WHY DRUGS AND TERRORISM MIX

After Sept. 11, drug cops around the world raced to recast themselves as
central players in the war on terrorism. "Narco-terrorism," a hitherto
almost unknown phrase, started popping up everywhere.

For instance, Narco-terrorism and Canada, a confidential RCMP report
produced in November, 2001, said Afghan hashish imported to Canada
generates about $20 million U.S., a portion of which "likely" goes to
"terrorist elements in Afghanistan." The RCMP wants the readers to conclude
that "You can't fight terrorism without fighting drugs," as the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration has become fond of saying.

This conclusion would not protect us from drugs (or terror) any better than
prohibition has in the past 80 years. But it would safeguard the RCMP's
budget, and the jobs of 1,000 Mounties working full-time on drugs.

It is true, as another RCMP report states, that "narcotics have long been
used by organized crime and extremist/terrorist groups as a means to
generate revenues to support armed conflict." But any serious analysis
would ask why. Why do the fanatics of the world zero in on the drug trade,
instead of smuggling liquor or coffee, sugar or chocolate bon-bons?

It's because drugs are illegal. Why smuggle a legal product to get the same
modest profit legal sellers do? Because drugs are illegal, producers,
wholesalers and retailers only get involved if there's a huge "risk
premium" added to the price. So illegal drugs have fantastic profit
margins, making them ideal revenue sources for gangsters, guerrillas or
terrorists.

If economic theory is unconvincing, try history. Until drugs were
criminalized in the early 20th century, they were made by major
pharmaceutical companies such as Merck and sold in ordinary stores, with no
criminals or terrorists involved. That changed once drugs were banned.

Gangsters got rich, and killers with political ambitions quickly saw what
uses could be made of the new illicit trade. In the 1920s, Soviet officials
sold drugs in the Far East. In 1931, a secret society of Japanese officers
used drug-smuggling profits to fund an attack on a Japanese-run railway in
Manchuria, as the pretext for the Japanese invasion. In 1933, U.S.
investigators found Honduran citizens diverting European narcotics from the
legal trade and selling them in the U.S. "for arms and ammunition which
were being sent for use in revolution."

Drugs don't enrich thugs; the criminal law does. RCMP bosses know it. They
should look beyond self-interest, and be honest about what is really
putting cash in terrorists' pockets.