THE ANTI-DRUG DRUG

Paranoia. Denial. Wild rationalizations of improper behavior. These are
symptoms of drug abuse.

They are also symptoms of the anti-drug drug, which all too often affects
prosecutors, police and others devoted to the impossible goal of
eradicating the trade in illegal drugs.

Only pathological denial allows prosecutors in Salt Lake, Davis and Weber
counties to insist that it is a good idea to dodge a voter-approved measure
requiring assets seized from alleged drug dealers to be funneled to the
state's public schools. Yet that is exactly what they are insisting,
despite a report from Utah's state auditor that raises some very troubling
questions.

Auditor Austin G. Johnson examined 155 cases in which cash, cars, computers
and other things allegedly part of illegal drug operations were seized by
the law during the state's last fiscal year. He was looking for compliance
with the Utah Uniform Forfeiture Procedures Act, or Initiative B, as it was
known to the 65 percent of Utah voters who approved it in the November 2000
election.

He didn't find any.

According to the audit, the will of the people -- the directive that seized
assets should be routed to compensate crime victims and to the state's
public school fund -- was ignored and $238,000 was delivered instead to
police departments and narcotics units in Salt Lake City, West Valley City
and Midvale, among others.

Prosecutors respond that they are allowed to siphon the money away from the
place the voters wanted it by relying on another law passed later by the
Legislature. And, given the arcane loops that any state's laws contain, the
prosecutors may well be on firm technical ground.

But when it comes to voter intent, and to maintaining the highest possible
ethical standards in law enforcement, the prosecutors are on the wrong side
of the argument.

To offer any government agency the spoils of its activities is, frankly,
the road to corruption. It can only encourage officials to focus on one
particular area of concern, even push them to cut corners and ignore the
finer points of the law in order to gain financially.

The fact that the money goes to the agencies, not to the officers
personally, is a distinction without much of a difference. It is still
incentive for the people who are supposed to be the most beholden to the
law to instead play the system so they can get faster cars, newer
computers, more powerful weapons or just more comfortable chairs.

Even if police and prosecutors are not actually corrupted, the continued
choice to obey the law that benefits them rather than the superior one the
people voted for gives the entire profession an appearance of corruption
that, deserved or not, can only make an already difficult job that much harder.

Seized drug assets are like a drug themselves. For their own good, and that
of the public, law enforcement agencies must demonstrate that they can give
them up any time they want.