NO LIGHT AT THE END OF DRUG WAR TUNNEL

As the Mexican proverb has it: "Poor Mexico -- so far from God, and so
close to the United States." Our southern neighbor is once again being
threatened with economic sanctions if it fails to take what Congress
considers to be sufficiently aggressive steps to stop the flow of
drugs from there to here. President Ernesto Zedillo has therefore
committed $500 million of scarce government resources to cutting off
drug contraband. He has also promised a crackdown on police
corruption: a promise that tactfully overlooks that it is the drug
trade that causes such corruption, rather than the reverse.

It is difficult to overstate the sheer craziness of this yearly
ritual. The whole idea of dealing with the drug problem by
interdicting drugs makes as much sense as dealing with the problem of
storm damage by interdicting hurricanes. Making a meaningful dent in
America's drug habit by attempting to stem the tide of drug smuggling
has never worked, and indeed could not possibly work. A host of
unalterable economic and geographic facts ensure that any such policy
is doomed to fail.

Consider that all the heroin imported into the United States in a year
could fit into a standard marine cargo container. The Port of Los
Angeles alone receives more than 250,000 such containers every year;
our customs officials are able to inspect 400 of them. Such figures
should make it clear how futile any attempt to reduce significantly
the foreign drug supply must be; yet somehow they never do. Instead we
spend billions of dollars trying to catch drug smugglers, we
militarize our borders, we imprison millions of Americans for drug
offenses and we thrust ourselves into the most sensitive affairs of
various Central and South American nations.

And for what? The most optimistic estimates claim that approximately 2
percent of the drug contraband that enters the United States is
interdicted. Imagine for a moment that we undertook yet another vast
expansion in the resources committed to cutting off the drug trade. It
is just possible that our already overworked law enforcement system
could become twice as effective at catching drug smugglers, and that
our prisons could be expanded to house 2 million drug offenders, as
opposed to the nearly 1 million who are currently incarcerated. But
what would be the point? It is well known that such barely imaginable
victories in America's longest war would have almost no effect on
either the price or the availability of illegal drugs.

America's current federal drug policy is a disturbing reminder that it
is possible to spend decades pursuing national agendas that are
frankly irrational. Throw enough money at a problem, fund enough
agencies, build enough prisons, commit enough military force and it
becomes possible to forget that what one is doing is basically nuts.

At bottom, substance abuse is a public health problem that we have
chosen to treat as a matter of criminal law. Worse yet, our anxiety
about drug use has convinced us that the potential destabilization of
foreign governments is a small price to pay for the feeling that we
are doing something about the drug problem. And so we continue to do
that same something, despite the common knowledge that the feeling of
effective action our policies provide us is every bit as illusory as
the drug addict's high.

Imprisoning drug addicts makes no more sense than incarcerating
alcoholics or compulsive gamblers. And the annual threat to slap trade
sanctions on a relatively poor nation of 80 million people because a
small percentage of the Americans who use illegal drugs become drug
addicts represents symbolic politics at its worst.

Fortunately, many Americans are beginning to realize that a
declaration of war does not constitute a reasonable domestic policy.
But if we insist on continuing to fight the drug war, then we ought to
take William Fulbright's famous advice concerning another misguided
military adventure: We should declare victory and go home.
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Paul Campos is professor of law at the University of Colorado,
currently visiting at George Mason University. He can be reached at
Paul.Campos@Colorado.edu.