Senate OKs Sweeping ‘User Accountability’ Drug Bill

The Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday overwhelmingly approved a sweeping election-year, anti-drug bill that strongly reflects a crusade by conservative Republicans to hold casual users responsible for drug trafficking and violence.

The $2.6-billion measure, which cleared the Senate by a vote of 87 to 3, provides for a wide array of new drug treatment programs and sets out stiff, new federal penalties for drug offenders--including the death penalty in drug-related murder cases, civil fines of up to $10,000 for drug possession and suspension of federal benefits for drug users.

Although the Senate provisions still must be reconciled with a slightly different measure that cleared the House last month, the legislation is expected to be approved by both chambers and sent to President Reagan next week as the final act of the 100th Congress.

Conservative Stamp

The Senate-passed measure is not as tough on drug users as the House bill, but both versions bear the unmistakable stamp of GOP conservatives who contend that the drug trade cannot be reduced unless a strict policy of “user accountability” is adopted to discourage demand. Until now, federal law enforcement policy has been focused almost exclusively on halting the supply of drugs.

“It’s a major change in the direction of how we deploy our resources in the war against drugs,” said Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who engineered compromises on many of the most controversial provisions. “I certainly believe that the users in this country are going to have to realize that their dollars are funding the drug trade.”

Liberals Overpowered

Liberals, who in past years had been able to block many of the most stringent legal penalties such as capital punishment, found themselves overpowered by an election-year push to enact measures to satisfy the voters’ demand for effective anti-drug action.

Nevertheless, liberals such as Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) condemned the stiff new user penalties as nothing more than election-year posturing. “Just to grow hair on your chest here on the Senate floor so you can put out press releases back home telling people how tough you are on drugs is no solution,” he said.

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), a leading proponent of the user-accountability provisions, acknowledged that these measures might not have been adopted under different circumstances.

“I think there is an election-year sensitivity on the part of my colleagues and I am not above exploiting it to get needed protections,” he said.

Actually, many of the most stringent conservative proposals were weakened substantially to avoid a threatened filibuster by liberals. And two key provisions that would have limited the rights of criminal defendants were virtually eliminated during behind-the-scenes negotiations between the liberals and conservatives.

In the end, all but three Senate liberals--including many staunch opponents of the death penalty--were persuaded to vote for the bill on grounds that it also provided for some valuable new drug rehabilitation programs. The only three senators whose opposition to the bill never wavered were William Proxmire (D-Wis.), Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) and Daniel J. Evans (R-Wash.).

‘User Accountability’

One of the chief “user accountability” provisions, which was authored by Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) and adopted by a vote of 78 to 11 on Friday, would deprive convicted drug users of such federal benefits as student loans, federal mortgage guarantees and federal grants, licenses and permits. These benefits would be suspended for up to five years after a first offense, 10 years after a second offense and permanently after a third offense.

The penalty would be waived if the convicted drug user declared himself to be an addict and submitted to a long-term rehabilitation program.

Opponents of the Gramm proposal objected that it would impose on drug users a penalty that does not exist for murderers, rapists or robbers. “If this is a good idea, then it ought to be applicable in a broader sense to other crimes,” Evans said.

Likewise, Bumpers asserted that it would not deter drug addicts or those who earn huge sums of money by selling drugs. “I cannot imagine an addict who’s convicted a second time who is going to give up cocaine because he’s going to lose his federal benefits,” he said.

The Senate also voted, 77 to 0, for a provision authored by Wilson that would provide up to $5 million to allow four states--including California--to establish a one-year pilot program of random drug testing for first-time applicants for drivers licenses. But no state is required to participate in the program and most--if not all--are expected to resist getting involved in what opponents predicted would result in a bureaucratic nightmare.

It was a watered-down version of Wilson’s original proposal, which would have required all states to initiate random drug testing for people seeking drivers’ licenses--a step that the senator said would help rid the schools of illegal drugs.

Search for Funds

Although the bill authorizes the expenditure of $2.6 billion over two years, even its most enthusiastic proponents acknowledge that there may be no more than $200 million available to be spent in the first year. But Nunn and others predicted that Congress would find a way to fund the bill when lawmakers return for the next session of Congress in January.

Among other things, the bill also would create a Cabinet-level “drug czar” to coordinate federal drug programs, provide for mandatory drug testing of people on probation from prison and random drug testing of transportation workers, authorize public housing authorities to evict tenants convicted of drug-related crimes and establish a system for marking the passports of drug offenders.

Like most legislation, the Senate-passed drug bill also carried with it some provisions unrelated to drugs--including the requirement for a warning label on alcoholic beverages and new restrictions on child pornography.