Pubdate: Thu, 12 Sep 2013
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Bill Piper
Note: Bill Piper is director of national affairs for the Drug Policy 
Alliance
Page: A13

IS IT TIME TO GET RID OF THE DEA?

THIS year is the 40th anniversary of the Drug Enforcement
Administration. Already plagued by scandals, the agency has recently
been revealed to be collaborating with the National Security Agency
and the Central Intelligence Agency to spy on unsuspecting Americans.
More than 120 groups from across the political spectrum and around the
globe have called on Congress to hold hearings on the DEA.

There is no doubt the agency should be reformed. It is also worth
asking if it should continue to exist.

According to a Reuters investigation, the DEA has been gathering
information from other agencies, as well as foreign governments, for
years. The DEA has also been collecting its own arsenal of data;
constructing a massive database with about 1 billion records.

This information is shared in secret. By hiding the origins of its
data from defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges, the agency and
its partners effectively are undermining the right of the people it
targets to a fair trial.

According to The New York Times the DEA even has unlimited access to
an AT&T database of all calls passing through its phones and switches.
Under the Hemisphere Project, the U.S. government pays AT&T to place
its employees inside the DEA, so that the DEA can use these experts to
gain access to decades of detailed records of U.S. citizens' phone
calls.

Then there's the DEA's disregard for science. It obstructed a formal
request to reschedule marijuana for 16 years. After being forced by
the courts to make a decision, the agency declared marijuana to have
no medical value, despite massive evidence to the contrary.

The agency's own administrative law judge held two years of hearings
and concluded marijuana in its natural form is "one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known to man" and should be made
available for medical use. Similar hearings on MDMA, aka ecstasy,
concluded it has important medical uses, but the DEA again overruled
its administrative law judge.

There is a robust supply of other DEA debacles. The Department of
Justice's "Fast and Furious" scandal exposed DEA agents who smuggled
or laundered millions of dollars in profits for illegal drug
organizations as part of an ongoing sting operation.

Many DEA agents are hardworking everyday people who put their lives on
the line for the sake of what they believe to be the greater good.
However, they are doing this in the face of systemic mismanagement and
corruption that make even their best intentions futile.

Congress could make some helpful reforms, such as changing the
incentive structure for DEA agents in order to discourage the worst
offenders.

Recently, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said, "As the so-called
war on drugs enters its fifth decade, we need to ask whether it, and
the approaches that comprise it, have been truly effective. ...

"Today, a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration
traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities."

This admission of failure by our nation's highest-ranking
law-enforcement official has fortified a platform to challenge the
drug war. The DEA is a major force powering this destructive machine.

Three presidential administrations - Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and
Bill Clinton - have conducted reviews of whether it would be more
efficient and better for public safety to basically do away with the
DEA and merge it with the FBI, but Congress has never seriously
explored the issue.

In fact, it's remarkable how little federal oversight or scrutiny
there has been. With an annual budget of more than $2 billion as well
as significant discretionary powers, the DEA certainly merits a
top-to-bottom review of its operations, expenditures and actions.

Once we finally get a good look under the hood, we will surely find a
corroded and ineffective collection of parts that very likely need to
go.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt