AN INTERVENTION

The Constitution Be Damned! Don't You Know There's a War On?

Sweep the legal niceties aside, and that's the argument used to defend
the practice of taking cash and property from alleged drug dealers and
using it to prosecute the war on drugs.

A pair of activist groups opposed to such bounty hunting on Tuesday
filed a formal demand for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to obey
and enforce the state and federal constitutions, as well as a citizen
initiative that explicitly blocks that corrupting practice.

If it were not for the addictive qualities of the anti-drug drug,
which has addled the brains of many otherwise exemplary public
servants, the action by Utahns for Property Protection and the
Washington-based Institute for Justice would not be necessary. Nor
would it be necessary if Shurtleff, rather than paying lip service to
the issue, had lowered the boom on police and prosecutors in the
service of the 2000 referendum called Initiative B.

That initiative, passed overwhelmingly despite strong opposition from
the state's law enforcement community, requires that any money seized
from alleged drug dealers go to the state's public education fund. It
should have ended the practice, all too common around the country, of
encouraging police and prosecutors to go after every possible drug
stash and courier in order to take their money and turn it to law
enforcement purposes.

Shurtleff is challenging two forfeiture cases in Ogden and Salt Lake
City and has questioned others. But his actions are, as the activists
allege, timid steps by an official who openly opposes the initiative
he is supposed to be enforcing.

Shurtleff is among the many good people who see the practice called
civil forfeiture as a particularly sweet form of justice. Because the
drug dealers always have had, and always will have, the good guys
outspent, outmanned and outgunned, police and prosecutors are
understandably desperate for every tool they can use in their
impossible crusade to eradicate drug trafficking.

But the practice really reflects the ethos of the drug culture. Just
as some drug addicts can set aside everything that ought to be
important to them -- health, family, career -- to satisfy an
addiction, some anti-drug warriors may find themselves setting aside
everything that should be important to them -- due process,
constitutional rights, budgetary oversight -- to pursue a mission.

It would be wonderful if our law enforcement agencies, particularly
the state's top lawman, would see that and hew to Initiative B with at
least as much devotion as they show to enforcing drug laws.

But, so deep is the anti-drug warriors' addiction to this source of
power, an intervention is necessary. The law says they must quit cold
turkey.