Two Drug Law Reform Advocates Respond to CASA White Paper

DRUG POLICY STUDIES February 1996

Two drug law reform advocates have responded to a paper released by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. The CASA White Paper, "Legalization: Panacea or Pandora's Box," outlines problems and gaps in drug legalization and decriminalization concepts ("CASA Debates Legalization in First White Paper," NewsBriefs, November 1995).

In the latest issue of Drug Policy Letter, a publication of the Drug Policy Foundation, Editor Dave Fratello critiques the scholarship in CASA's report. Rufus King, the author of The Drug Hang-up: America's Fifty-Year Folly (1973), is distributing an open letter to CASA Chairman and President Joseph Califano that challenges the report more broadly.

[For information about subscriptions to Drug Policy Letter, contact the Drug Policy Foundation at 4455 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite B-500, Washington, DC 20008-2302, 202-537-5005. To get a copy of Mr. King's letter, contact him at 1101 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036, 202-293-5555. To obtain a copy of CASA's report, send $8 to 152 West 57th Street, New York, NY, 10019-3310, 212-841-5200.]