TIME FOR GOVERNMENT TO END THE DRUG WAR

The war in Iraq goes on, but we shouldn't let it overshadow the war
at home - one that frequently takes the lives of people who don't
deserve to die.

It's known as the War on Drugs, but it's really a war on people who
themselves are not making war against anyone. Too often individuals
minding their own business are killed by government officers. In the
name of decency, this war must end.

By now many people have heard that an 88-year-old Atlanta woman who
lived alone was shot dead November 21 by police raiding her home on
the basis of a confidential informant's claim that he had bought
crack cocaine from a man at that location.

However, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the
unidentified informant says the police told him after the shooting to
lie about the drug buy.

Kathryn Johnston, whom the newspaper said was "described by neighbors
as feeble and afraid to open her door after dark," was killed as
police, executing a no-knock warrant, forcibly entered her home.
Johnston fired on the men with a rusty pistol she kept for protection
in her rough neighborhood, wounding three police officers. Returning
the fire, the police killed Johnston. The injuries to the police were
not life-threatening.

The police story has changed several times, raising serious
credibility questions.

For example, the police said they found narcotics in Johnston's home,
but later they said they found only a small amount of marijuana,
which is not regarded as a narcotic. The FBI is investigating.

This sort of thing happens all too often. As Radley Balko documents
in the Cato Institute White Paper "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary
Police Raids in America,"

"Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization
of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling
rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called
Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The
most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants,
usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.

"These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate,
are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and
wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes
invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed
paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers.

"These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent
drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The
raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong
residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and
injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers,
children, bystanders, and innocent suspects."

The fact is, without the War on Drugs atrocities such as the killing
of Kathryn Johnston wouldn't be happening.

It is the very nature of victimless crimes that pushes the police to
use unscrupulous tactics. In a victimless crime, such as an illegal
drug transaction, there is no complaining witness, no one with an
interest in reporting the crime to the police.

After all, the buyer and seller willingly participate in the
transaction. Thus, the only way the police can detect the criminal
activity is to set it up themselves or encourage informants. But the
opportunity for corruption in these tactics is immense.

For example, informants looking for a favor from the police have an
incentive to provide false information. You have only to read the
newspapers to find details of corrupt law enforcement in connection
with drug prohibition.

In a free society adults have the right to ingest whatever they want.
It's no business of the government. But if it makes such peaceful
private activity its business, law enforcement will inevitably turn
to measures that jeopardize the lives of people who have harmed no one else.

Let's end this madness now.