AN OUNCE OF POT, 10 BULLETS AND ONE FAILED DRUG WAR

In the annals of drug takedowns, this wasn't much. Three quarter-ounce bags
of marijuana in a bedroom refrigerator, a joint and another loose gram on
top. Four grams scattered on a dresser. Six pipes with pot residue, three
ashtrays with less than a gram each, three packs of rolling paper and a
digital scale.

Thanks to the efforts of the Sunrise Police Department, today a pothead in
west Broward might have to go an extra 10 blocks to score some smoke.

And Anthony Diotaiuto is dead. All for 30.2 grams of weed, a little more
than an ounce.

The drug inventory above is what Sunrise police said they found in
Diotaiuto's home the morning a SWAT unit shot him with 10 bullets in a
pre-dawn raid.

No coke. No heroin. No ecstasy or meth.

"What in the hell were they doing with a SWAT team?" asked Eleanor
Shockett, a retired Miami-Dade circuit judge who advocates a sweeping
overhaul of drug laws. "To break into someone's home at six in the morning,
possibly awaken someone from a deep sleep, someone who has a concealed
weapons permit? What did they expect to happen?"

This is a tragedy that never should have happened.

Even if Diotaiuto, 23, was a small-time pot dealer, which his friends and
family deny, the methods used show the madness of our country's war on drugs.

No discretion. No proportionality. No sense.

"Using SWAT in this case is like using a sledgehammer on a fly," said Jack
Cole, a former narcotics detective for the New Jersey State Police who
heads Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a drug-law reform group.
"I'd much rather use a little bit of stealth."

Cole spent 14 years as an undercover agent and nearly three decades as a
cop. He doesn't understand why such a huge show of force was necessary, why
it needed to be done at 6:15 a.m., or why detectives couldn't detain
Diotaiuto when he left his house for work.

"When you kick in a door, all it does is alert them that someone is coming
that they don't want to see," Cole said.

Sunrise Police Chief David Boyett said Monday he couldn't comment on the
specifics of the case, but he said, "It's common to serve narcotics
warrants early in the morning. ... That's the time you find people at home."

Broward Circuit Judge John Frusciante on Aug. 3 granted the search warrant
for Diotaiuto's home. According to warrant details released Monday,
Diotaiuto didn't even have to be home during the search. The warrant
affidavit said a confidential informant bought an ounce of marijuana from
Diotaiuto there last month. That came two weeks after an anonymous tipster
told Sunrise narcotics officers that "cannabis and cocaine were being sold
at all hours" at the house.

Sunrise police used a SWAT unit to execute the search warrant Aug. 5. A few
hours earlier, Diotaiuto had returned home from his bartender job in
Weston. Police say he had a gun and fled into his bedroom.

He had no history of violence. His only run-in with the law was an arrest
for marijuana possession when he was 16. He did have a concealed weapons
permit, and during their raid police said they found a handgun, shotgun,
rifle and BB pistol, along with 124 rounds of ammunition.

Given the August 2004 killing of Broward Sheriff's Office Deputy Todd Fatta
in a child pornography-warrant raid gone bad, Sunrise's inclination to use
SWAT for a suspect known to have weapons was understandable. But, as
Shockett said, "Why not take him on the street, why not go to his job and
tell him there?"

Said Cole: "When you have a war, there's going to be casualties, and
there's going to be collateral damage. ... None of this would be happening
if we ended the prohibition on drugs the way we ended the prohibition on
alcohol."

Cole, 67, is no pot-smoking hippie, but a former drug-fighter who knows
when to say when. He and four others started LEAP three years ago. It now
has 3,000 members: cops like himself, judges like Shockett, prison wardens,
FBI and DEA agents. They have come to realize current drug policies are
doomed to failure, a colossal waste of money and lives.

Add Diotaiuto's name to the list.