ROOTING FOR AN END TO DRUG WAR

Another Chicago police officer has been charged with dealing drugs. This
time the drug is ecstasy. This development calls for action. Perhaps
Chicago police officers should be compelled to attend D.A.R.E. classes. Or
maybe this officer went bad, if he did, because he did attend or maybe he
taught D.A.R.E. classes.

Perhaps drug education is not the answer to anti-drug prayers. Maybe
prevention is the answer. However, since ecstasy is a lab-made rather than
a God-made intoxicant, we cannot spray the coco and poppy fields of
Columbia in hopes of fighting ecstasy. Maybe to help police get a grip we
should spray them with Colombian Mist - the concoction also known as
Roundup Ultra, the aerial weedkiller containing Cosmoflux 411F, that
America sprays on Colombians and their growing fields.

Unhappy with those worn drug war choices? Last choice - lock up police
officers who somehow missed the anti-drug message of drug war. Supposedly,
the charged Chicago officer distributed 1,000 pills of ecstasy to close
friends and neighbors. Under Illinois' newly passed, hang-tough,
down-with-ecstasy law, the distribution of 15 pills is a "Class-X"
(big-trouble) crime punishable by a minimum of six years to a maximum of 30
years behind bars. Computing the minimum penalty for each 15-pill
infraction (1,000 pills divided by 15 pills 66.67 times), the suspected
officer, on conviction, could be doing 400 years minimum and 2,000 years
maximum.

At $30,000 per incarceration year, the drug-failing of one Chicago police
officer could set Illinois taxpayers back $12 million to $60 million
buckaroos. That's enough to make any sober taxpayer "just say no" to the
fool-hardy drug war. I'm not a big death penalty fan, but let's hope the
insane drug war overdoses and croaks.

James Gierach
Oak Lawn