A RELUCTANT YES ON PROPOSITION 19

A letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal Thursday came from
John Fisher, the lead Office of Management and Budget on an
interagency drug interdiction task force involving the White House
Office of Drug Policy, the Office of Management and Budget,
(Immigration Service-Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement
Administration) and Treasury (Customs Service) in the 1970s.

Mr. Fisher pointed out that his office presented conclusions to White
House staff and to Treasury and Justice and leadership "based on
estimates that we were interdiction about 5 percent of marijuana and
about the same singledigit percent of 'hard' drugs coming across U.S. Borders."

Mr. Fisher noted that, "U.S. drug enforcement policy has been
tragically wrong-headed for more than a generation for several
reasons. Foremost is the failure to look at drug policy with an
economic, rather than an ideological, lens. Our policies of
increasing investment in interdiction have raised profit margins for
narco-terrorists, state-terror groups and criminal syndicates. Our
policies of increasing 'investment' have been driven by federal
agency union leadership interested in increasing membership and the
scope of their mission. Our inability as a nation to look at the
deteriorating world of drug-financed terrorism and lawlessness may be
the result of our policy of incremental increases." Exactly.

Mr. Fisher added that "Like another conservative economist and
observer of our failed policy, George Shultz, I favor legalization of
marijuana. I will vote in favor of (California) Proposition 19 on
Nov. 2, as one step in the right direction."

We agree. Legalizing marijuana will, at the very least, impinge on
the illegal drug sellers (and movers) by reducing their potential for
profit-taking from the users of marijuana. At best, it will cause
their "war" against our drug war to be abandoned.

We've been down this road before, the last time when United States
citizens agreed to prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s.

What has government perturbed here is that someone is profiting from
drug sales and the government can't tax drug sales. Recall Ronald
Reagan's dictum, that "Government's view of the economy could be
summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps
moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

Let's face it, government doesn't want to - and never will -
subsidize illegal drug sales. It is, however, entirely willing to
invoke the "if it moves, tax it" part. So OK, let's pass Proposition
19, tax marijuana sales, and get rid of the onerous, debilitating war
on drugs. It's gotten us nothing in 80 years except heartache, death
and a plethora of scofflaws across the country.

This is not an easy call, but it makes more sense than continuing to
expend billions of tax dollars on what is increasingly becoming a
futile effort to outlaw marijuana use. It has never worked, and it's
time to try a new tactic. Vote yes on 19.