NEWSBRIEFS

The two-day conference at Stanford University focused on one issue: how to minimize the harms of both illegal drug use and the drug laws. The conference participants had one answer: Rely more on education, treatment and prevention. In other words, focus on public health.

What is extraordinary about that answer is that it was the unanimous conclusion of top police officials meeting at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace last May.

Joseph McNamara, a Hoover research fellow and a former police chief, hosted the Law Enforcement Summit on Drug Policy to find out what some police officials thought about their role in the war on drugs. McNamara promised the officials anonymity to encourage them to speak freely during the conference. In return, McNamara asked participants to fill out an evaluation at the end of the conference. Although not an exact measure of police opinion, McNa mara's survey is suggestive ofimportant attitudes.

According to McNamara, 35 out of the 38 surveyed officials said that the conference had changed their views of drug policy, and 34 voted "no confidence" in the drug war. All participants favored more demand reduction measures over efforts to reduce the supply of illegal drugs. All agreed that President Clinton should appoint a blue-ribbon commission to evaluate the drug war and to recommend alternative policies.

McNamara, in a December 3 Boston Globe column, argued that police are beginning to recognize the drug war's futility and do not all agree with Washington's strategy to fight drugs by increasing police power.

The summit focused on the adverse effects of a law enforcement-driven drug policy. One speaker, former Secretary of State George Shultz, argued that aggressive law enforcement practices make the black market in drugs more violent and harder to suppress.

Mayor Kurt Schmoke recalled his experience meeting with high school students in Baltimore. When Schmoke asked whether the high drop-out rate was due to students' taking illegal drugs, the students said no. Instead, they told Schmoke that kids dropped out to make money in the drug trade.

Other topics that were discussed at the summit included: illegal drug markets and the rise in youth homicide (addressed by Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie-Mellon University), the role of the courts (U.S. district courtjudges Vaughn Walker and Robert Sweet) and the value of needle exchange programs.

The law enforcement summit received support from the Hoover Institution, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Drug Policy Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the California police departments of San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto and Stanford University.