'WAR ON DRUGS' BELIES AVAILABILITY, MADISON COUNTY HEROIN DEATHS

One catches my eye at least a couple of times a month. It will be a
big car, moderately old, maybe an Oldsmobile or a Buick, riding low in
the back under the weight of its big trunk. The lone driver runs at
the speed limit or a little less, casting nervous glances at passing
vehicles. If I'm wondering what weighs the car down, you can bet the
cops are wondering, too.

My daily commute takes me along Interstate 55-70 through Metro East, a
major drug-smuggling corridor where patrols lurk and large-scale busts
have been relatively regular.

Not long ago, I saw the resurrection of an old law enforcement trick:
Police put a "Drug Checkpoint Ahead" sign along the interstate just
ahead of an exit, and park an empty marked squad car, with lights
flashing, just beyond the exit. Then they watch for drug mules to
reveal themselves by abruptly diving off the ramp in between. This has
been done so often for so long that I feel confident I'm not revealing
any secrets.

Smugglers have tricks, too. Like hidden compartments for drugs, and
use of fabric softener dryer sheets to try to throw trained police
dogs off the scent.

The War on Drugs is like a game. And it turned 40 years old last week.
I didn't even know it had an anniversary until I read how it's
considered to date to June 17, 1971, when President Richard Nixon
first used the term to describe a program to eradicate the menace.

Perhaps the date ought to take a place in history beside Jan. 16,
1920. That was the effective date of Prohibition, which otherwise
could have been called the "War on Alcohol."

That was a game, too. In the days before cop cars had two-way radios,
rum couriers would simply try to outrun them. It was, no kidding, the
birth of stock car racing, whose early stars included active moonshine
haulers.

Lots of folks liked liquor, but it was a scourge that killed people,
ruined lives and had to be eradicated, according those who backed the
18th Amendment.

These days, it is viewed as a failed experiment -- a folly that lasted
about 15 years, spawned enormous gang crime and corruption and did
little to slow drinking.

Alcohol is still a scourge, of course, killing slowly in the body and
quickly on the highways. But society has blunted the consequences:
Underage drinking is outlawed, and drunken driving taken more
seriously. Products are inspected and labeled, so you won't go blind
or swill 100 proof thinking it's only 50. And, of course, alcohol
taxes make a dandy revenue engine.

So we achieved a long-enduring, if imperfect, political equilibrium
between public safety and individual rights.

Many will say it's blasphemy to equate Prohibition with the War on
Drugs, but the parallels are hard to miss.

Illicit drugs would seem to be an even worse scourge than alcohol.
But, as with liquor, much of the accompanying violence is driven by a
high demand deprived of a legitimate source. Al Capone could not
compete with Anheuser-Busch in making beer for a legal
marketplace.

The physical consequences of drug abuse are awful. I truly wish our
interdiction and deterrence programs did work. But despite the
spending of billions of dollars, loss of many brave officers and
imprisonment of thousands of offenders, it looks to me as if any kind
of poison you want to smoke, snort, swallow or inject remains readily
available.

This is underscored by recent data from Steve Nonn, the coroner of
Madison County, who is sounding a fresh alarm about the scope of
heroin abuse. Not halfway through this year, the county where I live
counted its 22nd apparent heroin overdose fatality of 2011. That's on
pace to more than double last year's 18, which more than doubled the
previous year's seven. So will it be 50 this year, and 100 in 2012?

Were I smarter, this is the point where I'd unveil some brilliant fix
that had eluded everyone all these years. Maybe a tweak of some kind,
or perhaps a whole new strategy. But I'm afraid nobody is that smart.

For a starting point, it might help if we were all just smart enough
to recognize that what we are doing is not getting the job done.