Pubdate: Mon, 17 Dec 2001
Source: American Prospect, The (US)
Edition: Volume 12, Issue 22
Copyright: 2001 The American Prospect, Inc
Contact:  http://www.americanprospect.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1072
Authors: Robert Sharpe, Mike Plylar
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1951/a09.html

HOME-COURT ADVANTAGE

Michael Massing did an excellent job of pointing out the major differences 
between the war on drugs and the war on terrorism ["Home-Court Advantage," 
December 3]. Afghanistan's brutal Taliban regime profits from the heroin 
trade because of drug prohibition, not in spite of it. Attempts to limit 
supply while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of 
drug trafficking. Here in the United States, the drug war distorts market 
forces to the degree that an easily grown weed like marijuana is literally 
worth its weight in gold. In South America, the various armed factions 
tearing Colombia apart are all financially dependent on the obscene profits 
created by America's $50-billion war on consensual vices. The drug war is 
the problem, not the solution.

Heroin produced in Afghanistan is primarily consumed in Europe, a continent 
already experimenting with public-health alternatives to the drug war. 
Providing chronic addicts with standardized doses in a treatment setting 
has been shown to reduce drug-related disease, death, and crime. Also, 
expanded prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organized crime of 
its core client base. This would render illegal heroin trafficking 
unprofitable, spare future generations addiction, and significantly 
undermine the Taliban's funding. Harm-reduction policies have the potential 
to reduce the perils of both drug use and drug prohibition.

Robert Sharpe, M.P.A.

The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation

Washington, D.C.

If we fight the war on terrorism as we've fought the war on drugs, can we 
expect the same results? Will terrorists multiply exponentially, be cheaper 
to deploy, and become far deadlier? Can we expect terrorists to flood 
across our borders in an unstoppable deluge? Will the few civil liberties 
remaining after the war on drugs now fall prey to the war on terrorism? How 
will the definition of a terrorist evolve, and will it change on the whim 
of some anonymous bureaucrat, as it did in the other war?

Mike Plylar

Kremmling, CO
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth