WHY WASHINGTON HAS LOST ITS WAR ON DRUGS

America’s policies on illicit narcotics have long displayed evidence of
having been crafted by people who give the appearance of having dabbled in
a few recreational pharmaceuticals themselves.

When the amount of U.S.-bound cocaine intercepted in the Gulf of Mexico
dropped off after a few years of steadily increasing hauls in the 1980s for
instance, Washington’s Drug Enforcement Agency took the statistics to
indicate that it was winning its “war on drugs.” It took several years for
the hapless drugbusters to realize that many of their adversaries had
simply adopted a roundabout route, taking advantage of Canada’s endless
coastline and then shipping their wares overland through the porous entry
points on the world’s longest unprotected border.

The response? The DEA tightened its rules to keep the evil Canadians at
bay: A prescription written by a Canadian doctor - for, say, a heavy dose
of Panadol - must now be accompanied by an official DEA registration number
if a pharmacy on the American side of the border is to fill it. Drug barons
everywhere must have been shaking in their Guccis.

Now the head of the DEA, Thomas Constantine, has decided on a new target:
The American people, he says, have not shown the will to fight illegal
drugs. Implicitly admitting that interdiction had failed to do anything but
raise street prices and create new protection rackets, Mr. Constantine said
the “war” would only be won when “our own citizens, families, teachers, and
employers take this as seriously as the Y2K problem.”

Talk about your apples and oranges: The only people who like the Y2K
computer bug are those who are making a fortune off correcting it. Drugs
are an entirely different matter: The DEA’s budget is relatively small
($1.4 billion a year) because many Americans simply don’t care about its
mission. It has little to do with their daily lives except for the fact
that shoot-outs between rival drug gangs sometimes have tragic results for
innocent bystanders. Why are there shoot-outs? Because drugs are illegal.

There is also the reality that a goodly number of Americans, like other
peoples around the world, simply like to take drugs once in a a while: They
have little reason to press their congressmen for more DEA money when the
agency has shown no potential to accomplish a task which they disapprove
of. The crux of the matter is that Washington has criminalized behavior
which, while unhealthy, is not popularly seen as an abhorrent offense.

Yes, America’s drug users support a vast underworld of domestic dealers and
(mostly) foreign suppliers, but those who sell drugs range from
small-timers to irredeemably murderous thugs not because of their product
but because of its illegality. Those who ran liquor into the U.S. during
the era of prohibition were little different from today’s drug barons, but
that did not mean that customers in speakeasies were hardened criminals:
They just wanted a drink. An exaggerated version of the same phenomenon
took place in Soviet Russia when straightforward businessmen were put out
of business by Moscow’s insistence on a centrally planned, profitless - and
impotent - economy. Even today, it is almost impossible to buy a
high-quality television set in Russia without visiting an unseemly character:

Legalizing some drugs (for example, marijuana, hashish, and cocaine) will
not draw hordes of good-hearted businessmen into the trade.

And lethal substances such as heroin and the like must be stamped out. But
a partial legalization of relatively “soft” drugs would allow careful
inspection of substances which many people routinely inhale, snort, or
swallow. And nor would it make taking drugs more socially acceptable. As
conservative columnist William F. Buckley noted many years agon a televised
debate in which he advocated limited legalization, it is perfectly legal to
contract syphilis, but nonetheless not reputable to do so. And in any
event, telling a high school or university student not to smoke a joint
because it is not socially acceptable is like waving a red flag in front of
bull.

The ranks of people who sell drugs would still contain a great many social
predators, but how would they differ from liquor venders who sell to
alcoholics or casinos that drain every last penny from gambling addicts?

All of this would be irrelevant to other countries had Washington not
foisted its own foibles on the rest of the world. The State Department is
about to release its annual report card on the global narcotics trade. This
is not the Draconian practice often described in the media - the U.S. does
not sanction countries that fail to pass muster, but simply cuts aid to
their governments - but it is nonetheless an exercise in
self-righteousness. America basically tells the world that “we can’t stop
our people from using drugs, so you have to stop yours from growing them.”

Lebanon has felt the sting of Washington’s drug paranoia in the past, and
many farmers are still feeling the financial pinch. The UN was supposed to
compensate those who stopped growing the crops that earned them the highest
returns, but many say they have never been adequately compensated.

The process is especially hard to take when one considers that California’s
No. 1 cash crop is - you guessed it - marijuana. But imagine what would
happen if America’s most populous state were suddenly cut off from federal
funds because its governor had failed to eliminate dope farming. If
President Clinton wants to leave office with a bang, he should renounce his
claims that he “never inhaled” and invite a few reporters to watch him
blaze up on the roof of the White House. It’s hardly as though he has a
“role-model” image to protect, and he just might kickstart the process of
having the U.S. government finally reflect what its people have known for
years. Besides, an unusual act like telling the truth might add to the
presidential high.