Legislative drug initiatives good and not so good

It took all of two days for the first &#8220way to go” moment of the new legislative session, and much of the credit goes to Sen. Lyda Green. The veteran Mat-Su lawmaker, who took a lot of hits - including from this newspaper - for refusing to let a widely supported methamphetamine bill out of her committee last spring, on Tuesday passed a different meth bill out of the Finance Committee she chairs.

While it sidesteps the issue of logbooks and registration that have shown to be deterrents to meth manufacture in other states, the bill does attempt to address a piece of what is widely considered to be a dangerous and far-reaching epidemic.

We here in the Valley are well aware of the length and insidious nature of the epidemic's tentacles. The use and production of meth causes devastation far beyond individual users, robbing families, employers and whole communities of resources. Sen. Green deserves her constituents' gratitude for stepping up to the plate and being an active participant in finding a solution to a problem spiraling out of control.

The same, however, cannot be said for marijuana use, which has been demonized by decades of government misinformation in a manner grotesquely disproportionate to its evils, especially when compared with society's legal and accepted drugs - alcohol and tobacco. Nonetheless, a Gov. Murkowski initiative to recriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana in the home has been rolled into the meth bill after receiving Green's blessing with a fast-track, public-input-free cruise through her committee.

It is documented that cigarettes kill more than 400,000 people each year, many of whom tap the public till through tobacco-related medical treatment prior to death.

Similarly, the social costs of alcohol abuse are incalculable. Drunk drivers have turned our highways into bloodbaths, and alcohol is a heavy contributor to cases of domestic violence and child abuse.

Still, the vast majority of adults who consume alcohol do so in a responsible manner. No one would suggest turning responsible drinkers into criminals.

Yet that's what the marijuana legislation would do to the person who lights up a joint in the privacy of their home, despite a staggeringly paltry amount of meaningful evidence that doing so leads to anything close to the magnitude of the problems associated with tobacco and alcohol. Of at least equal importance, given the firmly entrenched civic and judicial precedents surrounding this issue, the bill sets the state up for another costly legal challenge.

Green says the bill is really about going after dealers, and that may be. But the door is open, literally and figuratively, for serious infringement on Alaskans' long-established and dearly held privacy rights.

If the intent is only to go after dealers, the bill should make that clear. Instead, it states that current statutes are to be amended to recognize &#8220that it is illegal to possess any amount of marijuana anywhere in this state …”

Privacy rights are important in Alaska - perhaps more so than anywhere else. Alaskans also value a nonintrusive government. This proposed change in statutory course thumbs its nose at both traditions, while taking time and resources away from issues that really matter.