Pubdate: Thu, 09 Nov 2000 Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX) Copyright: 2000 Amarillo Globe-News Contact: P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, TX 79166 Fax: (806) 373-0810 Website: http://amarillonet.com/ Forum: http://208.138.68.214:90/eshare/server?action=4 Author: Greg Sagan Section: Amarillo Voices Bookmark: McCaffrey clippings http://www.mapinc.org/mccaffrey.htm SAGAN: WAGING DRUG WAR IS DE FACTO TERRORISM POLICY Our country's "drug czar," retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, announced he is resigning as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in January. Already there are strongly worded recommendations from across the country that his successor be either a doctor or a public health professional; that we avoid appointing another military mind to a position that isn't winning whatever war it thinks it's fighting. Personally, I am gratified by these suggestions. We have at least two issues here. The first one is the problem of Americans demanding drugs. The second is how society, as fronted by the governmental edifice we elect our politicians to present to the world, deals with the problem of Americans demanding drugs. That Americans demand drugs in the quantities they do might be many things - - a social blight, a political embarrassment, a shame, a loss - but it is foremost a market. I have read estimates that Americans consume 60 percent of the world's production of illegal drugs. Our legal drug industry measures its revenues in the billions of dollars. Demand at such levels commands its own supply. Making war against this contraband does nothing more than drive up the price, an inflationary move when you consider nothing is being added to the final product except more expense. So on to the next issue - what to do about it. In our case, it means war. Now "war" has different meanings to different people. To typical Americans without military experience, war is glorious, war is honorable, war is decisive. They can always tell who the good guys are in any war we're part of, too: Whoever is on our side is a good guy. The realities of military thinking, behavior and philosophy tend to go unconsidered by those who glorify war and warriors. If we "go to war" over something, we mean business. But the military approaches war with martial law tactics, with unquestioning obedience, with attitudes like "do whatever it takes to accomplish the mission," with monumental mendacity and the quiet forfeiture of certain personal liberties (like the right to not incriminate oneself). Military people who accept these as necessary conditions for winning wars in general must wreck the Constitution to even wage the war on drugs. This kind of shallow thinking without consideration for the military's translation of "war" is what leads to society's punitive, righteous, prejudicial attempt to deal with the issue of America's demand for drugs by locking up people. If that doesn't work, folks, the only thing left to the state is execution, because that is what a war would demand and that is what a warrior will attempt to do. Something to consider now if you think Junior might get caught with a joint next week. It is time our society somehow commands the courage to acknowledge that this ridiculous notion we have acquired - that we can capture the "hearts and minds" of a civil population by winning a war against it - is not just ineffective, not just expensive, not just a violation of the spirit of our legal tradition, not just a provocation for rebellion, not just unjust, but also ignoble of us. Once we do this we might give ourselves a chance to wonder just why it is we are declaring a civil war. It is a serious thing to go to war with anyone for any reason, but to go to war with one's own people requires superior justification. This country's problems with drug use and abuse don't qualify for maximum ferocity. Since most of the people who use drugs are not violent or predatory, making war on them is an act of aggression by the government against its own people. Continuing such a war against such a foe is a de facto policy of terrorism. This might be great strategy against an aggressor nation, but it seriously limits what can be done against Americans for their drug demands, and it invites equal resistance. There was a time even two years ago that I would have been the first to sign up for half-measures. Allowing medical use of marijuana and leaving the rest of Schedule I alone would have suited me fine if I could still have a beer and a cigar in my own back yard. But a war on drugs, when declared by our own government, commits the country to an extreme, and by definition to be opposed to the official policy is to favor the opposite extreme. If our choices as a society are to win the war on drugs or to allow complete legalization, I favor legalization. So let us thank Mr. McCaffrey for waging the war he was commissioned to wage as best he knew how. And let's not make the same mistake again. Greg Sagan can be contacted in care of the Amarillo Globe-Times, P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, Texas 79166, or --- MAP posted-by: Thunder