TEXANS AGAINST THE WAR ON DRUGS

The Resolutions Offered by El Paso's City Council to End Prohibition
Are Quashed by Fear of Retaliation by Washington.

El Paso, Texas - In the national debate about the efficacy and
morality of the U.S. war on drugs, it is not uncommon for
prohibitionists to accuse their opponents of harboring libertine
motives. But as opposition to current policy increases in places like
this culturally conservative and predominantly Catholic border city,
that charge isn't sticking.

The growing tendency here to question U.S. drug policy has nothing
whatsoever to do with ideology or an affinity for drugs. Rather, it
is an acknowledgment that while the "war on drugs" has done nothing
to curb the U.S. appetite for mind-altering substances, its
unintended consequence has been to empower organized crime networks.
These gangs, which aggressively target children as customers and
low-level employees on both sides of the border, are undermining the
economy and the quality of life in the binational El Paso-Juarez
metropolitan region.

As a result, over the last two years the city council here has been
growing more vocal about the need for an alternative to current
policy. But thus far it has been rebuffed by Washington politicians,
many of whom are allied with the special interests, such as the Drug
Enforcement Agency, that the drug war has spawned.

In the 40 years since Richard Nixon declared war on drug suppliers
abroad-because American consumers had consistently demonstrated that
they had no interest in curtailing demand-illicit drug use in rich
countries has remained fairly constant. Only preferences have shifted.

A report released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime found that "drug use has stabilized in the developed world."
Cocaine use in the U.S. has dropped in recent decades, but there is
"growing abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants and prescription drugs
around the world." The report also said that "cannabis is still the
world's drug of choice." In other words, billions of dollars in
warring has left us about where we started, except, according to the
report, that the indoor cultivation of cannabis is now a major source
of funding for criminal gangs.

Meanwhile, Juarez is dying. Since the beginning of this year, more
than 2,200 people in the city have been murdered. Since 2008, the
toll is almost 6,500. On a per capita basis this would be equivalent
to some 26,000 murders in New York City. Drug warriors play down
these numbers by claiming that some 85% of the dead were themselves
involved in trafficking. But that claim is dubious since in many of
the murders-more than 90% of cases this year-there hasn't even been
an arrest. And what about the hundreds of innocents, the other 15% of
the victims, that the government admits were not criminals?

Because organized crime corrupts institutions, impunity is also
flourishing. This has encouraged an epidemic of kidnapping and
extortion which has sent entrepreneurs and investors running for
their lives. Thus the city's economy has collapsed and the municipal
government is broke. I visited JuA rez last week and saw the vacant
buildings and empty taco joints.

Thirty-seven-year-old El Paso City Council member Beto O'Rourke, a
father of three, told me that before witnessing the slaughter of his
neighbors and the economic decline of his city, he'd never really
given the drug war much thought. But in 2008, after more than 1,660
murders, the city council sponsored a resolution condemning the
violence with an amendment he offered "calling for an open and honest
dialogue on ending the prohibition in this country." The resolution
passed 8-0, but the mayor vetoed it on the grounds that it would make
the city look bad in Austin and Washington.

When the council tried to override the veto, Mr. O'Rourke says
council members received phone calls from Democratic Congressman
Sylvester Reyes that "basically threatened [the city] with loss of
federal funds if we continued with this resolution." Mr. Reyes's
office says it only sent a message that in a moment when the
congressman was trying to garner stimulus funds for El Paso, the
resolution "wasn't helpful." The override failed by two votes.

In 2010, the council offered another resolution. Mr. O'Rourke told me
that this one was "much more sharply worded and included a call for
the regulation, control and taxation of marijuana in the U.S., given
that 50%-60% of cartel revenues are marijuana sales to U.S.
consumers. That was $8.6 billion in 2006 alone according to White
House Office on Drug Control Policy."

The vote was 4-4 and the mayor broke the tie by voting against it.
But Mr. O'Rourke says he is confident that a growing number of people
here can see prohibition isn't working. He tells me that after
speeches to Rotary Clubs and civic organizations he is invariably
approached by many individuals who say they agree though they don't
want to say so publicly. Feedback from his own constituents also runs
heavily in favor of changing the policy.

Perhaps it is time to stop using character assassination and the
power of the federal purse to quash this conversation.