Ivins

That was quiet a remarkable moment George W.Bush had in Mexico. You may have missed it or even assumed he was pointing out the obvious again, but consider the implications of the president of the United States saying " One of the reasons why drugs are shipped, the main reason why drugs are shipped through Mexico to the United States, is because United Sates citizens use drugs." And that's not the first time Bush has pointed out that our problem is not supply but demand.

Now, this does not necessarily mean that Bush has thought through the policy implications of his statement. It is also possible that he's suffering from cognitive dissonance on the subject, a disconnect common to politicians of all stripes. But the futility of the War of Drugs is apparent to everyone except politicians terrified of the dread accusations " Soft On Drugs."

The sad history of efforts to eradicate drug use in this country is pockmarked with recurring waves of hysteria, usually involving the association of some drug with some minority group. The Chinese and their opium dens, Mexicans and marijuana, blacks and crack - we literally scare ourselves silly. That politicians feed our fears, milk them for electoral advantage, is another part of the ad pattern.

At the very least, I think we can expect Bush to support scrapping the annoying and presumptuous process of certification - our annual passing of judgement on Mexico's anti-drug efforts. At best, Bush may see the real political opportunity here.

The cost of the war on drugs, both in lives and dollars, is staggering. And people know it isn't working. The first part to stand up and say so will get a real windfall.

Bill Clinton, on his way out of office, told Rolling Stone magazine that he supports decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana ad an end to the disparity of sentences for crack use vs. cocaine use. Of course, it wasn't terribly helpful of him to say this on his way out the door. NOW he questions mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

But it is possible for practicing politicians to take these stands as well. The Republican governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, is famous for his crusade against draconian drug laws.

The terrific new film "Traffic" underscores the futility of the war on drugs. We have a million people in prison on drug charges - more than the entire prison population of Western Europe. Federal spending has increased from $1 billion in 1980 to $20 billion on the drug war last year, and the states spend even more.

Yet drugs re available as ever. Both cocaine and heroin have gotten cheaper and purer during the past 20 years. This is not working.

The bad news is that Attorney General John Ashcroft has a terrible record in this area. He is a noted practitioner of the Git Tough school of political pandering. When he was in the Senate, Ashcroft denounced the idea of spending money on drug treatment as a trick to take money from the War on Drugs.

According to "Drug War Facts," compiled by Kendra Wright and Paul Lewin, 55 percent of all federal drug defendants are low-level offenders, such as mules or street dealers. Only 11 percent are classified as high-level dealers. Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenders, the Bureau of Prisons' budget has increased by 1,350 percent - from $220 million in 1986 to about $3.19 billion in 1997.

For all the money, time and hysteria spent on the problem of illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 Americans a year - 1 percent of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco. Rehabilitation is not only cheaper that prison but also more effective in reducing drug use.

Powder cocaine and crack cocaine are two forms of the same drug with exactly the same active ingredient. The average sentence fro low-level and first-time offenders for trafficking crack is 10 years and six months; that's 59 percent longer than the average sentence for rapists.

So we are looking at a colossal, stupefying, incredible expensive failure. Don't you think it's high time that we stopped pouring good money after bad?