LET'S DROP THE 'DRUG WAR'

In the ongoing battle over the legalization of marijuana for medicinal
purposes, the Food and Drug Administration has now shown that ideology
can bend almost anything to its will. The other day, the FDA claimed
that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of the
drug - flatly contradicting a 1999 review by the Institute of
Medicine. That seems strange, given that the Institute is part of the
National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific
advisory agency.

Could one group of scientists be so far off as to come up with a
completely incorrect reading of the medicinal value of the drug? I
doubt it - and so do many others who feel that right-wing politics
have trumped science yet again.

But that, it seems to me, is the least important issue connected to
the legalization of drugs. The three most important reasons to call a
cease-fire in the insane "war" we've been fighting for decades are the
reduction of crime, the expansion of the tax base and the contribution
to the economy.

Whether or not anyone likes it, recreational drug use has become part
of American social life - and it is that use, not addiction, that
fuels the trade. If addicts alone were spending money on drugs, the
problem could have been licked or dramatically reduced long ago.

As for the reduction of crime, we are constantly getting benumbing
reports that tell us how many inner-city young men drop out of school
to sell drugs, naively looking for a fast way to make big money. Such
young men are the drones of the business. If we ended the illicit
nature of the trade, the drones would either stay in school or
surprise us and find a legal line of work.

The real economic winners in the drug business these days are the
high-level dealers and traders. When it comes to them, America is
being played for a chump in exactly the way we were during
Prohibition. That's when the Mafia gathered all the capital it needed
to become a formidable national criminal organization because public
demand for drinking was greater than fear of the consequences of drinking.

If we ended today's version of Prohibition and legalized drugs, we
could stop the murderous drug wars and pull billions of dollars out of
the shadow world. Taxes could be levied and public rehabilitation
centers supported.

In that way, victory could be pulled from the jaws of a very obvious
defeat.

Some call this position defeatist - but it's far more realistic than
craven. It's simply a matter of facing the facts of our time rather
than pushing our heads under the sand - no matter how many young men
are in our penal system for either the sale or the possession of
drugs, no matter how many are killed in drug wars and no matter how
obvious it has become that recreational drug use is here to stay.

We are still a long way from waking up to these facts. But we can wake
up, and we will. After all, once upon a time, many thought slavery
would go on forever and women would never get the vote.