DRUG WAR'S TOLL

Not everyone will count the $5 million of taxpayers' money just awarded to
the family of Donald P. Scott of Malibu as part of the cost of the war on
drugs. But it should be included as part of the price society pays for
keeping prohibitionist policies in place -- only a small part of the cost.

Mr. Scott, who was 61 at the time, was shot to death by a Los Angeles
County sheriff's deputy in October 1992. The deputies, along with officers
from other local and federal law enforcement agencies, raided Mr. Scott's
200-acre ranch in hopes of finding evidence of marijuana cultivation. When
Mr. Scott emerged sleepily from his bedroom carrying a pistol during a
forced entry by officers, deputies opened fire. No drugs were found. ...

A later report by the Ventura County District Attorney ... concluded the
raid was almost certainly a coordinated multi-jurisdictional effort to
seize Mr. Scott's property under federal asset-forfeiture laws.

That kind of abuse of laws that allow the property of those accused of
violating drug laws to be seized without a conviction ... led to the
passage of asset-forfeiture reform in the House this year. But reform
cannot bring Mr. Scott back to his wife and four children. ...

The real cost is the loss of trust in law enforcement and the concept of
the rule of law that cases like this have helped to feed.