Tough Drug Bill Is Stalled on Its Way to Senate Floor

Congress’ election-year stampede to pass a tough anti-drug bill has been brought to a screeching halt in the Senate, where liberals are taking a firm stand against such conservative initiatives as random drug testing and imposition of the death penalty in drug-related murder cases.

“It’s a nightmare,” a key Senate aide said Thursday in describing the political stalemate that so far has prevented a bill from being brought to the Senate floor.

The House overwhelmingly passed a sweeping anti-drug bill on Sept. 22, and many senators who are in tough reelection fights this year--including Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.)--hope to use such a bill in their campaigns. But Senate liberals have vowed to block the bill unless conservatives abandon some of their proposals.

In an open letter sent to all 100 senators this week, Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) and 13 other liberal or moderate members of both parties promised to block consideration of any amendment that--in their words--”would divide us rather than unite us.” It added that no bill could pass unless “we focus on those provisions for which there is bipartisan consensus.”

At the same time, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a liberal who did not sign the Hatfield letter, said Thursday that he favors delaying consideration of drug legislation until next year, “when there’s a little more sanity” in Congress. He said that the current highly charged political climate had created a “frenzy” of “off-the-wall amendments.”

Even many supporters of the controversial amendments acknowledge that their opponents are gaining ground as the stalemate continues. With only a few days left before the 100th Congress is to adjourn, there may not be enough time to resolve the differences in the Senate and settle the many likely conflicts between Senate and House versions of the drug legislation.

Among amendments the liberals oppose are one by Wilson that would require states to conduct random drug testing of first-time applicants for driver’s licenses, another by Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.) that would establish a federal death penalty for drug-dealers involved in murders and several that would tamper with the legal rights of criminal defendants.

While liberals view these amendments as either too harsh or potentially unconstitutional, conservatives argue that the war against drugs will not be won with lesser measures. Wilson, for example, sees his drug testing proposal as an innovative way to discourage drug use among 16-year-olds seeking their first driver’s licenses.

Conservatives have vowed to offer these proposals on the Senate floor as amendments to a bipartisan bill that is likely to be unveiled today by Republican and Democratic leaders.

The bipartisan bill, according to a draft obtained by The Times, contains none of the novel penalties for casual drug users, such as $10,000 fines and the loss of student loans, that were a central part of the House-passed legislation. Nor does it include a waiting period for handgun purchases, which was stripped from the House bill.

The Senate bill would create a Cabinet-level “drug czar” to oversee all federal drug programs and increase the funding for law enforcement, prisons and drug rehabilitation programs. It also calls on the President to initiate talks aimed at establishing a multilateral Latin American drug strike force.

Life Sentence

In prescribing new penalties, the bill would impose a mandatory life sentence on third-time offenders who commit the most serious drug felonies; make it a federal crime for a drug trafficker to corrupt a federal, state or local public official; raise the penalties for drug offenses involving children; impose a mandatory minimum sentence for possession of less than five grams of marijuana; ban all guns in schoolyards, and write into law a regulation permitting the eviction of drug dealers from public housing.

In addition, it would give law enforcement officials broader powers to trace drug money through the banking system and it would call on the attorney general to do a study of the feasibility of requiring drug-rich convicts to pay for their incarceration in federal penitentiaries.