COURAGEOUS POLITICIAN SPEAKS TRUTH ON DRUG WAR

Let's raise a toast this morning to a Republican from New York, Erie
County Executive Joel Giambra. After a spate of drug-related killings
in Buffalo, including the Good Friday murder of a nun who was killed
by an addict who wanted her cell phone so he could trade it for
crack, Giambra had the courage to state the obvious. The war on drugs
isn't working. We ought to talk about legalization, he said.

He was immediately ridiculed by other politicians. The folks from Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition rallied to his side. Peter Christ, a
retired police captain from the nearby town of Tonawanda, appeared
with Giambra at a press conference and said that legalization made sense.

"Al Capone wasn't created by alcohol. Al Capone was created by the
prohibition of alcohol," Christ said. "We believe that a regulated
and controlled marketplace, regulated by government, is totally
preferable to an uncontrolled marketplace run by gangsters on the street."

Who would want to debate that? Apparently, none of Giambra's critics.
"I'm not going to dignify the efficacy of his remarks by putting it
to a debate," Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark told a local reporter.

I was alerted to this story by Howard Wooldridge. He's a retired
police officer from Michigan who was in town last month, spreading
the gospel according to LEAP. And that gospel is this: Drugs are bad,
but what we are doing is not working. Prohibition drives up the price
of drugs. As long as there is demand, there will be supply.
Prohibition means that criminals will be in control of that supply.

I have been singing from the same hymnal for years.

Also chiming in this week was Mary Anastasia O'Grady, a member of the
Wall Street Journal editorial board and the writer of a weekly column
on Latin America. She wrote that Mexico and other Latin American
countries are under siege by criminal drug trafficking operations
that exist because of our policy of prohibition. "Prohibition and the
war on drugs are fueling a criminal underworld that handily crushes
nascent democratic institutions in countries that we keep expecting
to develop. Is it reasonable to blame Mexico for what enormously
well-funded organized crime operations are doing to its political,
judicial and law enforcement bodies when we know that Al Capone's
power during alcohol prohibition accomplished much the same in the U.S.?"

That reminds me of a question I often pose: Who would you rather have
as a powerful man in the community, August Busch or Al Capone?

If the war on drugs were able to stop drug use, we wouldn't be having
this discussion. But it has not stopped drug use. Drugs are available
everywhere. I recently wrote a column about Donnie Blankenship. He
was convicted of five counts of murder, but was recently up for
parole. A friend from law enforcement sent me a note. Blankenship has
tested positive four times for marijuana in the past 18 months. You
can get drugs in prisons. You can get drugs in schools. You can buy
them on the street. And it's not just the poor who turn to them. This
past week, Rush Limbaugh reached a deal with the prosecutor. If he
continues therapy and remains drug-free for 18 months, a felony drug
charge will be dropped.

Therapy and rehabilitation. That's where we should be putting our
money. It's cheaper to help addicts than to investigate, arrest,
convict and incarcerate them. And if they don't want to be helped,
well, fine. Let them be addicts. Nobody is claiming that legalization
of drugs will create a perfect world, just a better one. As O'Grady
concluded in her essay, "The question is not whether dangerous drugs
are innocuous. Let's agree they are not. The question is which policy
is best to manage the problem."

It's good to see a politician join in the discussion. Here's to Joel Giambra.