TIME TO REDIRECT THE WAR ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON -- The deaths of a missionary and her child over Peru last month
serve as a brutal reminder that the war on drugs is a shooting war.

The CIA's continuing involvement with the Peruvian government to intercept
drug runners also exemplifies the sadly mistaken belief that America's drug
problem can be solved by attacking sources of supply.

Indeed, Donnie R. Marshall, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, has recently written that the demand for drugs does not
drive the supply; rather it's the other way around.

The drug problem, he and others believe, is a result not of a huge demand
for substances that make people feel good but instead is caused by a
determined band of "traffickers" whose vile and clever marketing schemes
create a demand that would not otherwise exist. The facts do not support
this hypothesis.

People always have used substances that alter the mood and the mind. We
always will. In early history, fermented beverages of various kinds were
common, as were concoctions made from mushrooms and a variety of plants,
particularly those of the hemp family. Today, it is most frequently
alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, amphetamines, Ecstasy and glue. Groups of
youngsters in Inuit villages in Canada have turned to sniffing gasoline in
plastic bags.

Our public policies should recognize that people, particularly adolescents,
do things that are bad for them. Accordingly, we should not base our laws
on the assumption that humans can be made perfect. Indeed, most of us don't
even want that.

What we have chosen to do about the normal human urge to ingest or inhale
substances that create good feelings is to make a handful of these
substances illegal and then invest billions of dollars in chasing down
those who use the substances and those who sell them.

The result does not change the fact of drug use.

Rather, the war on drugs compounds the problem by creating the potential
for huge profits for those with criminal inclinations. This is done by
infusing our law enforcement system with almost limitless opportunities for
corruption and by incarcerating hundreds of thousands of American citizens
who have committed no act of harm to others and whose lives and whose
families' lives have been shattered as a result.

Further, the problem is worsened by corrupting the judicial systems of
several of our Latin American neighbors to the point of threatening the
very stability of those governments. Moreover, the drug war undermines the
civil liberties of every American because phones are more likely to be
tapped, property is more likely to be seized and people are more likely to
be searched for substances that pose no immediate threat to anyone.

Viewed objectively, our choice of drugs to outlaw has been arbitrary. This
is most vividly illustrated by making illegal one of the most benign
pharmacological substances ever discovered (marijuana), while imposing
virtually no strictures on the sale of a substance which kills several
hundred thousand of us every year (tobacco).

To support his argument that the supply of drugs drives the demand rather
than the other way around, the DEA's Mr. Marshall has asserted that the
drug users depicted in the movie "Traffic" would not "specifically demand
crack or heroin" without a well-marketed source of supply. Perhaps not.

Instead, they might "specifically" demand something else to make them feel
good. Perhaps a generous prescription of a legal "upper"? (Millions of
Americans are hooked on legal drugs). Perhaps alcohol? Perhaps bupropion
hydrocholoride, an antidepressant that helps people stop smoking and which
now has been shown preliminarily to increase the libido. The demand is
there. It is part of our nature.

Whatever the appropriate response of society is to such substances,
throwing people in jail for using them and, yes, for selling them to
willing buyers is tragically wrong.

It is time to offer help to people who are addicted to drugs. Going
undercover to arrest them and locking them away from their families just
creates more crime, more misery and more corruption. It does nothing to
curb the appetite for drugs.