DEA: RESULTS NOT DEMONSTRATED - OR ARE THEY?

Talk about a demoralizing job review.

The spanking administered to the Drug Enforcement Administration by
the White House Office of Management and Budget last February should
have smarted, although it was delivered in the gray language of
bureaucracy.

"DEA is unable to demonstrate its progress in reducing the
availability of illegal drugs in the U.S. While DEA has developed some
strategic goals and objectives, these goals lack specificity in
targets and time frames," according to the White House assessment.
"DEA managers are not held accountable for achieving results."

Even if you're already convinced the DEA is a scam, it's nice to have
some verification from the federal government.

The assessment includes ratings on various categories. The ratings are
scored on a scale of zero to 100. The DEA scored zero in the
"Results/Accountability" category. Zero. Nil. Nothing. The ultimate
void of non-being. Not even a token point for style or effort. The
assessment also includes one overall rating. In this space, the DEA
was categorized as "Results Not Demonstrated."

The DEA was budgeted at about $1.5 billion last year. Its budget has
increased consistently since its inception. Somehow this growth has
been achieved without clear results or accountability. So, can we hope
things will change now? The champions of small government in the Bush
administration wouldn't just maintain a massive bureaucratic structure
that has the power to destroy citizens' lives without accountability,
would it?

A housecleaning should be in order with heads rolling and complacency
challenged.

Strangely, Asa Hutchinson, the most recent head of the DEA, isn't
hightailing out of Washington with his head hung in shame. No, he got
a promotion - a prestigious and powerful job with the Department of
Homeland Security. Hutchinson's right hand man, John W. Brown, a
career agent who has been around since the time when the DEA was
called the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, is running the
agency now. If this is a shake-up, it's remarkably subdued.

Perhaps the agency will be forced to make do with less? No, the budget
is still set to go up by $13 million in 2004. Granted, that's a small
increase compared to the glory days of the eighties. But the eighties
are long gone, and so is the image of the DEA agent as swashbuckling
hero. The agency's most high profile acts lately have been the
persecution of medical marijuana providers and users.

By shutting down locally-sanctioned medical marijuana clubs, the DEA
is not only hurting sick people and subverting the will of voters, it
is pushing patients back to the black market. Such actions are not
only cruel, they are counterproductive. Through this policy, the DEA
feeds the market it is supposedly trying to fight.

Of course, the DEA may claim to fight black market drugs, but if the
market really ever disappeared, the agency would become redundant. As
long as the black market grows, the DEA can expect to grow.

And as long as the most popular illegal drug (marijuana) remains
demonized, the DEA has nothing to worry about. But, if the general
population ever suddenly realized that prohibiting marijuana is a
waste of lives and resources, that cannabis really can help many
people, the agency would be forced to downsize.

It seems as if the maintenance of absolute prohibition is the main
priority, and everything else, like the Constitution and basic human
decency, are inconveniences to be overcome. It's as if the agency is
accountable to no one. Oh, that's right, that's what the White House
said just before watching the DEA continue on its devastating path.

The DEA's results, far from being not demonstrated, are becoming more
painfully clear every day.