A Special Editorial Page Report

REDUCE DRUG MARKET BY MAKING IT A LEGAL COMMODITY

By Robert H. Dowd Special to the SunSentinel

If it were possible to devise a scheme more convoluted and ridiculous than
the present U.S. drug war strategy, this Congress is well on its way to
achieve that dubious distinction. Representing only four percent of the
world's population, the United States consumes nearly half of the illegal
drugs. Yet this nation demands that the rest of the world cooperate in our
war on drugs as the price of America's ``goodwill.''

Some members of Congress still believe that eradicating drug crops and
trafficking in source countries is the most efficient way to enforce drug
prohibition. First tried by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 to stop
opium smuggling into the newly acquired Philippine islands, this strategy
failed miserably then and has continued to fail throughout the 20th Century
for every subsequent administration that has tried it.

Yet members of Congress regularly call for a steppedup war on drugs to
clear our streets and neighborhoods of illegal drugs, in order to protect
our children. They give truth to the words of George Santayana who said:
``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.''

If you wish to compare another failed initiative of our government, you
don't have to look far. Consider the 1965 ``war on poverty,'' a
bureaucratic boondoggle that actually increased poverty each year while
demanding ever greater amounts of tax dollars to be shoveled into its maw.
Congress recognized its mistake after 30 years of failure and reformed
welfare in 1996 by returning responsibility to the states. Now Congress
must recognize it has created an authoritarian bureaucracy to enforce drug
prohibition which has progressively increased drug use and the addiction
ratio in the U.S. population.

Drug prohibition and the war on drugs has also contributed to worldwide
drug trafficking the greatest criminal enterprise the world has ever
known. The war on drugs attempts to eradicate the available supply of drugs
at its source, but it has not contributed one iota to reducing drug use.
Please show me one drug addict who has been forced from his habit for a
lack of illegal drugs to buy.

And how is the war on drugs affecting our youth? According to a recent
survey of 12to17yearolds sponsored by the Commission on Substance Abuse
Among America's Adolescents, a fourth of the 12yearolds surveyed said
they know someone who uses hard drugs such as cocaine or heroin a 122
percent increase in one year. These findings should not surprise us when
nearly 630,000 members of juvenile gangs are selling drugs to our children
wherever they gather.

In researching my new book, The Enemy Is Us How to Defeat Drug Abuse and
End the War on Drugs, I came to understand how juveniles are drawn into
illegal drug peddling that brings death, crime, corruption and violence to
our communities. This is the most horrifying side of illegal drugs our
children are accepting it.

Like alcohol, the repeal of drug prohibition would virtually eliminate drug
dealers, juvenile drug sellers, crack houses and drugrelated crime. Al
Capone ruled Chicago during Prohibition in the ``roaring '20s'' and his
counterparts controlled every major U.S. city. After the repeal of alcohol
prohibition in 1933, alcoholrelated criminal activities such as
bootlegging, hijackings, rumrunning and speakeasies disappeared from
America's landscape.

My book cites an abundance of empirical evidence to prove our society can
reduce drug use in a legal market. Yet, drug bureaucrats make the
selfserving claim that legal drugs would quadruple drug addiction.

This assertion is simply not true, and is the crux of the problem: The drug
bureaucracy has a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that prohibition
will work, rather than working to find to solution.

General McCaffrey, the U.S. drug czar, says, ``At the end of the day, there
can be only one clear priority and this is focus on youth, drug prevention
and education.'' Yet Congress is demanding a renewed campaign to eradicate
the drug supply at its source.

We can save our children by repealing prohibition and restoring a
regulated, nonviolent drug market as we did for alcohol but absent the
deaths, crime, violence and corruption caused by the drug war.

Robert H. Dowd
Lieutenant Colonel, USAFRetired
Miami