DRUG WAR'S LATEST ACHIEVEMENT: BOOSTING GLOBAL TERRORISM

Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives
ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy
nation on the face of the earth. Illegal rewards incentivizing
shooting fields in inner-city neighborhoods -- enough bloodshed to
appall even an Al Capone. More than $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays.

Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this
country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are
booming, drug-ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less
than ever on the street.

Our "war" is a miserable, incredibly costly failure.

But now, we're learning, there's a jarring new dimension. The drug
war is directly feeding international terrorism. The most startling
new evidence comes from Afghanistan, where the U.S. is leading a
full-blown NATO campaign to eradicate production of poppies, the
plant from which heroin is derived.

Colossal failure is already apparent. Afghanistan is producing 95
percent of the world's poppies; production rose 58 percent last year alone.

And the biggest beneficiary? It's the Taliban, gaining popularity as
it protects local poppy farmers against the Western-led eradication
campaign. Then it becomes the opium sales agent into international
markets, reaping huge amounts of money it can plow back into its
terrorist campaign against the West.

One result, it's fair to say: American soldiers, dying in skirmishes
in Afghanistan, are the latest casualties in the international
campaign we've waged incessantly -- with friendly governments, inside
the U.N., wherever we've had the chance -- to make drugs globally
illegal. American administrations, Republican and Democratic,
persistently blame foreign countries and international drug supplies
for our own domestic narcotics appetite.

And then, notes Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition, "we go to countries like Afghanistan, spend
millions or billions over the years to spray poppies and coca plants,
in the process risking poisoning of other crops and people on the
ground. And despite that, every year we see bumper crops."

The other prime example is "Plan Colombia" -- our multiyear, $4.7
billion (so far) campaign to stamp out coca production through
spraying Colombia's farms, together with providing the Colombian
government with military helicopters and sensitive
intelligence-gathering technology. Our billions are also supposed to
fight back FARC -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- a
17,000-strong peasant-based army described by international crime and
terrorism expert Misha Glenny as "by far the largest terrorist
organization in the Southern Hemisphere." But FARC, like the Taliban,
allies itself with local farmers and finances operations through the
drug trade. Last year, coca production was up 8 percent.

Will we ever learn? President Bush now wants to channel about $1
billion to Mexico to fight "narco-trafficking and violence on our
border." Like past Mexican presidents, Felipe Calderon has pledged a
major anti-trafficking campaign, fighting drug cartels responsible
just this year for more than 1,000 murders (including reporters,
police and judges).

But more drug-fighting money to Mexico won't do any good, says Cole:
The United States' prohibition policy has created a "super-obscene
profit motive."

Will we find a presidential candidate willing to talk to us honestly
about our disaster-strewn policy, to suggest rational paths toward
drug legalization? To credit us with intelligence -- that if we cared
enough about our health to reduce drastically our consumption of
readily available red meat, alcohol and tobacco, we might just be
smart enough to resist dangerous narcotics?

I'm not holding my breath. Though, refreshingly, the rest of the
world is starting to think afresh.

A prime example: The Senlis Council, a European-Canadian drug-policy
institute that's done major research in Afghanistan, proposes
licensing Afghanistan with the International Narcotics Control Board
to sell its opium legally. Even a Western subsidy to pay Afghan
farmers the same price the Taliban and drug lords do -- about $600
million a year -- would be well below what we're spending on
eradication. And addiction is rare among pain patients.

Here's a chance for the West to spend money, visibly, helping poor
Afghan farmers survive, instead of destroying their livelihoods.
Simultaneously, the Taliban would lose its big revenue source for
terrorist activities. Couldn't we be this humanitarian and smart -- for once?