The Pentagon's recent recommendation to permanently cancel armed
military patrols along the Mexico border is a good first step toward a
drug policy not based on military force. Armed soldiers on the border,
however, are only the tip of the iceberg in our militarized drug war.

The incident that led to the proposed policy shift - the shooting
death of young goat herder last year by a United States Marine on an
antidrug surveillance mission - should never have happened.

When I visited the Texas border town where Esequiel Hernandez was
killed, residents said they could not understand why they were treated
like criminals simply because they lived on the border. Military
helicopters droned overhead. Children were afraid to go outside.

Many in the community felt the military had taken from them one of
their best and brightest. Yet, the Department of Defense has yet to
acknowledge any wrongdoing. Instead, it hides behind last year's
questionable grand jury decision not to indict the marine who fired
the fatal bullet. It fails to mention that the majority of the jury
were people who received paychecks or retirement checks from the
federal government, including the deputy border patrol chief for the
region, a member of the very agency that called in the Marines and was
responsible for their supervision.

The Hernandez family has suffered from the loss of their son. They
deserve a formal apology from the Pentagon.

For most of our nation's history, police actions by the military have
been barred from US soil. This was consistent with the sentiments of
our Founding Fathers, who objected to the presence of British standing
armies in the colonies. In 1878, Congress passed a law that made it a
criminal offense for the military to be involved in civilian law
enforcement.

But in 1981, that tradition began to change. Over the protest of
then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, the government put in
place the first of several amendments allowing the military to become
involved in civilian law enforcement. Mr. Weinberger's concerns - that
blurring the distinction between civilian policing and military action
would risk our democratic principles, and that soldiers lack the
training to deal with civilian situations - fell on deaf ears.

Since then, the military role in drug enforcement has escalated
rapidly:

The Pentagon's drug enforcement budget approaches $1 billion a
year;

4,000 National Guard troops are involved in 1,300 counter-drug
operations;

89 percent of police departments now have paramilitary units, 46
percent of which have been trained by active-duty armed forces;

Army Special Forces units have conducted urban warfare drills in at
least 21 cities throughout the US;

The military under federal law is the "lead agency" on drug
interdiction;

The US military provides weapons and training to foreign military and
police units, many of which have been involved in human-rights violations.

Despite this, White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey announced last
year that he was backing away from the "war on drugs" metaphor, opting
instead to view the problem as a "continuous challenge" without clear
victors. Yet, the reality is that today's drug war has turned more and
more into a real war.

We have two choices. We can continue down the path of the last decade
and a half and involve the military, National Guard, and paramilitary
police forces in civilian law enforcement. More communities will feel
like that border town in Texas where constant surveillance and the
presence of troops have become facts of life.

Or, we can begin taking steps to remove the military from civilian
policing altogether. We can begin to reframe our national drug problem
as a public health crisis that must be addressed with public health
solutions, not military force.

Kevin Zeese President of Common Sense for Drug Policy, a clearinghouse
for drug policy alternatives.