine and heroin, arguing that the government should spend its financial resources elsewhere.Again, not that unusual a stance -- unless you know that Johnson is a Republican, the governor of New Mexico and the highest-ranking elected official in the United States to advocate legalization.

ANYONE WHO suffers from chronic asthma knows just how frightening a sudden attack can be. As the airways close, breathing becomes difficult.The experience is akin to drowning.Last month, a Carroll County sixth-grader refused to stand idly by as a fellow student began gasping for breath on the bus ride home.Both students had been diagnosed with asthma, but only one was carrying an inhaler and she understandably rushed to share it.Heroine's reflexive actLittle did this heroine realize that her reflexive act of kindness would ignite a health policy controversy.

Journalist Michael Massing has devoted a decade to investigating America's war on drugs. He has talked with peasants in remote coca-growing regions of Colombia. He has combed through dusty boxes of federal archives. He has documented the heroic struggle of treatment workers at a drop-in center in Spanish Harlem. He has watched a heroin addict shoot up in a New York City tenement.And this is his conclusion:Richard Nixon was right.Now there's a sentence you don't see every day. But Massing argues in "The Fix," his fascinating and unforgiving account of U.S. drug policy, that the Nixon administration's approach in the early 1970s resulted in less crime, fewer overdose deaths and fewer drug-related visits to hospital emergency rooms.

The county police chief's "zero tolerance" drug policy has brought dramatic increases in drug arrests and property seizures since it began in February, but it also has raised concerns that civil rights will be trampled in a rush to put drug users in jail.The decree to seize cars and money in even the weakest drug cases is "not a well-thought-out policy," said Peter O'Neil, a Glen Burnie defense lawyer. "They seize first and figure out later."But Anne Arundel County Police Chief Larry W. Tolliver said he has the support of the community.

Doug Allen doesn't view the National Football League's drug policy as a deterrent so much as a conscience for its potential offenders."I think it's intended to be something that reminds the people who need to be reminded that they have a responsibility to themselves, their teammates and their sport," said Allen, the assistant executive director of the the NFL Players Association. "But like any business, people do make mistakes."The mistake Bam Morris made -- testing positive for alcohol earlier this year -- cost the Ravens' running back a suspension for the team's first four games this season and a quarter of his reported $1 million salary.

IT'S HARD TO BE optimistic about President Clinton's efforts to reduce the hard-core drug addictions that have turned some of America's poor communities into reincarnations of the Wild West. Shoot-outs are common and people take it for granted that even the law is susceptible to the financial temptations of so profitable an industry. Less noticeable is what drugs are also doing in more affluent neighborhoods, sapping the goodness out of young lives, marriages and careers.There was much optimism three years ago when Mr. Clinton appointed a veteran law enforcement officer, Lee P. Brown, who had headed the Atlanta, Houston and New York police departments to be the nation's drug policy director.

WITH THE RELEASE of new figures indicating that 23 percent of youngsters between the ages of 13 and 14 use marijuana, a jump from 19.9 percent a year ago, the federal government is stepping up its assault on new California and Arizona referendums approving the "medicalization" of pot. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the federal drug "czar," calls these state actions "outrageous" and an invitation to the "legalization" of drugs that has brought misery to European nations.This...

WASHINGTON -- In the face of reports of rising drug use by youths and the violence associated with it, the Clinton administration is moving to take a visible role with a White House-sponsored conference today on the problem.In the first such meeting during his administration, President Clinton has called together nearly 300 people, including top administration officials, researchers, law enforcement officials and young people, for a daylong meeting on drug abuse and violence among adolescents.

LOS ANGELES -- The Clinton administration has condemned it as a cynical hoax. Bob Dole has denounced it as dangerous. And in a letter released yesterday, former Presidents George Bush, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter call it a threat to the public health of "all Americans."But in the battle over Proposition 215, the California initiative that would legalize the medical use of marijuana for sufferers of AIDS, cancer and other diseases, polls show voters leaning away from politicians' dire warnings and toward the likes of Anna Boyce, a 67-year-old nurse shown in television ads that began appearing this week.

Americans made history on Nov. 5, 1996, by voting to pass two state ballot initiatives legalizing the medical use of marijuana. Those votes constituted the first major reassessment of the war on drugs since the repeal of Prohibition more than 60 years ago.Given the recent reports about rising marijuana use, and the concerted efforts to defeat the California and Arizona initiatives, how can it be that millions of citizens in each state approved these medicalization...

The week before the legislative session ended, Maryland's General Assembly hosted Michael Phelps to recognize his achievements at the Beijing Olympics. Just two months after critics claimed his career and reputation would never recover from the infamous photo of him apparently smoking marijuana that circulated the Internet, state senators and delegates honored him with a standing ovation. The incident underscores what some recognize as a shift away from the disproportionately "tough on crime" attitude for which Maryland legislators have been known.

Costly drug war only fuels crime Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market for drugs ("Legalizing drugs: The money argument," Dec. 2). Illegal drug dealers don't ID young drug purchasers for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences into the drug trade. Throwing more money into the war on drugs is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking.

Roger Clemens is expected to meet one-on-one with Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, today at 10:30 a.m. to discuss performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens apparently contacted some members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and offered to meet with them privately, a spokeswoman for Cummings said. Cummings, who is co-founder and chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Drug Policy, accepted the offer. He hopes to speak to Clemens about the effect performance-enhancing-drug use in baseball has on youth and to discuss the Maryland-based, anti-steroid initiative "Powered By ME!"

Two years ago, my 23-year-old brother became addicted to painkillers after breaking his leg and undergoing several operations to repair it. Last year, while he was checking into rehab for abusing OxyContin, I was drafting a chapter in my new book calling for drug legalization. It was a difficult moment to believe in individual liberty: I felt firsthand the effects of what it's like when people make bad decisions. I saw how hard my brother struggled to get clean, first moving forward and then backsliding again into substance abuse.

NFL players will face random testing and stiffer penalties for amphetamine use as the result of a change in league policy that now places the drug in the category of performance-enhancers, such as steroids. Previously, the NFL categorized amphetamines as a "substance-abuse drug." Drugs in that group pose personal medical concerns, a league spokesman said, but are usually not considered substances that can give a player an edge on the field. Use of drugs on the performance-enhancer list is scrutinized more closely with league-wide random testing and punishment is swifter.

WITH LABOR DAY over, a crop of political hopefuls is ready to plunge into the race for U.S. Senate in Maryland. Kevin B. Zeese, a political activist from Montgomery County, is seeking the nominations of three minor parties in Maryland. By unifying supporters of the Green, Populist and Libertarian parties, he hopes to provide an alternative to whomever emerges as Democratic and Republican nominees. "The two major parties are bought by corporate interests," said Zeese, 49, who was press secretary to Ralph Nader during the 2004 presidential election.

When Kelly Lynn Cruz gave birth in January, doctors found cocaine in her system and in the blood of her baby boy. Seven months later she is in prison, serving 2 1/2 years for reckless endangerment of her child because of the drugs she took before he was born. Social workers routinely get involved when babies are born with drugs in their systems, but Cruz had her baby in Talbot County. Legal observers say that appears to be the only place in Maryland - and one of just a few nationwide - where police and prosecutors send the mothers to prison.

Thank you very much for joining me on this call today. I am saddened that we are here to address this issue, but because of the importance of it, I feel the need to make a brief statement and address your questions. At the outset, let me say that under the rules of the basic agreement and the order of the independent arbitrator, there is an order of confidentiality governing the specifics of this case. I will attempt to state as much as I can and be as forthright as possible, but there will be issues I can't address based on orders imposed on me by the basic agreement and the arbitration process.

WASHINGTON - Amid the policy-makers and legal professionals who devise the tactics of the nation's "war on drugs," Tara Andrews thinks one voice hasn't been heard. African-Americans as a group have been silent for too long, said Andrews, director of the Maryland Justice Coalition, a Baltimore organization pushing the state to give nonviolent drug offenders treatment instead of jail time. Yesterday, representatives of 15 black professional organizations that formed the National African American Drug Policy Coalition in the fall met to devise a strategy for changing drug laws they say unfairly punish African-Americans.

CHICAGO - For some time, critics have been saying that the war hasn't been going well, has forced us to overextend ourselves and is gobbling up far too many tax dollars. But many of them were skeptical about this effort from the start. The surprise is that President Bush now seems to be moving their way on the war. Not the war in Iraq - the war on drugs. Early on, the Bush administration took a consistently hard line against recreational substances and those who use them - vigorously opposing state medical marijuana initiatives, objecting when Canada considered decriminalizing marijuana and accusing potheads of subsidizing terrorism.