IT'S TIME TO SHUT DOWN DEADLY, ILL-CONCEIVED DRUG WAR

Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives
ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy
nation on the face of the Earth.

Illegal rewards incentivizing shooting fields in inner-city
neighborhoods -- enough bloodshed to appall even an Al Capone. Over $1
trillion in taxpayer outlays.

Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this
country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are
booming, drug ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less
than ever on the street.

Our "war" is a miserable, incredibly costly failure.

But now, we're learning, there's a jarring new dimension. The drug war
is directly feeding international terrorism. The most startling new
evidence comes from Afghanistan, where the United States is leading a
full-blown NATO campaign to eradicate production of poppies, the plant
from which heroin is derived.

Colossal failure is already apparent. Afghanistan is producing 95
percent of the world's poppies; its production rose 58 percent last
year alone.

And the biggest beneficiary? It's the Taliban, gaining popularity as
it protects local poppy farmers against the Western-led eradication
campaign. Then it becomes the opium sales agent into international
markets, reaping huge amounts of money it can plow back into its
terrorist campaign against the West.

One result, it's fair to say: American soldiers, dying in skirmishes
in Afghanistan, are the latest casualties in the international
campaign we've waged incessantly -- with friendly governments, inside
the United Nations, wherever we've had the chance -- to make drugs
globally illegal. American administrations, Republican and Democratic,
persistently blame foreign countries and international drug supplies
for our own domestic narcotics appetite.

And then, notes Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition, "we go to countries like Afghanistan, spend
millions or billions over the years to spray poppies and coca plants,
in the process risking poisoning of other crops and people on the
ground. And despite that, every year we see bumper crops."

The other prime example is "Plan Colombia" -- our multiyear, $4.7
billion (so far) campaign to stamp out coca production through
spraying Colombia's farms, together with providing the Colombian
government with military helicopters and sensitive
intelligence-gathering technology. Our billions are also supposed to
fight back FARC -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- a
17,000-strong peasant-based army described by international crime and
terrorism expert Misha Glenny as "by far the largest terrorist
organization in the Southern Hemisphere." But FARC, like the Taliban,
allies itself with local farmers and finances operations through the
drug trade. Last year, coca production was up 8 percent.

Will we ever learn? President Bush now wants to channel about $1
billion to Mexico to fight "narco-trafficking and violence on our
border." Like past Mexican presidents, Felipe Calderon has pledged a
major anti-trafficking campaign, fighting drug cartels responsible
just this year for more than 1,000 murders (including reporters,
police and judges).

But more drug-fighting money to Mexico won't do any
good, says Cole: The United States' prohibition policy
has created a "super-obscene profit motive." The
inducements are so powerful that for every drug
kingpin, domestic or foreign, that we put out of
business, there's an aspirant ready to coerce and, if
need be, kill his way to dominance.

Will we find any presidential candidate willing to talk to us honestly
about our disaster-strewn policy, to suggest rational paths toward
drug legalization? To credit us with intelligence -- that if we cared
enough about our personal health to reduce drastically our consumption
of readily available red meat, alcohol and tobacco, we might just be
smart enough to resist dangerous narcotics? And that we could look to
the Swiss and others for ways to wean addicts off truly dangerous substances?

I'm not holding my breath. Though, refreshingly, the rest of the world
is starting to think afresh.

A prime example: The Senlis Council, a European-Canadian drug-policy
institute that's done major research in Afghanistan, proposes
licensing Afghanistan with the International Narcotics Control Board
to sell its opium legally. Even a Western subsidy to pay Afghan
farmers the same price the Taliban and drug lords do -- about $600
million a year -- would be well below what we're spending on
eradication. And addiction is rare among pain patients.

Here's a chance for the West to spend money, visibly, helping poor
Afghan farmers survive, instead of destroying their livelihoods.
Simultaneously, the Taliban would lose its big revenue source for
terrorist activities.

Couldn't we be this humanitarian and smart -- for once?