A Little Drug-War Quiz

Most Americans have come to view the nation’s escalating, $20-billion-a-year drug war as a costly failure that is stuffing prisons while producing few gains. They think our drug policy needs an overhaul and are open-minded to the possibilities. John P. Walters does not sound like one of those Americans.

Since serving as a deputy to two anti-drug czars in the first Bush administration, Walters has been the nation’s preeminent champion of hawkish anti-drug measures, such as sending money to South America for helicopter gunships to battle drug traffickers. Today he faces a Senate Judiciary hearing for confirmation to the No. 1 drug policy job. Here are questions members might ask to clarify some things Walters has said that seem out of sync with expert and public opinion:

* Given that the average federal sentence for a drug offense is now twice as long as the average sentence for manslaughter, and that black men are more than 13 times more likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses than whites, why did you recently dismiss drug sentencing disparities and excessively long prison sentences for drug abusers as two of “the greatest urban myths of our time”?

* Given that nine states, including California, have passed laws since 1996 legalizing the medical use of marijuana, do you still assert that Washington should aggressively yank prescription privileges from doctors who recommend medical marijuana to patients?

* Given the raft of recent studies showing that drug treatment is far more cost-effective than drug interdiction, do you still believe that drug treatment programs are little more than “the latest manifestation of the liberals’ commitment to a therapeutic state”?