BLINDED BY DRUGS

Last week, the U.S. commission examining the Sept. 11 attacks issued a
statement of facts that helps explain why the Federal Bureau of
Investigation failed to stop the al-Qaeda plot. Counter-terrorism just
wasn't a priority for the FBI, the commission said. Instead, the
bureau was too busy fighting the never-ending war on drugs.

"As the terrorism danger grew, (FBI) Director (Louis) Freeh faced the
choice of whether to lower the priority the FBI attached to work on
general crime, including the war on drugs, and allocate those
resources to terrorism," the commission noted. Formally, the FBI did
make terrorism the priority, but "it did not shift its human resources
accordingly." In 2000, "there were twice as many agents devoted to
drug-enforcement matters as to counter-terrorism" and even agents who
were assigned to counter-terrorism were often moved temporarily to
drugs and crime.

The 9/11 commission also noted that on May 9, 2001, Attorney General
John Ashcroft testified at a hearing that the Justice Department had
no higher priority than preventing terrorism. But a day later, "the
department issues guidance for developing the fiscal year 2003 budget
that made reducing the incidence of gun violence and reducing the
trafficking of illegal drugs priority objectives." The directive
didn't even mention counter-terrorism. The FBI's misallocation was
confirmed immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks when more than 400
agents were shifted to counter-terrorism -- almost all coming from
drug investigations.

What the commission has confirmed is something this newspaper has
argued for many years. One of the terrible costs of the war on drugs
is the good that could be done if the money and manpower lavished on
this futile fight were instead devoted to other priorities. Every
officer doing buy-and-busts is an officer not going after thieves,
rapists and murderers. Every investigator tracing cocaine profits is
an investigator not looking for terrorists.

Certainly Canadian governments haven't figured this out, as
demonstrated by the recent massive bust of a marijuana and ecstasy
ring headquartered here in Ottawa. The police crowed even though the
bust will have no substantial effect on the supply of drugs (they
never do). The American government hasn't learned its lesson, either.
Not long after the Sept. 11 attacks, the DEA and FBI spent millions of
dollars busting medical marijuana growers in California. And in 2003,
federal officers conducted a nation-wide sweep of businesses selling
"drug paraphernalia" -- bongs and pipes -- that netted 65-year-old
Tommy Chong, of Cheech and Chong fame.

In 1996, Arnold Trebach, a legendary opponent of drug prohibition,
gave a speech noting that "all of us would be infinitely safer if the
courageous efforts of anti-drug agents in the U.S. ... and other
countries were focused on terrorists aimed at blowing up airliners and
skyscrapers (rather than) drug traffickers seeking to sell the
passengers and office dwellers cocaine and marijuana."

We will never know what would have happened had the FBI taken Mr.
Trebach's advice. But we do know what happened when the FBI continued
to fight the futile war on drugs.