New Directions in Drug Policy:
KCBA Blazing a Trail

By Roger Goodman

Through its Drug Policy Project, the KCBA continues to lead a high-level partnership of lawyers, doctors and other professionals in a critical examination of the “War on Drugs” in an effort to find cheaper, more effective and more humane ways to address the chronic social problem of drug abuse.

Since calling for wholesale drug policy reform in a landmark report in 2001 (available online at www.kcba.org/ drug_law/report.pdf), the KCBA, along with a coalition of professional and civic groups, has worked successfully with the Washington State Legislature and the King County Council on the first steps of drug policy reform, resulting in reduced incarceration for drug law violations and increased funding for drug treatment.

These reforms, which captured national attention and have spurred other states to enact similar measures, would not have been possible without the leadership of KCBA President Fred Noland, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, State Representative Ruth Kagi and many others.

In its first phase of work, the KCBA Drug Policy Project began to tackle the controversial question of the appropriate use of criminal sanctions related to non-medical drug use. Finding that the “War on Drugs” often does more harm than drug abuse itself, the KCBA promoted a shift away from the current principal focus on the use of punitive criminal sanctions and towards addiction treatment, drug education and research-a public health approach.

However, it is easy these days to criticize the “War on Drugs.” The bar and its professional coalition were simply the latest voices to join in the chorus. The first phase of the KCBA’s work was limited to an assessment of the current drug control strategy and nowhere was there any meaningful prescription for legal reform -only guiding principles.

Now the KCBA Drug Policy Project, through its Legal Frameworks Group, is taking the next step and is facing the challenge of attempting to craft a workable alternative to the current regime of drug prohibition. The principal objectives of this drug policy reform are: 1) to improve public order and public health; 2) to protect children better from the hazards of drug use; and 3) to make more frugal use of taxpayers’ money.

The Legal Frameworks Group is making steady progress developing the parameters of a state-level regulatory system for drug control. This state-level model could be replicated outside of Washing-ton. The premise for developing a state-level controlled substance policy is that federal law should yield to the primacy of the states, permitting the states to develop their own drug control systems, and restoring the balance that allows states to be the laboratories to change and improve laws and public policy. Federal regulation of drugs is currently so pervasive as to “preempt the field,” inhibiting the development and testing of alternatives.

The Legal Frameworks Group has met at length with the chair and administrative director of Washington’s Liquor Control Board and with the director of Washington’s Board of Pharmacy to gain a better understanding of regulatory models that are currently in effect for other controlled substances and intoxicants, and further meetings are planned with pharmacists and medical experts to help refine the group’s understanding of the potential pitfalls of drug regulation. The group’s own Ph.D. biochemist has also provided detailed instruction on the chemical properties of the most common illicit drugs, their physical effects on the body, and the body’s physiological responses.

Research teams in the Legal Frameworks Group are engaged in a range of important initiatives, including: evaluating and critiquing existing proposals for fundamental drug law reform; reflecting on the cultural context of drug use in America; tracking the dramatic drug policy reforms in Europe, Canada and elsewhere as models for drug control policies in the U.S.; constructing a persuasive constitutional argument for states’ rights to develop their own drug control models; legal analysis of the constitutional issues arising from the need to limit advertising; and a careful consideration of the wide range of issues related to children and drugs.

The effort to develop new structures and systems for controlled substances has raised a host of complex practical questions around manufacturing, quality control, labeling, distribution, point-of-sale, taxation, licensing, medical prescriptions, criminal enforcement, third-party liability and the use of drug testing, among other issues.

The trail-blazing Legal Frameworks Group is only one of a number of working groups within the KCBA Drug Policy Project, which continues to attract scores of busy professionals who volunteer in numerous capacities to contribute to the research, debate and proposals for new directions in drug policy. To learn more about or to participate in this continuing work, contact the Drug Policy Project at (206) 267-7001.

The following is a list of local professional and civic coalitions working for drug policy reform:

• King County Bar Association
• King County Medical Society
• League of Women Voters of Seattle
• Loren Miller Bar Association
• Municipal League of King County
• Washington Academy of Family Physicians
• Washington Osteopathic Medical Association
• Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Washington Society of Addiction Medicine
• Washington State Association of Alcoholism and Addiction Programs
• Washington State Bar Association
• Washington State Medical Association
• Washington State Pharmacy Association
• Washington State Psychiatric Association
• Washington State Psychological Association
• Washington State Public Health Association