LOTS OF PEOPLE PRAYING THAT WAR ON DRUGS NEVER ENDS

In a column last week I said the War on Drugs generates so much money
and so many jobs you wonder how many people want it to continue, just
because they have a personal stake in it. The headline on the column,
which is not my doing, aptly called it war profiteering.

The column drew a quick response from Stephen Young, who has written a
book on the War on Drugs, titled "Maximizing Harm," and he devotes a
chapter to its profiteers. He e-mailed me to say my comment was a
"massive understatement," and his book proves it.

Who benefits most from the drug war? Young points first to law
enforcement, where the war has created thousands of new jobs, and
perhaps more importantly, it has given police the means to help fund
themselves through asset forfeiture.

Millions of dollars pour into law enforcement agencies annually as
they seize money and property from drug dealers. The U.S. Department
of Justice asset forfeiture fund has grown to hundreds of millions
over the years, and the same thing, in lesser degrees, is happening in
police agencies all over the country. It's working in Topeka, too,
where officers drive cars "donated" by drug dealers.

Research shows that in areas where police keep whatever they seize
they focus more attention on drug crimes, because when they bust a
trafficker they often net a lot more than just another crook.

Drug crimes are popular with police, because high-profile seizures and
arrests get great coverage and spark public interest. Since there
always will be drug users, and drug traffic, it amounts to job
security, and police have reason to hope it doesn't go away.

The U.S. military has been involved, too, since 1989, when American
forces struck Panama and arrested Panamanian president Manuel Noriega
for allowing drug trafficking in his country. Our troops did a lot of
damage, and Noriega is in prison, but drugs still flow through Panama.

And there's the CIA. Young says the United States winked at
drug-trafficking ties to the funding of the CIA-backed Contras
fighting in Nicaragua. A government report said, "senior U.S. policy
makers were not immune to the idea that drug money was a perfect
solution to the Contra's funding problems."

The global drug trade, Young says, has been valued at $180 billion to
$1 trillion per year, making it one of the largest commercial
enterprises in the world. And, as in other businesses, there is fierce
competition and some dirty pool among the crooks. One favorite trick
is to inform on a competitor.

In some states, the informant can receive up to 25 percent of the
property seized as a result of a tip he provided. This may be a clue
as to how police can stop one vehicle among thousands on the highway
and hit the jackpot with a big drug bust. Maybe they were told which
vehicle to stop.

Dealing with millions in cash presents some problems, such as what to
do with it. The answer is laundering the money so it can be used the
same way the average Joe uses his pay check. Laundering drug money is
a huge business, and a leading New York bank proved it when it was
caught laundering more than $90 million in two years for a Mexican
drug lord.

That's just one drug dealer and one bank.

The loudest cheerleaders for, and biggest contributors to,
organizations supporting the War on Drugs, are manufacturers of legal
drugs, namely alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals. They want the war
to go on, Young says, because they don't want drugs legalized into
products that would compete with them.

Young quotes writer Cynthia Cotts: "They (the legal drug companies)
know that when school children learn that marijuana and crack are
evil, they're also learning that alcohol, tobacco and pills are as
American as apple pie."

The list of those benefitting from the war goes on. The drug testing
industry and the private prison business are booming, and so are rehab
and treatment centers. All the while, Americans clamor for drug-free
schools and work places, meaning more testing, more treatment and more
prisons.

Meanwhile, the thousands of workers in private industry, government
and law enforcement who owe their livelihood to the drug trade,
silently pray, "Thank God for the War on Drugs. May it never end."

This puts a new slant on America's longest war, and one apparently as
futile as Vietnam. There's no way legalizing drugs could produce as
many jobs and as much loot as busting drug runners, seizing assets and
putting these dastardly criminals in durance vile.