STOP BOMBS, NOT DRUGS

Spending Billions Going After The Illegal Drug Trade Is Not Only
Ineffective, It Wastes Money That Could Be Used More Effectively In The War
On Terror

Shortly after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the U.S.
House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, announced that he had put together a special
advisory panel: the Speaker's Task Force for a Drug Free America.

"The illegal drug trade is the financial engine that fuels many terrorist
organizations around the world, including Osama bin Laden," he explained.
"By going after the illegal drug trade, we reduce the ability of these
terrorists to launch attacks against the United States and other democracies."

Actually, "going after the illegal drug trade" is what allows terrorists to
fund their operations with the artificial profits created by prohibition.
In that sense, the US$40-billion or so the United States spends on drug law
enforcement each year represents a subsidy for murderers.

Banning a product that people want to buy creates an opportunity for
criminals, who can earn big profits because they are willing to run the
risk of producing, transporting and selling contraband.

This "risk premium" can be huge, with cocaine and heroin selling for 20 to
40 times as much as they otherwise would.

Prohibition thus delivers to armed thugs around the world a handy stream of
revenue, which they can dip into by selling drugs or by taxing producers
and traffickers who operate in areas they control. Bin Laden's organization
seems to have benefited from the drug trade indirectly, by way of the opium
money supporting his Taliban hosts in Afghanistan.

Stronger enforcement, the solution favored by Mr. Hastert, would tend to
increase the risks of drug trafficking, eliminate competitors and raise
profits. It hardly makes sense, then, to fight terrorism by cracking down
on drugs. To the contrary, the events of Sept. 11 highlighted how seriously
the war on drugs has skewed the government's priorities and compromised
U.S. security.

It's embarrassing to recall that not long ago the Taliban was currying
favor with Western governments by enforcing a ban on the cultivation of
opium poppies. They were America's side then, keeping foreign aid flowing
by joining the international crusade against heroin. (That didn't stop them
from maintaining opium stockpiles, which they now appear to be selling off
in anticipation of a U.S. attack.)

The cost of focusing on traffickers instead of terrorists was illustrated
by the announcement that U.S. federal drug agents would be trained to
protect travellers because there aren't enough air marshals. Given the U.S.
government's failure to stop hijacked airliners from slamming into the
World Trade Center, can it really afford to have so many personnel trying
to stop smuggled chemicals from entering U.S. noses, lungs and veins?

It will not do simply to say that the war on drugs and the war on terrorism
must be waged simultaneously. Aside from the problem that one war generates
the black-market profits that help support our America's enemies in the
other, Americans have to face the fact that its resources are finite. Every
dollar spent intercepting cocaine, heroin or marijuana is a dollar that
could be spent intercepting bombs. Every agent who infiltrates a drug
cartel is an agent who could be infiltrating a terrorist organization.

Americans have to ask themselves which is scarier: a drug dealer who sells
an intoxicant to a willing buyer or a terrorist who murders people at
random? Confronting that question does not necessarily mean repealing
prohibition (the approach I'd prefer), but it does mean taking into account
the trade-offs associated with the war on drugs.

That is something John P. Walters, President Bush's choice to head the
Office of National Drug Control Policy, has shown little inclination to do.
As the Senate considers his nomination this month, it should ask whether an
unreconstructed hawk is the right man for this job, especially in the
current circumstances.

Mr. Walters criticized the Clinton administration, under which drug arrests
and anti-drug spending hit record levels, for being soft on drugs. Even as
other conservatives concluded that prison cells were better used to
incapacitate predatory criminals, he continued to support harsh sentences
for non-violent drug offenders.

Although the effort to "stop the flow of drugs" into the country is plainly
futile, Mr. Walters apparently remains an interdiction enthusiast. He has
praised Peru's policy of shooting down suspected drug traffickers; a
practice that took the lives of a U.S. missionary and her baby last spring.

Perhaps recent events have tempered Mr. Walters' views by bringing home the
point that the United States faces threats worse than drugs. The Senate
should find out.