STOP DRUG WAR FROM CAUSING PROBLEMS FOR DETROIT POLICE

This past summer no fewer than 17 Detroit police officers were indicted on
charges of stealing drugs and money from suspected drug dealers over two
years. In the high-profile Los Angeles Police Department Rampart scandal
three years ago, only nine officers were ultimately prosecuted, yet the
Detroit scandal barely made headlines outside of Michigan.

Have the media grown weary of reporting on police corruption? Let's hope
not. In these times of elevated terrorist alerts, it's imperative that
America's first responders are dedicated protectors of the peace, not
financial predators.

Detroit Chief of Police Jerry Oliver was no doubt less than thrilled when
the prohibition-related corruption he's warned about hit home. In a
powerful critique of the war on drugs published in The Detroit News last
October, Oliver held up the Los Angeles Police Department scandal as a
salient example of what can happen when police tasked with preventing
consensual acts succumb to the lure of dirty money. Critical of current
drug war strategy, Oliver has for years boldly argued that the drug war
needs rethinking.

The combination of informants culled from the criminal underworld and
overzealous prosecutors have dangerous implications. Whether or not a
defendant is actually guilty, the informant profits when he snitches on
someone else, even if it's a lie. This practice lends itself to entrapment
and incarceration of innocent people.

Good cops aren't immune to the profit motive. Civil asset forfeiture laws
provide an incentive for police to legally seize the cars, cash and homes
of suspected drug offenders, and the temptation to steal proves too great
for some. It now falls to Chief Oliver to clean up a troubled department.
As an outspoken drug war critic who brings unassailable credentials to the
debate, he should be commended for connecting the dots.

The institutional corruption created by the drug war stretches from coast
to coast and reaches the highest levels. The Los Angeles Rampart scandal
involved anti-drug officers selling drugs and framing gang members. And
it's not just cops. Col. James Hiett, a former commander of U.S. anti-drug
operations in Colombia, was found guilty of laundering the profits of his
wife's heroin smuggling operation. Entire countries have been destabilized
by the corrupting influence of the illegal drug trade.

The self-professed champions of the free market in Congress are seemingly
incapable of applying basic economic principles to drug policy. Efforts to
eradicate the supply of illicit drugs while consumer demand remains strong
only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. This is tantamount to
taxpayer-funded price supports for mobsters.

It also virtually guarantees police corruption. For addictive drugs like
heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase
criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight
crime, it fuels crime.

Unintended consequences like police corruption are in no way justified by
lower rates of illicit drug use. The drug war is in large part a war on
marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. Based on findings that
criminal prosecutions are inappropriate as health interventions, a majority
of European Union countries have decriminalized marijuana.

The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study reports that
lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than any European
country, yet America is one of the few Western countries that uses its
criminal justice system to punish otherwise law-abiding citizens who prefer
marijuana to martinis.

The land of the free now has the highest incarceration rate in the world in
large part due to the war on illicit drugs. It's not possible to wage a
moralistic war against consensual vices unless privacy is eliminated, along
with the Constitution. If America is to be a free country, the war on drugs
must stop.