The following appeared on the Commentary page of the Los Angeles Times
Orange County edition. It is not (yet) the editorial opinion of the Times
itself. It is being distributed on Usenet by permission of the author.
The following is his original manuscript; the printed version was edited
slightly to fit in the available space. The author can be contacted 
directly at bjvila@bnext.soceco.uci.edu or bjvila@uci.bitnet.

Note: the Times' local competitor, the Orange County Register, is already
on record as favoring legalization.

From the Los Angeles Times Orange County, Friday, July 31, 1992, page B11:

Orange County Voices:
ENFORCEMENT FALLS SHORT IN WAR ON DRUGS
by
Bryan J. Vila, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Criminology, Law and Society
School of Social Ecology
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA  92717

	The debate in Orange County about drug legalization has  
surged back and forth between judges, physicians, and law enforcement  
officials during the past four months.  While this debate has  
provoked some thoughtful and accurate commentary, it has also been  
the source of much confusion.  As a professor of criminology, and as  
a former ghetto cop, police chief, and federal law enforcement  
officer, I want to clarify this issue.
	We have become far too committed to the least effective and  
most harmful response to the problem of drug abuse.  Contrary to the  
position taken by "drug warriors" such as Orange County Sheriff Brad  
Gates and Dist. Attorney Michael Capizzi, the evidence strongly  
indicates that Superior Court Judge James P. Gray is right:  The War  
on Drugs is not working.  We should stop squandering scarce criminal  
justice system resources and the bravery of our law enforcement  
officers on this  ineffective strategy.  The harm done to society by  
enforcing criminal laws against the consumption and possession of  
illegal drugs far exceeds the harm done by drug use itself.  This is  
something that many people who argue against legalization fail to  
understand.  For example, the direct effect of heroin is to make  
people stuporous, not violent; the direct effect of marijuana is to  
make people euphoric and silly, not aggressive; even stimulants such  
as cocaine and amphetamines that do make people more excitable and  
agitated seldom lead to violence except in the case of those who  
seriously abuse them.  Of course illicit drugs can harm people who  
abuse them.  So can overindulgence in alcohol, tobacco, food, and  
even our Southern California sunshine.  But our society's response to  
alcoholism, lung cancer, obesity, and skin cancer is supportive and  
compassionate.  We use a public health approach based on education  
and regulation to control these deadly problems.
	In contrast, our attempts to control illegal drug use rely  
almost exclusively on law enforcement.  This ill-conceived reaction  
to drug use is what condemns addicts to a life of degradation, not  
the substances to which they are bound.  It forces addicts to deal  
with drug dealers in an underground economy whose violence and  
corruption infiltrate the rest of society.  They sell their bodies  
and steal in order to pay exorbitant prices for adulterated drugs of  
unknown potency.  Most of their crimes are committed to feed their  
addiction and protect themselves in a violent world outside the law.   
When the violence from this world spills into our daily lives we  
respond by committing more resources to drug enforcement.  This leads  
to prison overcrowding and forced the early release of muggers and  
rapists to make room for more drug users and sellers.  We already  
imprison a larger proportion of our population than any other  
industrialized nation, yet "drug warriors" demand more jails.
	If enforcement isn't the answer, what is?  Beginning with the  
least dangerous drug of all, marijuana, we should attempt to control  
drug use via government-controlled distribution systems that sell  
only to adults and that do not advertise.  This alone probably will  
cut the number of drug arrests in half.  Based on our experiences  
with marijuana legalization, we then could develop similar ways to  
manage heroin and cocaine use.  But legalization only defuses the  
drug economy, it does little to discourage drug abuse.  Using tax  
revenues from drug sales, we also should implement the types of  
public drug education campaigns that recently have proven effective  
against the most deadly drug in our country - tobacco.
	Unlike the War on Drugs, anti-smoking education campaigns  
work.  They have brought about a steady decline in tobacco use over  
the past decade in spite of the fact that tobacco is more addictive  
and deadly than marijuana, heroin, or cocaine.  And they work in  
spite of tobacco's easy availability, huge advertising budgets, and  
government subsidies.  We need to extend the same type of strategy to  
control the use of other dangerous drugs like alcohol, cocaine,  
heroin, and marijuana.
	Destroy the $300 billion a year illicit drug economy.  
Eliminate the street violence, official corruption, and human  
degradation it buys.  Educate people about the dangers of using  
drugs - any drugs.  Provide those who still choose to use drugs with  
pure drugs of known dosage; then hold them accountable for their  
actions and punish them accordingly if they commit crimes.  Help  
those who do abuse drugs to bring their lives under control.  The War  
on Drugs is itself causing many more casualties than drug use.  It's  
time to recognize that the behavior of citizens in a free society is  
best controlled by persuasion not by force.  The view of "drug  
warriors" that people can only be controlled by force is contrary to  
the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded.  We  
should reserve the criminal law for those behaviors that present the  
greatest threat to society.  Drug use does not itself present such a  
threat.
	Judge Gray should be congratulated for his courage and  
insight.  We must seriously consider what he, and many other  
responsible leaders (such as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, former  
Secretary of State George Schultz, liberal columnist Anthony Lewis,  
conservative doyen William F. Buckley, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke,  
retired New York Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy, and U.S. Dist.  
Court Judge Robert Sweet) are saying:  The War on Drugs is not  
working.  Instead of redoubling our efforts, it is time that we  
reexamine where we are going and why.
--
Rob Allen
rallen@orion.oac.uci.edu