Judge Pressing Case to Make Drug Use Legal : Policy: Superior Court jurist James P. Gray, excoriated last year for his opinion, joins national effort to lobby Congress and White House for new strategy in ‘war on drugs.’

The politicians no longer curse his name, the sheriff has stopped questioning his sobriety and the television talk shows have gone on to other issues.

But for Superior Court Judge James P. Gray, the crusade he started exactly a year ago this week when he publicly advocated legalizing adult use of marijuana, cocaine and heroin has not ended.

“I feel that one person really can make a difference, and I’m very committed to this,” said Gray in a recent interview. “I think it would save lives, and I don’t intend to stop.”

Gray, a conservative judge in a conservative county, believes that he helped legitimize a position that had long been associated with radicals, anarchists and social misfits.

“Because of my going public the issue is more discussed today, by far, than it was a year ago,” he said. “People may agree or disagree, but at least they are involving themselves in the discussion, and I am gratified by that.”

But he is not satisfied.

Recently, he joined a national group that plans to lobby Congress and the new Administration to adopt a whole new strategy in the so-called “war on drugs.”

And Gray is not alone among Orange County judges in favoring drug decriminalization. Two others announced similar positions last year shortly after Gray went public. But neither U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald W. Rose nor Superior Court Judge James L. Smith is as activist about their unorthodox views as Gray.

“I don’t plan to beat the bushes,” Rose said.

He, like Gray, however, went on local and national talk shows and took part in public discussions of the issue when invited. Smith has kept a lower profile since telling a newspaper survey last summer that he agreed with his fellow jurists about decriminalizing drug use.

Whatever their level of activism, all three judges made an impact in the county, and perhaps even nationally, just by expressing their views, according to those on both sides of the issue.

“There’s no doubt about it, when the (Orange County) judges spoke out the debate was legitimized,” said Kevin B. Zeese, vice president of the Drug Policy Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that supports new approaches to the drug problem.

“They are generals in the war on drugs and they were raising questions about the effectiveness of the drug laws,” he said. “People listen to the general. (The judges) are not drug-using college kids.”

Zeese described Gray as “particularly active” in the debate, “not just speaking out about it, but also doing something about it” by agreeing to work in the lobbying effort.

The group, which along with Gray includes prominent scholars, doctors, politicians and law enforcement officials, met several months ago at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Its members want to change the country’s current approach to the drug problem and help people realize it’s a social and medical problem, not a criminal justice one. The group will begin lobbying in the next few months for the appointment of an independent national commission to re-examine the drug war in America.

Dr. S. Clarke Smith, a family practitioner in Anaheim and a member of the group, also believes that Gray’s advocacy of legalization has done much to open up that debate.

Smith cited an article he wrote 10 years ago expressing a view similar to Gray’s that was ignored by several medical journals. “It was finally published after Gray made the news,” he said. “He’s helping to change attitudes, and this group of ours hopes to keep that up.”

With a new Administration in Washington, Gray and the Drug Policy Foundation believe that there is the real possibility for a change.

“I think we have a window of opportunity here for reassessment and re-evaluation,” Gray said. “President Clinton is not married to any of the failed past policies, and that isn’t because he is a Democrat or Republican, it’s because he is a new President.”

During the presidential campaign, Clinton said he did not support legalization but favored putting more emphasis on drug treatment and education programs.

So far, his Administration seemingly has paid scant attention to the drug war and has taken steps to scale back the staff of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy from 146 to 25.

“Having Gray and the other judges come out is one of the things that gives added strength for the President to tone down the emphasis on drug interdiction,” Zeese said.

Local law enforcement officials, however, say the only impact that Gray had on the drug problem is negative.

“The message he was sending out was totally wrong,” said Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters, who sits on the board of directors for the county’s Drug Advisory Commission.

“Because he is a judge he can influence people with what he’s saying, and it’s not appropriate,” Walters said. “He’s forced us to go out and restate our position more clearly. Valuable time and resources have been taken away from our goals because we are forced to fight someone within our own system. It’s extremely frustrating.

” . . . What he did a year ago was not helpful.”

After Gray’s press conference on the issue last April 8, many leaders in the community called his comments heretical, with some demanding that he be disciplined by the Judicial Performance Commission in San Francisco.

Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates was his harshest critic, suggesting that the judge “was smoking” something before he made his comments. The sheriff vowed to seek Gray’s ouster when he runs for reelection in 1996.

Most critics called Gray naive, saying that from his courtroom bench he could not see the human toll that drugs take on the streets. They said legalization would make addictive drugs more available to everyone, especially children, even though Gray had specifically excluded minors in his proposal.

Despite the attacks, Gray said he was surprised by the number of people who supported his views.

“It’s been a remarkable year,” Gray said. “I have met many interesting people from all walks of life with different viewpoints, and I have seen a number of people come to the same conclusion that I have from totally different perspectives.

“It’s been quite interesting, I have watched them go through the progression of, ‘Well, it’s OK to talk about it,’ to ‘Gee, he’s made a couple of good points,’ to ‘Where can I volunteer to assist because this is the right thing to do here?’ ”

A file cabinet in his office is filled with letters of people who have written to him about his position. Of the hundreds of letters, only about dozen are critical, he said.

Gray stands by the proposals he made last year, although he has “refined” some of his statements.

“I don’t use the term legalization anymore,” he said.

When he first detailed his plan, the judge said drugs should be sold in local drugstores or pharmacies to any adult who wanted them. The drugs would be priced to undercut the dealers, and the revenue would go toward drug treatment and education programs.

“I defined a different kind of program and called it legalization , which is unfortunate,” Gray says now. “It’s really a program of regulated distribution. . . . Legalization connotes condoning, and that’s not what I’m about at all.”

Speaking from behind his desk, Gray displays the same zeal for the issue that was evident a year ago.

“This is an extremely important issue,” he said. “We are literally talking about life and death, and we are literally talking about the economic stability of our country.”

Searching his desk for the latest article from the American Bar Assn. on the drug problem, Gray is asked if he had any regrets about his press conference last year.

“I’d do it again in a minute,” he said. “In a minute.”