CAN'T WIN WAR ON TERROR FIGHTING A WAR ON DRUGS

If we expect to win the war on terrorism, we have to call off the war on drugs. There are three reasons:

.We can't afford both.

.The drug war feeds terrorist networks and diverts law enforcement from focusing on immense new perils.

.The drug war was failing anyway. If we want to reduce drug dependency and the crime associated with it, then intensive treatment programs will be far more effective.

Sadly, official Washington isn't admitting any of these truths. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has gone so far as to declare that "by going after the illegal drug trade, we reduce the ability of terrorists to launch attacks against the United States."

First flaw in the argument: If our primary goal is Osama bin Laden and his Middle East-based network, choking off drug demand here (even if we could) wouldn't help much. Virtually all the heroin flowing out of Afghanistan goes to Europe, not the United States.

But there's a larger flaw: What makes America's drug market so lucrative to suppliers in Latin America and elsewhere is our efforts to keep it illegal. Black markets always generate huge profits and networks of brutal, underground operators. Ties to terrorists are inevitable.

"We have spent a half-trillion dollars on the drug war since 1990 and we are less safe and less healthy than ever," says Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy and long-term opponent of the prevailing national policy.

Zeese, like most reformers, favors a legally controlled market that would focus on treatment and remove the hyperprofits of today's illegal trade.

He charges the drug war actually "blinded our government to terrorism," citing reports in Boston news media that FBI agents in the '90s actually apprehended Raed Hijazi, an admitted al-Qaida member. Hijazi, according to the reports, provided the agents with information on the Boston area terrorist cell later involved with the Sept. 11 hijackings. But the FBI was reportedly interested only in information Hijazi had on heroin trafficking.

Such incidents suggest that even if our federal, state and local governments found enough cash to fight a simultaneous war on drugs and war on terrorism, split agendas could mean that we end up losing both struggles.

In a contorted way, one can argue America could "afford" to lose the war on drugs. Through the 1990s, times were good, government budgets sufficiently elastic, and the criminal justice system was kept busy. City neighborhoods may have been devastated, but there was little political outcry because the millions who got incarcerated tended to be politically less potent -- the poor and minorities.

But terrorism is different. It's not some social choice (alcohol is OK, marijuana or crack get you prison, etc.). Rather, terrorism is a grim, undeniable force. Fed by global poverty and religious extremism, it could well be the most frightening, multifaceted threat to the lives, homes, cities and livelihoods of Americans since the Civil War.

The harsh fact -- especially for state and local governments -- is that resources are finite. Every cop who isn't chasing a kid selling cocaine on a city street is a cop who could be guarding a subway station, a stadium or public plaza. Every detective not tied up in drug cases can be checking leads on potential assaults on city water reservoirs or local power stations.

"Every dollar spent intercepting cocaine, heroin or marijuana," suggests Zeese, "is a dollar that could be spent intercepting bombs."

Or take the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Every DEA agent who isn't involved in a futile effort to stop an easily replaceable drug shipment from entering the United States can be investigating terrorist cells or working to prevent bioterrorism or nuclear terrorism. Yes, nuclear terrorism, which almost surely will be tried against us in the coming years.

It is time to get serious, and deal with dire threats first. Instinctively, some federal agencies are shifting already. The FBI has changed its focus to terrorism. The Coast Guard has reportedly switched close to three-fourths of its personnel and boats from drug interdiction to antiterrorist patrols. Sharp moves in priority are also reported at the Customs Service, Public Health Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

But until we flip our drug policy, putting prevention and treatment first, and stop pursuing the millions of drug users in our own population, we'll have neither the resources nor the focus to pursue the very real terrorist threat that we face.