TIME FOR SERIOUS DEBATE ON LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

Some readers dared me to go a giant step further than my column last
month agreeing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that America's
demand for illegal drugs was a major contributor to the violent
mega-drug-trafficking business in Mexico.

They said that rather than call for more prevention and intervention
dollars spent on the drug problem in America, why not call for the
only practical solution: legalization?

What most of those readers did not know is that I have long been in
favor of at least discussing the merits (and disadvantages) of
decriminalizing drug use and completely legalizing drugs altogether
as a means of removing the profit -- and thus the incentive for crime
and violence -- from the drug trade.

I agreed with Joycelyn Elders, the nation's outspoken surgeon general
under President Bill Clinton, who suggested in 1993 that it was
perhaps time for this country to at least "study" the idea of drug
legalization.

A year later she would be fired because of her straightforward
approach in discussing addiction and other health issues, including
statements about contraception distribution in schools and having the
audacity to reply to a question about masturbation as one possible
alternative in fighting HIV/AIDS.

Except for dialogue among a few academics and celebrities (including
some well-known conservatives), there has been very little talk about
drug legalization.

Instead, we continue to pour money into enforcement -- with little success.

One of the most eloquent and detailed responses I received regarding
this issue came from a self-described "52-year-old Mexican
professional who lives, with his family, in drug-violence ridden Mexico."

This self-described retired senior environmental law enforcement
officer, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he has witnessed
Mexico's drug problem first-hand.

He likens what's happening in his country today to what happened in
the United States during Prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s.

"When I was a kid, my mother used to walk me to the kindergarten, and
on our way we crossed a public park that had bunches of red poppies," he wrote.

"To me, even as a toddler, poppies were so beautiful, that I can
still close my eyes and see them quivering in the breeze," he said.

After U.S.-led pressure and the first domestic drug-prohibition laws
in his country, "the poppies were yanked out of public parks and
substituted by rose bushes. I have never seen another poppy grow in
Mexico, whether in the wild or cultivated -- and that was more than
45 years ago," the man wrote.

In his 10-point, six-page treatise, this Mexican citizen compared the
Chicago gang syndicate to his country's drug cartels, which grew more
powerful and diversified into other businesses (gambling,
prostitution, etc.), all the while forcing the government to spend
more money enforcing prohibition than on the true necessities for society.

He said that in Mexico, the government "began its decades-long
love-hate relationship with drug lords, which meant, among other
things, that drug leaders soon discovered, quite naturally, that it
was far easier and cheaper to buy law enforcement officers than
fighting them. Even today, cartels ... ask new police and military
personnel what will be their choice: silver or lead? With such a
convincing argument, what do we expect them to choose?"

Just as in Mexico, where more and more dollars are being spent on
"national security" to fight drugs and on electoral monitoring to
pinpoint politicians who possibly have been "bought" by the drug
cartels, the money we spend on drug enforcement in the United States
is way out of proportion to many other needs facing this country.

I'm certainly familiar with the argument that legalization will cause
an increase in the number of addicts, contributing to more
individual, family and societal problems.

I also know there is a huge drug-enforcement industry that would
suffer if suddenly drugs were no longer illegal.

But then, what if the billions now spent on enforcing the prohibition
resulted in an equal amount of dollars in new taxes under a legalized system?

Would it be worth it?

It's time we at least started talking about it.