KATHRYN JOHNSTON'S REAL KILLER

A Cop Pulled The Trigger, But The Perp Is The Money-Driven 'War On Drugs'

In the inflammatory ruckus about the Atlanta police killing of an
elderly woman, Kathryn Johnston, what's overlooked is the backdrop to
the tragedy. Cops fired the fatal bullets on Nov. 21 in Johnston's
west Atlanta home, but the real culprit is the 36-year-old "war on drugs."

That war is just as much a disaster, just as ill-conceived, just as
deadly to innocents and just as big a waste of tons of cash as George
Bush's "war on terrorism."

Both "wars" fail because they target an enemy that isn't there.
Terror is a tactic, not a nation or ideology that can be warred
against. In modern terms, terrorism is rooted in disaffected,
oppressed people. It won't go away until conditions or perceptions change.

The drug war is even worse -- it targets our own people as the enemy.
About 1.7 million people are arrested annually for narcotics, 43
percent of them for marijuana, a drug far more benevolent than legal
alcohol. In America's booming prison industry, 25 percent of the 2
million-plus inmates are there for drugs, and most of their crimes
are nonviolent. In federal lockups, 60 percent of the prisoners are
drug offenders.

But the terror and drug wars make people rich. Bush's obscene demand
this month for a $700 billion defense budget won't make us safer, but
it will allow the military-industrial complex to wallow in wealth.

Meanwhile, after almost four decades of the war on drugs, federal and
state authorities spend about $50 billion a year -- a sum that's
roughly equal to the profits pocketed by drug dealers. Narco lords'
profits rely on a "war" that keeps prices high. Meanwhile, massive
amounts of scarce public resources are diverted into fighting a "war"
- -- one that occasionally nails street dealers but hardly ever attacks
the kingpins or the root problems. This is lethal and loathsome symbiosis.

Johnston died because cops were being pushed by the brass to pile up
statistics on arrests and warrants. That doesn't excuse the officers
involved. They lied to get a no-knock warrant to bust into Johnston's
home, and the innocent woman died defending herself. The officers'
careers are finished, and at least some of them deserve jail time.

Still a bigger crime is the propaganda by officials proclaiming that
statistics show they're combating the scourge of drugs. Reality
check: The numbers show only how we have failed -- abysmally failed.
The boss cops know this, and in many communities police officials
have come forward and urged an end to the nonsense. They understand
what every study shows -- treatment is an infinitely more effective
cure for drugs than incarceration, and much cheaper.

The final insult to Johnston is that her death has become a gold mine
for political opportunists. Last week, District Attorney Paul Howard,
always adept at playing the race card, threw an entire deck onto the
table. He announced plans to indict three white officers for murder,
burglary and other crimes. Those aren't the appropriate charges.
Manslaughter -- where the crime is an unintended death -- would be
more appropriate. But it makes good headlines for Howard in a black
community that sees itself under attack by police. Howard's political
gambit has possibly undermined a careful investigation by the FBI by
ending plea negotiations with the three cops. But that's irrelevant
to the vote-hungry prosecutor.

Even worse, the three officers have told the feds that many, many
more drug cases were based on evidence obtained by shortcuts such as
lying to judges. Howard's theatrics are an attempt to obfuscate his
role in prosecuting those cases. Did his office have knowledge of
cops' tainted investigations?

Howard's craven behavior rivals that of police Chief Richard
Pennington, who doesn't care how much pressure he puts on his
officers if it gets him a raise. Indeed, that was exactly the scheme
before Johnston's slaying interrupted Pennington's plans to expand
his already-bloated personal pension fund by another $10,000 of
taxpayer cash. City Council nixed that scheme after the Johnston
slaying. Citing statistics on the number of warrants served was a way
to grease Pennington's money machine -- until some officers caved
from the stress and broke the law.

The rank and file has received only crumbs under the regime of Mayor
Shirley Franklin and Pennington. The police force is angry from too
much work and paltry pay raises. And while the brass touts reports of
lower crime rates, those easily manipulated numbers don't do much for
citizens' perception that Atlanta just isn't a very safe city. Ask
police officers -- I have -- and if they know their name won't get
back to Pennington, they'll tell you that things look bleak on the front lines.

One sign of insanity is repeating the same mistakes, hoping a miracle
will change the outcome. That defines the crazed war on drugs. We
wage it because it gives police chiefs a chance to boast about
statistics, and because it's an incredibly lucrative industry on both
sides of the law.

If you need an exclamation mark to the statement, "The drug war is
insane," here's a dilly. Marijuana is America's top cash crop,
according to a study released in December. About 10,000 tons of grass
are grown each year, worth almost $36 billion. That dwarfs the $23
billion corn crop or $18 billion in the annual harvest of soybeans.

In Georgia, peanuts are, well, peanuts compared to the evil weed. The
only crop that exceeds marijuana's yearly $440 million harvest is
cotton at $500 million. Pot is the top crop in North and South
Carolina. A lot of stoners live just across the border.

How about a second exclamation mark? Just last week, Bush asked for a
31 percent increase in an annual $100 million advertising campaign to
combat drug use among youths. Naturally, the agency that produces the
ads has close political ties to Bush. With such memorable spots as a
stoned driver running over a child, the campaign has so far wasted
$1.4 billion.

Why wasted? Because a study by the federal General Accounting Office
found that the more kids viewed the advertising, the more likely they
were to use drugs. The GAO stated: "[G]reater exposure to the
campaign was associated with weaker anti-drug norms and increases in
the perceptions that others use marijuana."

Like in Iraq, the ad campaign is a failure, so Bush wants a "surge"
in the drug war. And it's that sort of thinking, along with the
ambitions of Pennington and Howard, that set the stage for the death of Kathryn
Johnston.