Money key to drug trade

Dear Editor:

I could add my voice to those disagreeing with Leo Knight's rejection of
"safe houses" for addicts and other drug decriminalization measures, but I
would prefer to add the voices of William F. Buckley, Jr., and six other
blueribbon American conservatives.

To read their views, look up the Feb. 12, 1996, National Review or point
your Web browser to

http://www.townhall.com/nationalreview/12feb96/drug.html.

Drug war crusaders should pay special attention to the section written by
35-year police veteran Joseph McNamara, who zeroes in on the fundamental
dynamic behind drug-related crime in his first four words: "It's the money,
stupid." Drug-related crime comes in three basic forms:

* robberies (and more serious crimes associated with robberies) committed
by addicts;

* crimes of violence and destruction committed by drug suppliers fighting
for control of a market area or a source of supply;

* and, as Mr. McNamara points out, corruption of law enforcement officials
who are trying to fight the "war on drugs."

Clearly, the prime motivation behind all these crimes is the high price of
drugs.

The addict steals because "normal" jobs do not generate enough income to
buy drugs; the suppliers fight to the death because enormous profits are
worth fighting for; and the enforcers are corrupted because the criminals
can afford large payoffs, or because the enforcers themselves can make far
more money by turning criminal than by doing their jobs.

The prices are high, and the profits are enormous, primarily because drugs
are illegal.

By outlawing these substances, we have achieved two outcomes. First, we
have given organized crime a neartotal monopoly over the trade, a monopoly
which is strengthened every time another basement marijuana operation is
"busted."

Second, our interceptions and seizures give the drug lords what must be
the most effective supplymanagement service in the history of
international trade.

Remember, OPEC ultimately failed to maintain high oil prices and profits
because it could not stop some of its members from flooding the market with
cheaper oil.

The drug lords need have no fear of this; it is law enforcement effort,
paid for by our tax money, which prevents the supply of drugs at the end
user level from growing enough to meet the demand at a reasonable price.

Am I in favor of drugs? Of course not. Nor is Mr. Buckley, nor are any of
the other authors of the National Review article.

But whether anyone is in favor of them or not, they exist. There is no way
that I or Mr. Buckley (or Mr. Knight, for that matter) can exercise enough
control over the behavior of 300 million or so North Americans to guarantee
that 100% of them will be nonusers, as we are.

The experience of Prohibition should have taught Canada and the U.S. that
shutting down trade in psychoactive drugs is simply impossible.

The proper question, then, is which kind of trade provides the most
benefit for the most people: legalized, regulated distribution of narcotics
at low profits, or the existing illegal, unregulated, and excessively
profitable system.

The answer is clear.

The current system enriches organized crime (and justifies drug warriors
who build bureaucratic empires) at the direct expense of everyone else:
addicts, robbery victims, insurance companies and their customers, innocent
bystanders trapped in drug turf wars, and taxpayers. In contrast,
legalized distribution would enable addicts to supply themselves without
stealing, would reduce drug profits to a level where organized crime would
not even want to participate in the trade, and would release a great deal
of police resources and tax money to serve other urgent public priorities.
Under any reasonable costbenefit comparison, legalization is the better
choice by a gargantuan margin. Remember: "It's the money, stupid."

Stephen Finlay,

North Vancouver