DOES THE US 'WAR ON DRUGS' HELP OR HURT TERRORISTS?

Capitol Hill - The administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration,
Asa Hutchinson, told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that reducing the
demand for illicit drugs in the United States will weaken the financial
structure that supports terrorist groups.

"There is a great concern about the connection, and overwhelming evidence
of the connection between the terrorists' activities and drug trafficking
activities," he said.

Hutchinson, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. Representative from
Arkansas, detailed an elaborate network of terrorist organizations
providing protection and transportation for narcotics traffickers, and even
direct involvement in drug distribution.

"There is multi-source information that Osama bin Laden, himself, has been
involved in the financing and facilitation of heroin trafficking
activities," he told the Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism,
and Government Information

According to the State Department's "International Narcotics Control
Strategy Report," Afghanistan is the source of 70 percent of the world's
heroin. The report also found that in 2001, the Taliban regime controlled
96 percent of the territory where poppy was grown and even "taxed" the sale
of poppy "to finance weapons purchases as well as military operations."

"There is little doubt," said subcommittee chairwoman Sen. Diane Feinstein
(D-Calif.), "that these operations, at least in part, supported and
protected al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden."

Current policies don't work, critics say

But at least one U.S. law enforcement officer says the "war on drugs" has
failed to stop either terrorists or drugs.

"Obviously our policies are not working," said Sheriff Bill Masters, who
has served as the chief law enforcement officer in San Miguel County,
Colo., for 22 years.

"We have played into the very hands of these, what I call,
'narco-businessmen' who are out there to make a profit off of the drug
trade," he continued. "We have to have the courage to admit that we are
going to continue to fail in the future if we don't address the demand issues."

Masters, who previously campaigned as a "get-tough-on-drugs lawman," won an
award from the DEA for excellence in drug law enforcement. But he says he
realized four years ago that the pseudo-military strategy of attacking the
drug supply was failing to stop the problem.

"Our existing policies ... are making it lucrative for those people to go
and deal drugs. We have to take that profit away from them," he argued.
"And you don't do that by arresting more people and imprisoning more people
because, in fact, that just drives the price up."

Masters supports the legalization of marijuana for use by adults.

"We arrested 750,000 people the year before September 11 [2001],
three-quarters of a million people in one year for possession of marijuana,
and two foreign terrorists," he observed. "I don't like those statistics."

Addiction to harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, Masters believes,
should be addressed as a public health, rather than law enforcement problem.

"We need to develop a system of control over those drugs that allows the
medical profession to treat addicts as patients rather than criminals," he
urged. "That will immediately take the profit away from these punks, the
criminals and the terrorists, almost overnight."

But DEA says those who support legalization of drugs must consider the
social impact of such a move.

"The drug epidemic is also taking a toll on the very core of American
society, the family," states the DEA's website.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy's '1998 National
Drug Control Strategy,' drug use causes violence and abuse within families:

- -- One-quarter to one-half of all incidents of domestic violence are
drug-related.

- -- A survey of state child welfare agencies found substance abuse to be one
of the key problems exhibited by 81 percent of the families reported for
child maltreatment.

- -- 3.2 percent of pregnant women (nearly 80,000 mothers) used drugs regularly.

"These statistics, while alarming, reflect only the physical effects of
drug abuse, and therefore, show only a small portion of the suffering
endured by American families as a result of drugs," the DEA website
continues. "Emotional abuse, as well as financial strain on families, are
[sic] other unfortunate symptoms of drug abuse."

But Masters says those problems can't be addressed as long as there is such
a huge profit motive to sell drugs. He points to a Hoover Institution study
entitled "The War America Lost."

"The vast profits resulting from prohibition -- a markup as great as 17,000
percent -- have led to worldwide corruption of public officials and
widespread violence among drug traffickers and dealers that endangers whole
communities, cities, and nations," the report found.

Masters says law enforcement efforts will never stop drug traffickers with
such an outrageous potential for financial gain.

"I don't care what they say about the foreign terrorists," he argued. "I
don't care what they say about how much more funding, and jail cells, and
drug dogs, and Customs Agents, and all those people we put in place,
they're not going to stop the illegal drug dealing."

He says any successes law enforcement may have in stopping overseas
production of hard drugs will only be temporary, unless the demand in the
U.S. is reduced.

"Like a balloon in your hand that you're trying to squeeze, it's just going
to pop out someplace else," he said.

Masters realizes that his message is not popular with law enforcement
administrators nationwide, who rely on the drug war to provide millions of
dollars toward their departments' budgets.

"I'll probably not go back to my county and lay off a bunch of deputies,
but I will redirect them into enforcing the 'real' laws," he said,
explaining that there is an urgent need for more officers to work on
solving violent crimes.

"I think that's where the American people really want to see their law
enforcement resources applied," he added.

Apparently, the people of San Miguel County, Colo., agree.

"I'd always won before but it was always kind of close," Masters explained
of his previous bids for the sheriff's office. "This time I won by 80
percent of the vote."

"I think people just appreciated - even though not everyone agreed with me
- - they appreciated some honest talk, somebody saying it's not working and
we need to develop something new," he concluded.

Masters has authored a book, Drug War Addiction: Notes From the Front Lines
of America's #1 Policy Disaster , detailing his career in law enforcement
and the reasons for his change of heart.