FAILED NARCOTICS BUST ONCE AGAIN SHOWS THE FUTILITY OF DRUG WAR

Another drug bust went bad Friday afternoon. Two undercover cops approached
a suspect sitting in his car outside an apartment complex in St. Ann. In an
effort to escape, he ran into one of the cops. In turn, the suspect was
shot several times. Happily, neither the officer nor the suspect died.

That evening, I was talking to a man who recently retired after a long
career in law enforcement.

"I think we ought to give up," he said. "We're not getting control of the
situation. All we're doing is putting these young officers in harm's way."

Give up? Just let people ruin their lives?

What a good idea. As regular readers know, I have long argued that our war
on drugs is a failed idea. Try as we might, we can't stop people from using
drugs. By making drugs illegal, we just drive the price up, and make sure
that the criminal element is in charge.

We've tried just about everything. The problem is at the top? Let's get
Pablo Escobar. We did. The problem didn't go away. The problem is in the
distribution system? I remember when we busted the Moorish Science Temple.
The feds said that the Moors just about controlled the cocaine trade in
this city. The feds were probably right, but busting the Moors didn't even
slow things down. There's too much money involved. There are too many
people ready to step forward.

Wait a minute. Why don't we put all the users in prison?

There seems to be two problems with that. In the first place, it's awfully
expensive. Secondly, we are them. If not you, probably your friends and
relatives. I remember when John Ashcroft's nephews were busted for pot. For
that matter, Ashcroft's drug czar turned out to be a drug user. If it can
happen in Ashcroft's circles, who is immune? For that matter, I remember
when John McCain's wife fessed up to a drug problem. And these are Republicans!

I've long believed that the most cost-effective way to handle the drug
problem is to give the worst drugs away. We take a product that should cost
just a couple of bucks, and we make it illegal. Consequently, everybody who
handles it up and down the long distribution line has to be paid
commensurate with the risk of going to jail. It's as if we made corn
illegal, and drove the price of an ear to $20. In the end, the junkie has
to break into your house and steal $200 worth of stuff that he can then
sell for $20 to buy his drugs. Why not just give the stuff away?

Marijuana would be sold like alcohol. Taxed and regulated.

Sadly, we don't seem to be heading in this sensible direction. In fact, the
government has lately been standing logic on its head, running television
commercials in which drugs are associated with terrorists and criminals.
Duh. They're illegal. Who is supposed to sell them? Back when we tried
Prohibition, the government could associate beer with gangsters. Well,
yeah. It was illegal. Who was supposed to sell it?

It's not that any of this stuff is good. Drugs and booze have ruined many a
life. In an ideal world, everybody would happily just say no to all
artificial stimulants. But the world is an imperfect place.

The night after the failed drug bust, I went to the annual fund-raising
dinner for Girls Inc. The dinner was held at Grant's Farm, and the hosts
were Virginia and August Busch. (Barbara Jacobs is the chairwoman of the
Girls Inc. board, and her husband, John, has been the right-hand man at the
brewery to Virginia's husband.) Virginia spoke and chided Victoria Nelson,
the organization's chief, for aiming too low with her fund-raising goal of
$180,000. With that, Virginia's husband stepped forward and gave Nelson a
check for $200,000.

What a magical moment that was, and it made me think about Prohibition. We
used to outlaw beer, and it got us Al Capone. Now it's legal and we've got
August Busch. Does anybody think we're not ahead?