GO-TOGETHERS

Drug War And Crime Wave

We've all noticed a surge in local crime lately. Almost every day we see
another story about a strong-arm robbery, a forced entry or a local bank
robbery. Virtually all of these events are drug-related.

The other day the MUSTANG law enforcement task force completed a successful
undercover operation with a score of arrests, overcrowding the Boone County
Jail and causing inmates to be moved to out-of-town lockups at great expense.

The drug war remains in full swing with well-known results, lots of crime
and overcrowded prisons. Not only do we spend billions on law enforcement;
the cost to society in other ways amounts to many more billions. Every one
of us is in more danger from people who need money for high-priced
black-market drugs. Every time MUSTANG or some other law agency makes a
drug bust, the black market is strengthened. Prices rise, and the incentive
for crime goes up.

The war on drugs might be worthwhile if it actually worked. But as we all
know, narcotic drugs are as easy to get as ever, and at the same time the
black market is sustained. It's the worst of both worlds.

You would think that after decades of this failure, people would get fed
up. But most of us are not yet able to hold justifiable fear over the
effects of drugs without embracing irrational ideas about law enforcement.
If we applied our twisted drug thinking to other aspects of life, we'd
still have alcohol prohibition and would impose similar rules for tobacco
use, both of which are abused with more ill effect than drugs. We don't
entertain such thoughts because we know prohibition does not work in our
relatively free society.

The same downside exists with drugs, but we seem to tolerate prohibition
because relatively few people use the banned products. The resulting crime
wave is much smaller than we saw with liquor prohibition or would see with
similar bans on tobacco products. The cost of the drug war is billions, but
in our affluent society we tolerate the expense in order to buy a false
sense of comfort from "doing something."

If drug-trafficking were legal, the black market, its insidious pusher
system and its crime would be gone. Billions in tax revenue would be
created. The health threat from drugs would be diminished. Jail crowding
would ease, saving another billion or so, and police agencies would be
relieved of their most unproductive enterprise. We could keep a much better
handle on distribution, use and abuse of these products. We could divert a
fraction of money now spent to prime-time education, probably with better
effect against use.

We can't stop drug use any more than we can stop use of alcoholic beverages
and tobacco products. We are bogged down in a futile and counterproductive
attempt to do the impossible.

Let's remember police agencies are not the culprits here. They enforce laws
passed by legislatures, and they have a great money incentive to conduct
the war. After all, they receive billions of dollars for the effort.
Odd-thinking legislatures bolstered by public acceptance will appropriate
vast sums for drug enforcement even when budgets are tight. Law agencies
long ago learned that the best way to get budget enhancement is with
drug-fighting funds, much of which seeps into other parts of their budgets.
Even though most police officers surely know the futility of the drug war,
none will say publicly what many - or most? - know privately about the
usefulness and wisdom of current drug laws.

It's hard to separate thoughts about the drug war from our general
antipathy toward crime and criminals. Drug prohibition laws are bad policy
in a way other laws against crime are not. We repealed liquor prohibition
when gang warfare on the streets and common flouting behind closed doors
got bad enough. The same thing happens today with drugs, but we tolerate it.