EMANUEL NEEDS SMARTER DRUG POLICY

Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel hopes that a nice round number of 1,000
more cops on the street will sell like presidential candidate Bill
Clinton's 100,000 more cops sold.

As for me, I'd be happier if Rahm proposed to take 1,000 cops off
drug-war duty by supporting drug policy reform ideas that take the
profit out of the drug business. If he proposed and accomplished that,
then there would be less turf-war crime, less addict crime, fewer
shootings, fewer bullet holes, weaker gangs, fewer guns in drug-dealer
hands, fewer crossfire innocent victims, less need for more police
officers, fewer dollars going to the Cook County Jail and greater hope
that Chicago, Cook County and Illinois might be able to pay the bills
of government.

And the same mantra - "1,000 fewer drug-war cops for safer streets" -
could also translate into more money for schools, lower school dropout
rates, safer schools, neighborhoods and parks.

It's still early in the campaign. If Rahm won't call the killer drug
war out for a showdown and shootout, maybe one of his rivals will.

James E. Gierach, Palos Park