Pubdate: Mon, 05 Jul 1999 Date: 07/05/1999 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Author: Lucy Richert Rep. Henry Hyde and the other supporters of the recent House asset-forfeiture reform bill deserve our thanks. It is heartening to see conservatives like Hyde and Rep. Bob Barr acknowledge flaws in our get-tough-at-any-cost anti-drug policies. Like Prohibition, the government's previous quasi-military crusade against private behavior, the drug war "makes a crime of things that are not crimes" (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln), thereby demonizing innocent people, discouraging respect for the law in general and, incidentally, spawning an untaxed, unregulated, extremely violent, hugely profitable international drug-supply industry. Prohibition died when even its champions realized it was far more corrupting, wasteful and destructive than alcohol use had ever been. Existing asset-forfeiture law, a clear corruption of the Fourth Amendment, has been but one corrosive consequence of the misguided "war on drugs." We should encourage our senators to follow the House's lead in reforming it. Perhaps, once one tactic in the drug war has been reevaluated, legislators will consider a thoughtful reassessment of our entire national drug policy. Lucy Richert, Seattle