WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE DRUG WAR?

With twelve kids murdered in one Chicago weekend a decade ago, a Chicago
police officer succinctly explained that drugs are the lifeblood of the
street gangs.

With fifteen kids murdered in Maywood, Illinois, so far this year, Maywood
Police Chief James Collier said, equally to the point, "Drugs are the
cornerstone of the crime." (Chicago Tribune, 9/2/03, "Enough is enough,
Maywood says.")

Despite widespread public understanding that the illicit drug business is
so lucrative that an unending litany of anti-drug, anti-gang and
anti-violence initiatives have failed and will fail - our elected leaders
continue to tolerate it. They accept the drug war and the death and
destruction that accompany it, because they fear a single word in support
of drug legalization or drug decriminalization can cost them their
political offices and political futures.

But the killing in Maywood and America does not lie at the feet of elected
political leaders alone (some, like the drug czar, are appointed). No, our
media leaders share the blame. Not one leading American newspaper and not
one television, cable, radio or media conglomerate has editorially called
for an end to the drug war.

Our religious leaders - the preachers holding press conferences against
guns, the preachers leading anti-violence vigils and marches in the
streets, and the preachers standing before the silent moral majority in
suburban pulpits - must share the blame for the carnage on our blood-red,
American drug-war streets. None are willing to risk the parsonage, pulpit
or pension for a prayer that sounds "soft-on-drugs."

And then, there are the direct beneficiaries of the drug war who feast at
the drug-war table: the prison contractors; the prison and jail
correctional officers; the municipalities who beg for a new prison to
replace a lost factory; the manufacturers of radar balloons, go-fast boats,
drug-spraying helicopters, eavesdropping gadgetry, drug-testing kits,
metal-detectors, drug-dog breeders, and other assorted drug-war weaponry;
and the recipients of anti-drug revenues for the production and broadcast
of anti-drug commercials ("this is your brain on drugs") and anti-drug
programs (D.A.R.E. me not, for example). They, too, must share the blame
for the drug-war slaughter of our children. As a friend and correctional
officer happily told me not long ago, "Drug war is job security." True
enough, but equally repulsive and even cannibalistic.

To the direct beneficiaries, the moral leaders, the media leaders, the
elected leaders - I say and remind them all: Kids are dying in
Maywood. Kids are dying in America. Whether shot and killed on the
drug-war playing field, in the drug-war stadium bleachers or innocently
outside the stadium on drug-war streets - the drug war is killing them.

To the public, I implore you: Shed your complacency with drug-war
killing. Use your imagination and look into the eyes of the kids of
Maywood and of America. In the eye of each child, you can see the eye and
soul of your own child. Save them all. Elect leaders to your state capital
and our U.S. Congress who pledge to end the drug war. And hold them to it.