DRUG WAR MISGUIDED, HARMFUL

Now that the 2008 presidential election circus is in full swing, it's
high time to see where candidates stand on the most important issues
facing our society. Most of these are wars, in some fashion or
another: the war in Iraq, the war on terror, the war on poverty, the
war on drugs, the war against leaving children behind.

When it comes to these wars, the candidates tend to align themselves
in a fairly predictable way with their party. But when they try
articulating how they feel about the war on drugs, interesting things happen.

Republicans begin attributing authoritarian powers to federal over
state government. Democrats begin expounding on public morality. And
perhaps less strangely, candidates from both parties retract their
previously stated positions. But it seems that when it comes to drugs
- -- and especially the portion of the war spent against marijuana --
politicians lose their minds.

They dismiss the findings of national medical journals, health
associations and independent physicians' panels. They argue that
legalizing marijuana, even just for medicinal purposes, would somehow
send the wrong message to children. The message children are not
getting (and their parents may not realize either) is that the war on
drugs has progressed to a point that police can break into private
homes, destroy property and hold up law-abiding citizens if their
house matches the description of a known drug dealer or their
informant is wrong.

In July 2004, Houston police forcibly entered the home of a landscape
contractor, ordered him to the floor, pointed an assault weapon at
his head, searched his house and found nothing but hibiscus. Some
stories like this end in the death of innocent people, but the issue
at hand is why they start at all.

Why the insistence on cracking down so harshly against a substance
that arguably does less harm than legal substances such as alcohol,
tobacco or misused painkillers? More importantly, how does a
government originally founded on principles of liberty, property and
states' rights justify ignoring those rights for the sake of
appearing upstanding?

Because the war on drugs really is about appearances. It has yet to
provide any concrete, long-term success. On the contrary, prevention
programs such as DARE have been proven ineffective, crime hasn't
fallen significantly and increasing arrests for possession have
crowded prisons with nonviolent offenders. In 2004, 20 percent of
inmates in state prisons were drug offenders, and more than a quarter
of those were serving time for possession.

For $69 billion a year, taxpayers should expect and demand serious
improvements in their society. Instead, we are bombarded with empty
rhetoric about being tough on crime. All the while, drug war policies
continue to take rights away from citizens whose social mobility
needs all the help it can get.

Under a 1998 amendment to the Higher Education Act, drug violations
keep students from being eligible for federally funded college aid.
People with drug convictions also can be denied public housing, food
stamps and even the right to vote.

As the presidential candidates present their platforms about the
difficult issues facing our society, we should take a serious look at
which wars we're most dedicated to fighting -- and what rights and
taxes we're willing to hand over to make sure we win.