MONEY SPENT ON DRUG WAR COULD BE PUT TO BETTER USE

Our multibillion-dollar law enforcement apparatus, so caught up in the war
on drugs, has managed to jail thousands of nonviolent and largely harmless
criminals while failing to stop the deadly work of terrorists who have
irrevocably harmed the entire nation.

No one appears to have thought about redirecting the billions being wasted
in the drug war to the infinitely more important task of combating
terrorism. Make no mistake about the huge sums being spent on the futile
attempt to stem the flow of illegal drugs into this country: The federal
government pours about $20 billion a year into it, with state and local
governments spending about the same amount.

But cocaine and heroin are more plentiful in our cities than ever, and
cheaper, too. Deaths from illicit drugs are up.

We are sending $1.3 billion in military and social aid to help the
government of Colombia wipe out coca crops, and so far the result is an
increase in cocaine exports.

Much of the military aid is in the form of training Colombian
anti-narcotics troops and supplying transport helicopters. The helicopters'
role is to destroy coca processing laboratories and to protect planes that
are spraying hundreds of thousands of acres in Colombia to destroy coca plants.

But the reality is that the military aid is reinforcing Colombia's army in
its attempt to battle internal insurgency, and the United States is at risk
of getting drawn into Colombia's 40-year-old civil war. The reality also is
that defoliation has hurt farmers growing legal crops such as yucca and has
forced them off their land. And the reality, which U.S. officials admit, is
that Plan Colombia has yet to affect cocaine prices since it was launched
late last year.

Less than a month after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the
chief of Colombia's anti-narcotics bureaucracy was in Washington pleading
for additional money to triple the number of jungle bases used to launch
offensives against the coca growers.

The Colombian army is closely linked to right-wing paramilitary forces
that, along with leftist guerrillas, have been terrorizing the countryside,
taxing farmers and peasants and financing operations with drug money.

The paramilitary and the leftists have been accused of terrorism by the
United States; that label is likely to be used more and more as the drug
warriors try to justify even more money for Plan Colombia.

How much more money do we have to squander before we realize that the war
on drugs is an abysmal failure?

Far from changing course, we are about to anoint yet another drug czar, a
dubious ceremony of ordination that goes back to Harry Anslinger, who was
inventing the drug menace about the same time the young J. Edgar Hoover was
discovering the communist bogeyman.

The drug czar in waiting, John Walters, has been busy debunking what he
calls "myths" of the drug war. Writing in the March issue of the
conservative Weekly Standard, he argued: "What really drives the battle
against law enforcement and punishment is not a commitment to treatment,
but the widely held view that (1) we are imprisoning too many people for
merely possessing illegal drugs, (2) drug and other criminal sentences are
too long and harsh, and (3) the criminal justice system is unjustly
punishing young black men. These are among the great urban myths of our time."

At his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary
Committee were sharply critical of Walters's beliefs on treatment,
mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes and racial disparities. Walters
told senators that he now favors federal funding for drug-abuse treatment
and prevention. Before, he wanted that solely in the hands of states and
localities.

Walters, a former deputy to the first director of national drug control
policy, William J. Bennett, was named to the post by President Bush in May.
Since then, he has become the target of an extraordinary alignment of civil
rights, public health and conservative organizations that have raised
serious questions about his fitness to lead the war on drugs.

The civil rights and public health coalition attacked his views on race
(black men are jailed in state prisons for drug offenses at 13.4 times the
rate of whites), crime and drug treatment.

The conservative coalition, which includes the American Conservative Union
and the Free Congress Foundation, has urged senators to question Walters
closely on his views on privacy and civil liberties, both of which have
been severely undermined by anti-narcotics schemes.

More than half the members of the Congressional Black Caucus have urged the
Senate to reject the nomination, as has the Betty Ford Center.

The drug-war hard-liners' childlike faith in the efficacy of tough federal
enforcement mysteriously evaporates, however, when it comes to the
desperately needed reinforcement of airport security.

The right-wing leadership in the House is digging in its heels to block the
establishment of an effective airport security force, trained and managed
to federal standards, with the hoary mantra that it wants to avoid the
establishment of another huge federal bureaucracy. It is inconceivable that
these people refuse to support measures to secure the safety of airline
passengers but will heap money on the anti-narcotics apparatus.

The drug war is diverting the nation's energy from real problems we face,
including -- now -- the war on terrorism.

The difference between the two is that the war against terrorism must be
won. The war against drugs is already lost and should be abandoned.