TAKE THE VIOLENCE OUT OF THE DRUG TRADE

U.S. ATTORNEY Thomas M. DiBiagio recently announced the indictment of seven
members of the North Avenue Boys. He said the bad guys are "finished."

That's great. They should be in jail. But it won't help the community.
Other drug dealers have already taken their place. North Avenue is no
better off.

Three years ago, I was a police officer at the scene on East North Avenue
when 12 people were shot at an "RIP party" for a North Avenue Boys drug
dealer who had himself been murdered. I saw the blood mixed with spaghetti.
With a cigar in hand, I jokingly pointed fellow police officers toward the
buffet spread. Callous? Perhaps. But I know what anybody who lives or works
in the ghetto knows: No amount of arrests or federal prosecution will
change the culture of violence among drug dealers in the ghetto. Surrounded
by poverty and despair, drug-dealing "gangstas" glamorize a "thug life" and
flaunt money, women and even time-served for felony convictions.

We've quintupled our prison population since the war on drugs began in
1970. Last year, Baltimore police made one arrest for every six people in
the city. In 1999, in the high-crime Eastern District alone, with 45,000
residents, there were more than 25,000 arrests.

Police can make things better. In a city with high levels of violent crime,
arrests can be a good thing. But arrests won't change the culture of drug
dealers. And police can't win the war on drugs. Drug addicts have to buy
because they're addicted. But drug users destroy mostly themselves. They
are not destroying the city. Addicts want to be left alone to enjoy their
high. They rarely shoot anybody.

Drug dealers are literally killing the city. Almost all drug-related
murders involve one drug dealer shooting another.

Drug dealers will sell. There's little choice. There's money to be made.
And drug dealers aren't employable in the legitimate job market. Nobody
will hire a convicted felon with attitude and more gold teeth than education.

Drug dealers are doubly bad because they hurt legitimate businesses.
Dealers want to control the corner. Business owners call police; vacant
buildings never do. Dealers will break windows, harass customers and
otherwise make life difficult for the few legitimate businesses that remain
in the ghetto.

Just as Al Capone's gang killed other bootleggers, drug dealers are violent
because they have to be. How else can you run an illegal business with
quick cash profits and no recourse to police, law or the courts?

Nobody doubts there is a serious drug problem in the city. The question is
whether drug prohibition helps or hurts.

Prohibition prevents regulation. We as a society can choose the way in
which addicts obtain drugs. Most of the violence in Baltimore is caused not
by drugs alone but rather the criminal way in which drugs are sold. Drug
prohibition is a bad choice because it leads to armed thugs hawking their
wares on the corner.

The only way to disarm the drug culture is to take the profit out of
street-level drug-dealing. Drug legalization and regulation are the answer.
Why leave the profits to those who perpetuate violent culture?

Drug manufacturing and distribution shouldn't be in the hands of the North
Avenue Boys, or any other group of criminals. As with alcohol, tobacco or
prescription medication, selling drugs should be the combined
responsibility of doctors, the government and the legal free market.

In the Netherlands, drugs are decriminalized. Customers can walk into
certain cafes and legally buy marijuana, hashish and hallucinogenic
mushrooms. The result? Fewer murders, fewer drug deaths, much less money
wasted trying to arrest the entire drug-using population, and - because
education is more effective than prohibition - lower levels of drug use.

Legalizing drugs would not be a silver bullet. But drug prohibition must be
recognized as a good intention gone terribly wrong. The war on drugs
destroys neighborhoods, enriches drug dealers and promotes a culture
ruining the lives of our cities' youths. Drug prohibition is a failure.
It's time to try something else.