DRUNKEN DRIVERS BAD AS DRUG USERS

Drunken drivers are usually considered a more deadly danger to others than are abusers of illegal drugs, yet they get off easier in the courts.

Apparently it is not a question of who poses the greatest danger, but what is more socially aceptable.The Sentencing Project, which has lambasted the nation's war on drugs, said in a report last week that its study of substance abusers suggests the punishmnent often does not fit the crime in America.

The Washington, D.C.-based organization pointed out that alcohol-related fatalities far exceed all drug-related deaths and suggested that racial and class bias may explain society's different treatment of drug and alcohol abusers.

Studies show that drug-related deaths total about 21,000 a year. There are an estimated 94,000 alcohol-related deaths annually, of which some 22,000 are caused by drunken motorists.

Yet the report observed that drunken drivers are treated by the criminal justice system as individuals with problems while drug users are treated as criminals.

It said that because the use of alcohol has been present in society for so long that it has become difficult for people to view those who drive drunk as anything but temporarily deviant.

It is assumed that drunk drivers are both salvageable and worthy of being salvaged, but drug offenders are usually seen as "addicts having no value to society, incapable or unworthy of receiving help."

It's difficult to accurately compare the problems caused by drunk drivers and those under the influence of other drugs. But one thing is certain, both cause problems on the highways.

During 1991 in Utah, law enforcement agencies investigated a total of 1,896 accidents that involved motorists driving while under the influence of alcohol, compared with 63 accidents involving drugs other than alcohol.

More leniency is not necessarily warranted in the case of drug abusers. But the courts and other agencies should be willing to treat drunken driving as harshly as they do the use of illegal drugs - particularly since drunken driving is an immediate and significant threat to life and limb of innocent bystanders.