Pubdate: Mon, 16 Mar 2009
Source: Post and Courier, The (Charleston, SC)
Copyright: 2009 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.charleston.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

KICK THE DRUG WAR HABIT

In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs." Seven
presidents later, the drugs are still winning. That doesn't mean
outlawed drugs should be legalized. It does mean, however, that a
thorough re-examination of how to deter illegal-drug use and counter
the vicious criminal enterprises that thrive on it is long overdue.

President Barack Obama sent a clear signal last week of a
comprehensive shift on this front by naming Seattle Police Chief Gil
Kerlikowske head of the White House's Office of National Drug Control
Policy. Mr. Kerlikowske has long emphasized prevention and treatment
over punishment. After being introduced in his new role, Mr.
Kerlikowske accurately stressed that we can't reduce the grim costs of
illegal drug use, and the huge profits of the illegal drug trade,
without reducing America's massive appetite for dope.

Mr. Kerlikowske explained: "That starts with our youth. Our nation's
drug problem is one of human suffering, and as a police officer but
also in my own family, I have experienced the effects that drugs can
have on our youth, our families and our communities."

Mr. Kerlikowske was referring to his stepson, Jeffrey, who has a drug
history that includes multiple arrests. Few American families have
escaped similar heartaches.

You don't have to be "soft on crime" to realize that the "war on
drugs" has failed. Some distinguished conservatives, including George
Schultz, the late Milton Friedman and the late William F. Buckley
have, to varying degrees, supported drug decriminalization and even
legalization. Such decriminalization arguments are particularly
persuasive in the case of marijuana.

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, a libertarian, recently wrote
about a commission chaired by three former heads of state in Latin
America. In a column that ran on our Feb. 21 Commentary page, Mr.
Chapman, citing the commission's findings, pointed out that the huge
profits to be reaped from American drug use have inflicted horrendous
consequences south of our border, including "the expansion of
organized crime, a surge of violence related to drug trafficking and
pandemic corruption among law enforcement personnel from the street
level on up." Mr. Chapman concluded that we should consider treating
"recreational drug use (like drinking or smoking cigarettes) as a
vice, not a crime."

That column caught the eye, and stirred the ire, of Charleston County
Police Chief Al Cannon, who responded with a column of his own that
ran in our newspaper last week. The sheriff dismissed the "war on
drugs" label as "an inaccurate and worn-out analogy." He also warned
that legalization would merely prompt drug dealers to "look around and
figure how to beat the system, the way they do with prescription drugs."

That's a persuasive point. But whatever you call our nation's costly
campaign against illegal drugs, it's producing war-like casualties in
Mexico, where more than 6,000 were killed in drug-gang violence last
year. That carnage threatens to spill across our border.

And while our wide-ranging anti-drug mission isn't technically a
"war," our Coast Guard and National Guard are participating in it.
Sheriff Cannon approves of the National Guard's role. Local police
chiefs Greg Mullen (Charleston) and Jon Zumalt (North Charleston) are
leery about it.

Many corrections officials are leery about the stunning growth in the
number of incarcerated Americans over the last two decades, stemming
to a significant degree from lengthy sentences for drug
trafficking.

Unfortunately, plenty of willing replacements are primed to take over
for dealers who get locked up.

That's because, while much has changed in the nearly four decades
since President Nixon sounded the battle cry against illegal drugs,
this indisputable marketplace fact persists: There's a lot of money to
be made on Americans' dope habits.

There is ample reason to do a comprehensive review of what has and
hasn't worked in our continuing struggle to minimize illegal drugs'
tragic toll.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin