War On Drugs

Election Board hasn't protected the state's voters In a real democracy, the administration of the election system should be so transparent and open to public scrutiny that no advantage could result from its control by one political party or another. However, if the election system is like the one in Maryland, and does not allow citizens to verify the accuracy of their recorded votes or allow for a recount or audit of the machine tallies, maybe there is a distinct advantage to exerting political control over the elections bureaucracy.

U.S. ATTORNEY Thomas M. DiBiagio recently announced the indictment of seven members of the North Avenue Boys. He said the bad guys are "finished." That's great. They should be in jail. But it won't help the community. Other drug dealers have already taken their place. North Avenue is no better off. Three years ago, I was a police officer at the scene on East North Avenue when 12 people were shot at an "RIP party" for a North Avenue Boys drug dealer who had himself been murdered. I saw the blood mixed with spaghetti.

A LITTLE news for the many Jamal Lewis fans -- of whom I am one -- who think the Baltimore Ravens' great running back is a victim of an overzealous federal prosecutor reaching too far to make a case out of the word "Yeah," uttered during a cellular telephone call four years ago: We're still at war. In case you missed it, the U.S. government has been engaged in a war on drugs since Jamal Lewis was a toddler. Ronald Reagan declared the war in 1982, and Poppy Bush escalated it in 1989. Congress has increased the legal weaponry of federal agencies and prosecutors, and forced mandatory minimum sentencing on judges.

CHAPARE, Bolivia - For more than a month, about 200 Bolivian soldiers have been living in Victor Franco's back yard. The soldiers, trained and financed by the United States to eradicate coca in this jungle basin, arrived in helicopters, setting up camp a stone's throw from Franco's house, a dirt-floored structure made of unevenly cut wooden planks and a rusted sheet metal roof. They pitched tents on his small yucca plantation, and chopped down his pineapple plants and mandarin tree to clear a helicopter landing pad. At first they left Franco's coca plants alone, instead eradicating the crops of other families in the area.

From dawn until dark, Kim Fuller paced the streets around Milton Avenue and Chase Street in East Baltimore, an emaciated, 5-foot-4- inch, 100-pound woman in a black baseball cap, selling about $100 of crack cocaine a day to support the habit that had taken her job and children. "My customers knew my face, and I would let them know, `Girl, I've got this stuff, and it's so good, it's bombin'," recalled Fuller, 39, a former Johns Hopkins Hospital billing clerk. "It's a competitive business."

WITH FLASHING hands and furtive glances, the young men who congregated recently near the Pennsylvania Avenue post office branch proved a point about the resilience of Baltimore's drug problem. Calling out to passers-by with the slang names for heroin and cocaine, the dealers overran sidewalks near the post office and other merchants, defying city police to distinguish them from midday shoppers. Police believe a successful assault on drug trafficking a few blocks away forced the dealers to new ground.

MARYLAND HAS a chance to revisit its drug policies in ways that it hasn't for several decades because of the pledge by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to "work together to get nonviolent drug offenders out of jail and into treatment programs, where they belong." Within days of Mr. Ehrlich's vow in his State of the State address, Democratic Dels. Salima Siler Marriott and Curtis S. Anderson, both of Baltimore City, and Pauline H. Menes of Prince George's County introduced legislation to divert nonviolent offenders into treatment, abolish mandatory sentences and return discretion to judges, and grant drug offenders the same "good time" credits that are given to nonviolent offenders.

Ayinde Jean-Baptiste, who gained notice at age 12 for his speech at the Million Man March in Washington, spoke last night on the continuing legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Anne Arundel County NAACP's 15th annual awards dinner in Linthicum. "Truth isn't always easy or beautiful to hear," Jean-Baptiste told a crowd of about 1,200 before elaborating on continuing problems across the United States and the world. He said King advocated more than just tolerance. In keeping with King's legacy, he encouraged people to think globally, including speaking out for the rights of Palestinians and urging caution in dealing with Iraq.