Drug War's End Could Provide Anti-Terror Ammo

Atlanta Journal and Constitution | June 23, 2002 | Cynthia Tucker

[Stand Watch Listen]

There is little good news from the anti-terror front these days.

The whereabouts of Osama bin Laden are still unknown; the entrenched Washington bureaucracy is fighting the new proposal for a Cabinet-level homeland defense department; and al-Qaida has regrouped to foment jihad in Kashmir, the area hotly contested by two new nuclear powers, India and Pakistan.

In other words, world affairs remain depressing.

Still, there was this small notice mixed in with recent news about reorganizing and retooling the FBI: The agency will scale back its efforts in the so-called war on drugs. It comes as a relief --- a bit of good news --- that the FBI has shifted its priorities away from corner crackheads and petty methamphetamine dealers. With terrorists threatening to explode dirty bombs, spread smallpox and put cyanide in the water supply, it seems silly for a major law enforcement agency to expend its precious resources hunting down drug offenders.

The so-called war on drugs, which always amounted to a war on drug users, has long been a form of official terrorism --- an overzealous but unimaginative effort to stop irresponsible Americans from abusing their own bodies. Much like Prohibition, the war on drugs has created more problems than it has solved, incarcerating hundreds of thousands of nonviolent Americans and guaranteeing a black market, which, in turn, has sparked an epidemic of violence.

Had there not been hefty profits in selling banned substances, drug gangs would not have sprung up to sell them and to war with each other as they fought over turf. Similarly, there would be no South American cocaine cartels, which have earned enough profits from narco-trafficking to purchase armies to destabilize their native lands.

This seems as good a time as any for the White House and Congress to quietly end the war on drugs. There is no great enthusiasm for it among average American voters. Why not go ahead and quietly ease back from a 40-year "war" that the nation has no chance of winning?

While it would be politically risky for any formal announcement of retrenchment --- and even riskier to legalize banned substances --- the war on terror provides plenty of cover for scaling back. For one thing, billions more will be needed to safeguard American soil from terrorists. What better place to get it than from the money set aside for punitive anti-drug efforts --- from police raids to prison beds? The entire budget of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has grown from $65 million in 1972 to $1.8 billion this year, could be shifted to homeland defense.

With the nation's federal law enforcement agencies concentrating on terrorism, the abuse of illegal narcotics could be confronted logically --- as a public health problem. If America made a serious commitment to drug treatment and rehabilitation, rather than incarceration, our streets might actually be safer. The violence of the drug war has largely been an unintended consequence of the law enforcement effort to squelch drug sales. (Again, see Prohibition.)

That's not to say that major drug cartels would disappear if police stopped going after petty drug dealers. As long as there is money to be made from illegal drugs, criminal enterprises will hang around to reap the profits. The biggest and most dangerous of those criminal enterprises should always be in the gun sights of law enforcement officials.

But shifting money from the drug war to the war on terror will also interrupt some of those drug cartels. As the U.S. Customs Service tightens borders to stop Islamist terrorists, inspecting packages, trucks, trains and container ships, it will inevitably stop more shipments of illegal drugs. So why not beef up Customs with money from the DEA?

After more than 40 years of trying to stop Americans from using illegal narcotics --- wasting billions of dollars and countless lives in the process --- U.S. politicians and policy-makers ought to be ready for a new strategy. The war on terror has brought precious few blessings, but the opportunity to back away from the war on drugs is one.

Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor.

[Joe Brower]

I just had to look out the window first to check for any flying pigs -- I never thought I'd see the day when I found myself (mostly) in agreement with anything from Cynthia Tucker.

Will wonders never cease?

[jodorowsky]

End the jihad on drugs and use the resources to kill real criminals!

[KC_Conspirator]

I seriously doubt Tucker would shift money to the war on terror. Most likely she would put it towards more infinite spending on welfare so that your children, and your children's children will still be paying for those worthless programs. Of course, your offspring will be speaking arabic in the future if it were up to Tucker.

[Joe Brower]

Tucker states specifically of shifting FBI priorities from WOD to anti-terrorism, and DEA funds to Customs. Welfare is not mentioned.

OTOH, I do believe you are correct that if she was the one writing up the ledger, she'd certainly find some means of diverting those monies to her pet causes. Lucky for us, she's not.

[A CA Guy]

Ann Coulter spoke on the issue a bit as well.

GOPUSA: Libertarian purists seem to oppose even basic immigration reforms. And many don't want to make big expenditures on the ''war on terrorism''. Are they fully cognizant of the dangers presented by terrorism?

AC: No. ''Purist'' Libertarians take spiteful Anti-American positions in the hopes that someone someday will invite them to a pot party. The only way to get the holier-than-thou Libertarians behind the war on terrorism is to remind them that Muslims oppose the legalization of marijuana.