FORFEITURE POLICIES ARE UNDERMINING JUSTICE

It occurs to me that forfeiture laws may be our undoing. Never mind the
inherent unconstitutionality and corruption in these laws and so many
others; forfeiture actually undermines and discourages the fighting of
serious violent crime in lieu of pursuing victimless, non-violent,
drug-related crime.

Given the choice between intervening in a rape or murder or busting a
non-violent, hard-working, tax paying cannabis user, law enforcement has
two choices: 1. Arrest the rapist/murderer. The result of which is just
that-the arrest of another mere rapist/murderer; or , 2. Arrest the
non-violent, hard-working, tax-paying cannabis user. The result is the
arrest itself, of course, but there is so much more. Law enforcement will
enjoy the glitter and glamour of an arrest that through forfeiture will net
them home(s), car(s), television(s), VCR(s), furniture, boat(s), stereo(s),
cash found in the home, contents of bank/checking accounts, contents of
safety deposit boxes, computer(s), printer(s), scanner(s), monitor(s) --
and all other worldly possessions of the cannabis user.

There is no incentive for law enforcement to concentrate on the plain
vanilla, run-of-the-mill violent criminals, murderers, rapists, thieves and
burglars any more. There is no profit in it.

Maybe the politicians are required to adhere to the party line of
prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison industrial
complex, , the drug testing industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA,
the politicians themselves, et al., can't live without the budget
justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption
and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The drug war also
promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is
diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be guaranteed
by the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

It is for this reason and many others that two conditions will always exist
with prohibition. They are contradictory yet interdependent:

1. Prohibition can't work.

2. The war on drugs must never end.

This is the enigma of drug policy today.

MYRON VON HOLLINGSWORTH, Fort Worth, Tex.