WAR ON DRUGS CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM

I guess I feel like venting a little. This past weekend, I spent my
time in Orlando, Fla., because my cousin's 29-year-old-son Chris, who
recently was admitted to the Colorado bar to practice law, killed
himself with cocaine. Such a tragedy.

Chris's family, and girlfriend of the past year, learned of Chris'
cocaine affliction three weeks before his death. He suffered a grand
mal seizure that led to the discovery of his trouble, and, three weeks
later (June 5), he succumbed to a prohibited and uncontrolled
addictive substance.

The pain of this Father's Day weekend will ache forever and ever. The
ache is the fathers, the mothers, the sisters, the brothers, the
girlfriends, the cousins and all of us who care about one another. So
many tears.

Already in a somber mood, I returned home Saturday night to celebrate
Father's Day with my son (who at the age of 12 already has been
offered drugs) and family, only to read that people were marching in
the streets on Chicago 's Far South Side, because so many kids have
been killed this past school year in gang-turf wars.

The marchers called for "tighter gun-control measures and an end to
gang violence," according to a Chicago Tribune story. Bishop Paul Hall
asked: "How much is dope worth to take a young life? How much is
gang-banging worth to take a young life?"

"Enough," the actions of gang-banging dope dealers seem to say louder
than words.

Bishop Hall said the aim of the march was to go through neighborhoods
afflicted by gang violence, and call on gang members to stop dealing
drugs and put down their guns.

Oh, yes, please put down your guns; forsake your livelihood; eat
berries for breakfast, lunch and dinner; wrap your family in swaddling
clothes; and live in a stable.

"Oh, yes, let's have some stricter gun control." But the sportsman
jokes: gun control means hitting the target.

The gun-control plea enables us to ignore the estimated more than 120
million guns in the United States. Even banning guns will not
eliminate them or stop the killing.

Guns are here to stay, along with spears, gun powder and nuclear
weapons. So we must realize that it is the drug dealer protecting his
wares, his cash, his corner and his business that we have to fear.

Gun control may be a laudable objective, but it cannot substitute for
serious thought about our prohibition drug policies that precipitate
killing and put guns in the hands of drug dealers for the wrong reasons.

Inanimate objects, like guns and drugs, even though easy targets, are
not the enemies. It is our policies concerning those inanimate objects
that make those objects so lethal.

"Let's march against drugs, guns and gangs," some activists say.

How many marches? How many speeches? How many times have I tried to no
avail to change the course of the mighty drug-war river by speaking
and pleading with the marchers, organizers and leaders for an end to
drug prohibition as the road to peace.

Why is every finger not pointed at the cursed drug-war mistake?

The consequences of our drug prohibition folly are so demonstrable, so
obvious, so redundant. Why is the villain -- drug prohibition -- so
invisible, so sacrosanct and not targeted? The prohibition of drugs in
our lives is, seemingly, as deadly and inextinguishable as the life of
Halloween's Michael Myers.

But there is a ray of light at the end of the tunnel.

That light is emanating from law enforcement officers who once waged
war on drugs with a vengeance but now fight even harder to end it.

LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, www.leap.cc) is an
international organization consisting of reformed drug-warriors who
universally lambaste the killer, drug-prohibition policy that has
taken over America and the world. These are not bleeding hearts,
left-wing extremists or ivory-tower idealists. LEAP members have
credentials, knowledge, experience and sincerity beyond reproach.

Cannot the sober and thoughtful among us also see the moral imperative
of displacing drug prohibition with drugs controlled and regulated
through a system of legalization that decimates the gang-bangers' drug
business and prevents death, disease and destruction?

In editorial board and other appearances within the past two months,
the former Seattle chief of police Norman Stamper and I have urged for
the dire need for drug policy reform.

Within that time, my cousin's son has died from cocaine; my
25-year-old client with a clean record -- but charged with stealing
fishing poles from a neighbor's garage -- has died from heroin; and
Chicago Tribune reporters have written about methamphetamine and crime
rampaging across the Midwest plains and beyond.

Goodbye, Chris. Goodbye.

And as one singer painfully and rhetorically beseeched us a few wars
ago: "When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?"