NEW MEXICO'S RAY OF SUNSHINE AMID THE USUAL GLOOM

Dec. 26 - Let us suppose that a gang of drug dealers had broken into a
house, surprised an occupant who tried to defend himself, and then
shot him dead.

There would be an outcry that the death penalty wasn't nearly harsh
enough for such scum.

But when the police do it, it's just an accident - some of that
unavoidable collateral damage in the all-important War on Drugs - and
if there's any outcry, it hasn't been loud enough to notice. Nobody's
marching in the street.

Last September, Denver police served a "no-knock'' warrant at the home
of Ismael Mena, who ended up dead by police bullets. Many have noted
that no drugs were found in the house, as if that would have been an
excuse for killing Mena.

Start with the rationale for a "no-knock'' warrant. The theory is that
if the police act in a polite and civil way, and ring the door bell
and announce their presence, then the miscreants inside might flush
the drugs down the toilet before answering the door.

Since the excuse for much enforcement is "to get the drugs off the
street,'' it would seem that a "yes-knock'' warrant would serve that
purpose just as well. Drugs in the sewer certainly aren't on the street.

Then there's the matter of the police going to the wrong address. I
saw that once, and then heard the cop call me a liar.

It happened in early 1974, when I was in college in Greeley. Among my
other duties at the campus paper was covering the police department,
and we had a decent working relationship.

A friend, Tom Hopkins, had applied at the Greeley Police Department
and listed me as a reference. One afternoon, as I was sitting in my
second-floor apartment, I heard noises next door, looked out the
window, and saw a Greeley cop going around that house, beating on
every door he could find.

A couple of days later, I was in the police station, checking the
blotter, when that cop appeared and said he'd like to talk to me.
Invitations like that can lead to trouble if refused, so I agreed.

He asked me about Tom, and without stretching the truth unduly, I told
him Tom was a decent and upstanding citizen. Then the cop asked me why
I hadn't answered my door a couple of days ago when he'd come to check
on Tom's reference - I didn't have a phone at the time.

"You went to the wrong house,'' I said. "I saw you next door, and I
wondered what was going on.''

"No I didn't,'' he said. "You're wrong.''

We looked at the address Tom had given them for me, and it was the
correct address. The cop had indeed gone to the wrong address.
Although I was sorely tempted, I did not push the issue, lest I
jeopardize Tom's job application, and he may have owed me money at the
time so that it was in my interest for him to be gainfully employed.

Everybody makes mistakes. On a regular warrant, if the police show up
at the wrong house, whoever answers the door can gently show them the
street number on the mailbox, accept their apology if they bother to
offer one and return to normal life. On a no-knock, those safeguards
don't happen.

>From what I read, most no-knock warrants are used in the War on Drugs,
and its rationale is getting mighty thin as this millennium ends. The
main argument is that we have to control certain substances, or else
young people will use them and ruin their lives.

Granted, there are addictive substances that make you stupid, but the
principal of these is alcohol, and you'd think America would have
learned the lesson after Prohibition failed.

But the question is: Does youthful use necessarily lead to a life of
dissipation? If the answer is negative, then what's the point of the
War on Drugs?

That's why Texas Gov. George W. Bush remains coy about his youthful
adventures. If he were to say "Yeah, I did some stupid things, but I
got over it, and so will most other people,'' the entire Drug-War
Industrial Complex would fund some other candidate, one who could be
relied upon to tell the customary lies and keep the funds flowing.

There aren't many rays of sunshine amid all these frauds and
deceptions, but one glows just to the south of us.

New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson hasn't just admitted to "youthful
experimentation.'' A few months ago, he flat-out said he smoked a lot
of pot and snorted cocaine. Without the benefit of prison or therapy
from William Bennett, he went on to a successful business and
political career.

The good news for the coming election year is that there's one honest
Republican governor in the country. The bad news is that he's not the
one that Republicans want to nominate for the presidency.