HALT WAR ON DRUGS, TARGET THE KINGPINS

Mexico has a point: Americans have contributed mightily to the
creation of the violent drug cartels now wreaking havoc on the
border. We are major consumers of their illegal products. In
addition, we supply many of the weapons they use against rivals, law
enforcement officials and innocents caught in the crossfire. Federal
agents estimate that 90 percent of the pistols and rifles confiscated
from Mexican drug traffickers last year and subjected to traces were
traced back to gun dealers in the U.S., according to The New York Times.

Before his meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon last week,
President Barack Obama made a number of moves designed to placate our
southern neighbors, who are struggling with an out-and-out drug war.
Obama appointed a "border czar" to crack down on the smuggling of
guns and drugs, he imposed financial sanctions on three of the most
notorious cartels, he threatened to prosecute any American who does
business with drug kingpins.

Noticeably absent from Obama's list of corrective measures was any
pledge to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, which expired in
2004. Bullied by the gun lobby, Obama and fellow Democrats are afraid
to press a common-sense measure that would take weapons of war off
the streets here and out of the hands of drug thugs in Mexico.

Given that cowardice, it's probably futile to suggest that Obama do
something visionary, if radical, about the market for illegal drugs
in this country:

Walk away from the failed and costly "war on drugs"; significantly
reduce the amount of money spent on enforcement against penny-ante
dealers and users, abandon draconian laws that give stiff prison
sentences to nonviolent drug offenders, spend the money instead on
rehabilitation for addicts.

Some of that money could also be redirected to cracking down on the
cartels, as Obama has proposed. They are vicious criminal enterprises
that, left unchecked, can infiltrate the law enforcement and judicial
establishments of entire countries. As Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) recently
noted, "the Mexican drug cartels are capable of a very sophisticated
level of quasi-military violence." The Drug Enforcement
Administration and the FBI should concentrate resources on those
kingpins, not on street-level dealers or addicted users doing more
harm to themselves than anyone else.

In the 40 years since President Richard Nixon first used the term
"war on drugs," the U.S. has spent billions on punitive law
enforcement efforts; harassed and intimidated law-abiding residents
of poor urban neighborhoods; and locked up hundreds of thousands for
nonviolent drug offenses, resulting in the highest incarceration rate
on the planet. Meanwhile, the use of illegal narcotics in this
country has not changed substantially.

Oh, there's an ebb and flow, a change in fashions, an emergence of
new trends. The crack epidemic, which largely affected black
communities, is slowly fading, while whites in small towns and rural
areas have become enmeshed in a devastating love affair with
methamphetamine. But there is no evidence that Americans' desire to
indulge in mind-altering substances has been dampened.

Instead, the government's insistence on outlawing narcotics has fed a
thriving and violent criminal enterprise, much the way that
prohibition of alcohol fueled violent gangs in the 1920s. Think about
it: As long as alcohol is sold legally, there are no outsized
fortunes to be made from selling it illegally, no need for thugs with
weapons to handle its distribution or collect the profits. The U.S.
finally came to its senses in 1933 and repealed Prohibition after a
13-year struggle with the lawlessness it spawned.

For a host of political and cultural reasons, Americans aren't ready
for the wholesale repeal of laws against illegal drugs. Nevertheless,
most of us would admit that decades of draconian law enforcement
haven't helped and have probably hurt, driving up the costs of
incarceration and leaving countless nonviolent offenders with criminal records.

That leaves Attorney General Eric Holder with an opening to quietly
redirect federal law enforcement to focus on the most violent drug
offenders and the most profitable drug enterprises. No more drug
busts that make evening news but only reel in low-level dealers. If
the feds were to lead the way, local police authorities might get the
message and redirect their resources as well.

And we might finally have a policy that puts fewer people in prison
while still keeping our streets safe.