CASULTIES OF WAR

Anti-Drug Posturing Is Causing More Damage Than Illegal Drugs Themselves

Here's what's not in dispute: Lt. Terry Rice and Mike Merkl are, as
one colleague expressed, "two of the best, most respected firefighters
we've had on the job." Each has logged nearly 20 years of
distinguished, courageous service. But for reasons that have nothing
to do with their on-the-job performance-or for that matter, basic
standards of decency and common sense-Fire Chief Debra Amesqua is
seeking to have both men fired.

In the private sector, says Rice, someone with his work history
convicted of misdemeanor cocaine possession would likely be welcomed
back. "Too bad, I was in the Fire Department and we have a chief like
Amesqua," he says. "She's taking one of her better employees and
making an example of him."

That's exactly what Amesqua is doing. Rice's crime-for which he has
already endured public humiliation and 12 days in jail-is that, five
years ago, he twice helped a roommate obtain some cocaine and sampled
the drug himself. Merkl's involvement was more serious, and he drew a
longer jail term. But there's no indication either man ever used
cocaine on the job.

Amesqua is nonetheless pursuing termination because, she says, "There
is no place in the Madison Fire Department for those who break the
law, neglect their duty, and disgrace their uniform." This is as false
as it is fatuous, since the department has in the past hired a
convicted felon and let other firefighters convicted of drunk driving
keep their jobs. Amesqua's handling of this case has nothing to do
with preserving the integrity of the Fire Department and everything to
do with anti-drug posturing.

On Monday, the Madison Police and Fire Commission, probably the area's
most plodding and incompetent body public, met to set a schedule of
evidentiary hearings against Merkl and Rice. But even this proved too
much for the PFC to accomplish in a single meeting, and the process of
schedule-setting will resume March 2. During however long it takes the
PFC to do its business (in some past cases it's taken more than a
year), city taxpayers will be paying Rice and Merkl not to work.

This is especially sad given that Rice and Merkl have evidently
performed better in their jobs than PFC-pick Amesqua has in hers. But
when Amesqua's lack of qualifications and managerial ability became a
public issue in 1998, the mayor and others cut her a huge break.
People who have been treated with mercy should show some themselves.

In fact, if Amesqua weren't such a lousy manager, the Fire Department
might have negotiated a sensible disciplinary outcome. To this day,
says Rice, "If they said to me I could come back to work but be
demoted, I would do that." He might even agree to an unpaid
suspension, which may be what the PFC ends up imposing, after wasting
tens of thousands of the taxpayers' dollars.

The notion that a firefighter who used coke five years ago
is unfit to work today, however silly, is perfectly in keeping with
much of the national discussion on drugs.

Take the 2000 presidential election.please. That George W. Bush may
have used cocaine has received considerably more attention than his
shameless indulgence in corporate cronyism. Meanwhile, Al Gore has
apparently decided that lying is the best policy when it comes to his
own purportedly extensive history of recreational drug use.

According to a book excerpt in Newsweek, Gore and former good buddy
John Warnecke would "talk politics late into the night, fueled by
Grateful Dead albums and high-grade marijuana." This doesn't make Gore
unfit to lead, but it does expose his hypocricy. Under Clinton and
Gore, the War on Pot has escalated to new heights-in 1997, there were
695,000 pot arrests nationally, 87% for simple possession. This week,
the total of people in U.S. jails and prisons surpassed two million,
with 60% of federal inmates being drug offenders.

In Dane County, District Attorney Diane Nicks has maintained a
"Dragnet"-like approach toward pot, with hundreds of people each year
being charged with crimes, often felonies, for mere possession. She
says her goal is to "deter drug use." Of course, she's doing no such
thing; she's merely using the law to damage people's lives far more
severely than smoking marijuana ever did.

The first casualty of the War on Drugs, like all wars, is truth. In
Milwaukee, the police union has accused Mayor John Norquist and the
police chief of having "the blood of innocent victims" on their hands
because they backed decriminalizing of up to 25 grams of pot. In fact,
almost none of Milwaukee's drug killings involve marijuana.

Closer to home, Fox 47's lead news story last Thursday was about a
Baraboo DARE officer who feels a FedEx Superbowl ad undid 30 years of
anti-drug education because it showed the Munchkins from the Wizard of
Oz inhaling helium to regain their high-pitched voices. This,
supposedly, is an invitation to kids to start sniffing inhalants.

Does anyone really believe this? Or is it evidence that anti-drug
crusaders are no longer expected to make sense?

Sadly, the War on Drugs is more than just foolish. It's a
threat to ordinary people's lives and liberty. Just ask Gordon Vergeront.

The owner of Three G Auto in Madison, Vergeront says that on Feb. 9
more than a dozen heavily armed members of the Dane County Narcotics
and Gang Task Force (including Madison police) without warning busted
down the door of a house he owns near Rimrock Road. Vergeront, who
rents the residence to two men in their mid-20s but keeps a room in
the basement, saw the whole thing, and feared for his life. "It was
like a Dirty Harry movie," he says. By Vergeront's account (MPD
spokesperson Dave Gouran did not respond to a request for comment),
the intruders "trashed" the entire house, causing what he estimates is
$10,000 in damage. They busted doors off hinges with such force that
one lodged into a wall. They threw his young renter to the floor, and
held a gun to his head. They smashed electronic games and confiscated
a microwave. And, finding nothing but a small amount of marijuana in a
film container, they left without making an arrest.

Vergeront says the cops refused to say what prompted this intrusion,
for which Judge Dan Moeser signed a search warrant, but they did make
one thing clear: "The burden of making repairs is on the landlord."