EDITORIAL : JUST SAY NO CITY SHOULDN'T RELAX RULE AGAINST ALLOWING FORMER DRUG USERS TO JOIN THE LAPD.

THE city of Los Angeles would send the community in general and young people in particular the worst possible message if it lowered standards and allowed former drug users to become police officers.

Therefore, the city Personnel Department should immediately drop its recommendation that applicants seeking to become sworn LAPD officers should not be eliminated from consideration if they admit on their application that they have experimented with hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

``Such changes would permit LAPD to consider selection of otherwise exemplary individuals who have experimented with hard narcotics,'' said the report prepared by acting Personnel Department Director Jurutha Brown. ``The key concept here is `experimental' use.''

But the policy does not clearly define ``experimental.'' A person with a serious heroin or cocaine problem who never was convicted could qualify under the new proposed policy.

And even if the policy did spell out just one-time use, the commission has not made the case that hundreds of otherwise qualified, worthy people are being rejected as police officers because of this ban. The report notes that of 1,345 applicants to the Los Angeles Police Department in 1995, there were only 157 disqualified for past drug use.

Certainly there are dedicated, qualified and sincerely repentant people who tried drugs, decided it was wrong and want to serve their community. We believe there are better ways - including drug prevention and treatment work - that are just as important and more appropriate than serving as law enforcement officers.

We agree with the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which strongly opposes the proposed change because of its impact on the department and the message it sends.

``Across the nation, we have this policy of zero tolerance, and now we would be saying it's OK to have used drugs,'' said Dennis Zine, a Police Protective League director. ``All these years, we've been saying to young people in the DARE program and in speeches that if you want to become a Los Angeles police officer, don't use drugs.''

At a time when studies show that drug use is increasing substantially among young people and the forces in favor of eliminating or weakening many anti-drug laws have been emboldened by the passage of Proposition 215, which legalized in a loose way the medical use of marijuana, lifting the ban would send a dangerous message that there are no consequences from using drugs.

Our advice to the Civil Service Commission: Just say no.