CRIMINAL ASSETS

An ad on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union carries the statistic
that 75 per cent of US banknotes are contaminated with cocaine.

Even a trace of cocaine is enough to warrant confiscation of your cash, but
the union says most of the victims of forfeiture are not criminals. "Like
the grandmother who lost her home because her drug-dealing son once lived
there, or the landscaper whose $9,000 was seized at the airport because
'only drug dealers carry that much cash'." These people were never charged
and the forfeiture fund is now $2.7 billion. "The war on drugs has turned
into a war on the Constitution," the ad says.