Pubdate: Fri, 25 June 1999 Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT) Copyright: 1999, The Salt Lake Tribune Contact: http://utahonline.sltrib.com/ Forum: http://utahonline.sltrib.com/tribtalk/ LOST WAR ON DRUGS Even when a war is being lost and a reasonable leader decides it is time to make peace, there are others who will continue to prosecute it, either because they are too dull to know their cause is doomed or because they are too vain to admit failure. Such is America's war on drugs. The drug war and, specifically, the pros and cons of drug legalization, were the subject of a recent congressional hearing convened by Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla. The idea is that those who promote the medicinal use of marijuana or distribution of sterile syringes to heroin addicts to reduce the spread of disease are really involved in a stealth campaign to legalize drug use. Given the nature of the hearings, the most serious failures of the lengthy war on drugs received short shrift or were not even mentioned. An account of the hearing in The New York Times pointed out the federal government spends some $18 billion per year on the drug war. That is tax money collected from productive people and companies. If not spent on this cause, it could be used for other purposes or not even collected at all, but retained by those who earned it. All this revenue is dedicated to interdicting the marijuana and hard drugs coveted by 4.1 million addicted Americans, and a portion is used for propaganda to discourage others from emulating their example. No one pointed out the foolishness of spending $18 billion a year to chastise 4.1 million people with little effect. Congress would fare much better -- and save taxpayers a lot of money -- by bribing each one of these folks with several thousand dollars a year to quit drugs. More important than this, however, has been the erosion of the freedoms for which this nation's founders revolted from English rule, the freedoms they sought to enshrine in the Constitution. Unlawful searches, abnormal prison sentences and illicit property seizures are tolerated -- even endorsed -- as necessary for a war the government is no closer to winning than it was 30 years ago. The United States never has been engaged in a real war with such disastrous losses. No foreign power has ever been able to divorce American citizens from or limit the individual liberties this nation's founders said were inalienable. The drug war has created no victors, but has left a plenitude of losers, not least of whom are the citizenry who have been forced to finance it and have seen their liberties tweaked to the point that their lives and property can be stripped from them at the caprice of any government agency if it invokes the drug war. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck