PROHIBITION - CAUSING DRUG VIOLENCE?

THIS week's mass murder in a drug-infested St. Albans suburb raises a
troubling thought: Much of America's criminality and gun violence
among addicts and illegal drug dealers apparently is spawned by the
nation's harsh prohibition of narcotics.

Almost a century ago, the United States plunged into Prohibition, the
criminalization of alcohol. Immediately, illicit dealers began
supplying bootleg booze in the shadows. Gun battles erupted between
rival rum-runners. Prisons were crammed with alcohol offenders.
Police and judges were bribed to overlook "speakeasy" bars. Street
gangs and the Mafia grew in that grotesque time.

After Prohibition was repealed, alcohol became legal under state
regulation -- and the wave of alcohol crimes faded.

Today history is repeating itself, via criminalization of disapproved
drugs. Illicit dealers supply banned substances in the shadows. Gun
battles erupt between rival operators. Prisons are crammed with
narcotics offenders. Police and judges sometimes are bribed to look
the other way. Street gangs and the Mafia profit from the lucrative
trade. So do Muslim terrorists who control Afghanistan's opium
poppies, and Latin American cartels in control of cocaine production.
Local American peddlers carry guns, so they won't be robbed of their
cash or stash. They sell to children or anyone able to buy. Addicts
commit robberies to get money for daily fixes. Impure mixes by
amateur suppliers cause overdose deaths.

U.S. taxpayers spend $69 billion a year on the "war on drugs" --
including the gigantic cost of arresting, trying or imprisoning 1.6
million Americans annually -- but the war is being lost, because
narcotics abuse remains as extensive as ever. The situation is bizarre.

A national organization of current and former police officers, Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition, calls for legalization of all drugs
and control of them through public health agencies. LEAP would
license legitimate suppliers of purified substances -- and yank their
licenses if they sold to children. LEAP speaker Dean Becker says:

"The day we regulate drugs to adults, we eliminate easy access for
our children, we evaporate the worth of Osama's heroin stash, we
negate the Colombian drug cartels, we basically eliminate overdose
deaths, and we begin to restore respect for the U.S. system of
justice now tainted by black market billions."

LEAP official Mike Smithson says America's prohibition of narcotics
puts the drug business into the hands of armed criminals, producing
"a St. Valentine's Day massacre every week." He referred to the
famous 1929 event in Chicago, when seven rum-runners of the Bugs
Moran gang were mowed down in an illegal liquor warehouse by the
rival Al Capone gang.

Legalizing alcohol again in 1933 gradually took gunfire out of the
booze business. If America likewise legalized narcotics and regulated
them through health agencies, would today's drug murders, police cost
and prison expense similarly be eliminated? This newspaper long has
called for legalization of marijuana, which is no more harmful than
beer. LEAP advocates that step for all narcotics.

Congress and West Virginia's Legislature should study this question
- -- but don't hold your breath while you wait for change, because
nearly all politicians brag about being "tough on drugs." Thus they
guarantee that the narcotics trade will remain in the hands of criminals.