CUT OFF THIS TERRORIST-MONEY SOURCE, TOO

As the Bush administration goes about freezing the assets of suspected
terrorist organizations, we should also consider other means of attaining
the same end. In 1994, Interpol's chief drug officer, Iqbal Hussain Rizvi,
told Reuters News Agency: ``Drugs have taken over as the chief means of
financing terrorism.'' Because this money is undocumented, it's impossible
to say how much we're talking about. But the best guestimates indicate
around $400 billion per year. We've faced this problem before, though on a
much-smaller scale.

For about 13 years, organized crime thrived as never before because it had
access to huge sums of easy money.

We remedied that with the 21st Amendment. Alcohol didn't go away, but we
eliminated 90 percent of the problems then associated with trade in alcohol
and now associated with trade in illicit drugs.

Simply by opening the market in these prohibited substances to legitimate
business, we could solve many problems in one fell swoop.

We'd save around $60 billion in interdiction spending, better spent other
ways. We would relieve the devastating caseload threatening to topple our
judicial system.

We would remove a major bone of contention with other nations who would be
our solid allies were it not for our sanctions based on their failure to
effectively fight our drug war. We would free up prison space for real
criminals while restoring more trust in law enforcement. And we would
deprive terrorists and organized crime of significant funding and, thus,
their power and much of their following. It is time to end this failed
noble experiment. We cannot afford to be at war with our own people at this
time, if ever we could.

GINGER WARBIS
Lighthouse Point