Pubdate: Wed, 17 Oct 2001
Source: Washington Post
(DC)
Page: C12
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:
letters@washpost.comWebsite: http://www.washingtonpost.com/Details:
http://www.mapinc.org/media/491Author: Judy Mann
MONEY
SPENT ON DRUG WAR COULD BE PUT TO BETTER USEOur
multibillion-dollar law enforcement apparatus, so caught up in the war
on
drugs, has managed to jail thousands of nonviolent and largely
harmless
criminals while failing to stop the deadly work of terrorists who
have
irrevocably harmed the entire nation.
No one appears to have
thought about redirecting the billions being wasted
in the drug war to the
infinitely more important task of combating
terrorism. Make no mistake about
the huge sums being spent on the futile
attempt to stem the flow of illegal
drugs into this country: The federal
government pours about $20 billion a
year into it, with state and local
governments spending about the same
amount.
But cocaine and heroin are more plentiful in our cities than
ever, and
cheaper, too. Deaths from illicit drugs are up.
We are
sending $1.3 billion in military and social aid to help the
government of
Colombia wipe out coca crops, and so far the result is an
increase in cocaine
exports.
Much of the military aid is in the form of training
Colombian
anti-narcotics troops and supplying transport helicopters. The
helicopters'
role is to destroy coca processing laboratories and to protect
planes that
are spraying hundreds of thousands of acres in Colombia to
destroy coca plants.
But the reality is that the military aid is
reinforcing Colombia's army in
its attempt to battle internal insurgency, and
the United States is at risk
of getting drawn into Colombia's 40-year-old
civil war. The reality also is
that defoliation has hurt farmers growing
legal crops such as yucca and has
forced them off their land. And the
reality, which U.S. officials admit, is
that Plan Colombia has yet to affect
cocaine prices since it was launched
late last year.
Less than a month
after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the
chief of Colombia's
anti-narcotics bureaucracy was in Washington pleading
for additional money to
triple the number of jungle bases used to launch
offensives against the coca
growers.
The Colombian army is closely linked to right-wing paramilitary
forces
that, along with leftist guerrillas, have been terrorizing the
countryside,
taxing farmers and peasants and financing operations with drug
money.
The paramilitary and the leftists have been accused of terrorism
by the
United States; that label is likely to be used more and more as the
drug
warriors try to justify even more money for Plan Colombia.
How
much more money do we have to squander before we realize that the war
on
drugs is an abysmal failure?
Far from changing course, we are about to
anoint yet another drug czar, a
dubious ceremony of ordination that goes back
to Harry Anslinger, who was
inventing the drug menace about the same time the
young J. Edgar Hoover was
discovering the communist bogeyman.
The drug
czar in waiting, John Walters, has been busy debunking what he
calls "myths"
of the drug war. Writing in the March issue of the
conservative Weekly
Standard, he argued: "What really drives the battle
against law enforcement
and punishment is not a commitment to treatment,
but the widely held view
that (1) we are imprisoning too many people for
merely possessing illegal
drugs, (2) drug and other criminal sentences are
too long and harsh, and (3)
the criminal justice system is unjustly
punishing young black men. These are
among the great urban myths of our time."
At his confirmation hearing
Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary
Committee were sharply critical
of Walters's beliefs on treatment,
mandatory minimum sentences for drug
crimes and racial disparities. Walters
told senators that he now favors
federal funding for drug-abuse treatment
and prevention. Before, he wanted
that solely in the hands of states and
localities.
Walters, a former
deputy to the first director of national drug control
policy, William J.
Bennett, was named to the post by President Bush in May.
Since then, he has
become the target of an extraordinary alignment of civil
rights, public
health and conservative organizations that have raised
serious questions
about his fitness to lead the war on drugs.
The civil rights and public
health coalition attacked his views on race
(black men are jailed in state
prisons for drug offenses at 13.4 times the
rate of whites), crime and drug
treatment.
The conservative coalition, which includes the American
Conservative Union
and the Free Congress Foundation, has urged senators to
question Walters
closely on his views on privacy and civil liberties, both of
which have
been severely undermined by anti-narcotics schemes.
More
than half the members of the Congressional Black Caucus have urged the
Senate
to reject the nomination, as has the Betty Ford Center.
The drug-war
hard-liners' childlike faith in the efficacy of tough federal
enforcement
mysteriously evaporates, however, when it comes to the
desperately needed
reinforcement of airport security.
The right-wing leadership in the House
is digging in its heels to block the
establishment of an effective airport
security force, trained and managed
to federal standards, with the hoary
mantra that it wants to avoid the
establishment of another huge federal
bureaucracy. It is inconceivable that
these people refuse to support measures
to secure the safety of airline
passengers but will heap money on the
anti-narcotics apparatus.
The drug war is diverting the nation's energy
from real problems we face,
including -- now -- the war on
terrorism.
The difference between the two is that the war against
terrorism must be
won. The war against drugs is already lost and should be
abandoned.
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