DRUG WAR AND POLICE CORRUPTION

However sad the saga of Leroy Todd turned out to be -- the small-town
sheriff's deputy got caught up in a department drug scandal, then took his
own life as he faced a lengthy prison term -- there's no denying he lived
and died by his own bad choices. It wasn't the drug war that did him in by
rendering his actions criminal, as some might contend. He had only himself
to blame.

If Todd perchance had happened to harbor any profound philosophical
misgivings about his role enforcing the law against the illegal drug trade
in Ouray County, Colo., the honorable thing would have been to resign. Or,
he could have told his superiors about his reservations and challenged them
to fire him. (Granted, that tack might have been awkward, given that Ouray
County's undersheriff was in on the drug trade, too.)

Instead, Todd's actions -- looking the other way several years ago as a
methamphetamine ring thrived in his community -- suggested he was lax
rather than idealistic. As a result, he betrayed the public's trust in a
fundamental way, flouting the law he was supposed to enforce.

All of that said, however, Todd's department was hardly the first to be
rocked by the ripples of the war on drugs, and it won't be the last. And
even though the tenuous premise of that war is no excuse for dereliction of
duty by law officers, let's not kid ourselves: It is the arbitrary
illegality of "controlled substances" -- in concept, neither more nor less
detrimental than alcohol -- that makes such corruption possible.

Drug prohibition places law enforcement in regular, close contact with the
purveyors of the drug trade and their ill-gotten gains, affording an
opportunity to shake them down for a piece of the action and protect them
thereafter. Illegality also ensures drug dealing will remain extremely
lucrative -- all the more alluring to modestly compensated cops -- by
attempting, futilely, to restrict supply amid unabated demand.

So, there will be takers. Even in law enforcement.

Just as there were takers aplenty in police departments around the country
during alcohol prohibition in the first part of the 20th century -- another
time that the federal government tried criminalizing the sales and use of
mood-altering substances among consenting adults. So thoroughly were
Chicago police compromised by beer and liquor smugglers like Alphonse
"Scarface" Capone that the feds had to bring in the renown likes of Eliot
Ness to fight that fight. He won his share of battles but, of course, lost
the war. Prohibition was repealed.

There are tentative signs the current regime of law enforcement is making a
similar reassessment of drug prohibition. Bill Masters, the San Miguel
County, Colo., sheriff who started the investigation into Ouray County's
drug ring in 1997, has authored a frank re-examination of the issue, "Drug
War Addiction: Notes From the Front Lines of America's #1 Policy Disaster"
(available through his Web site -- http://www.libertybill.net -- or by
calling (800) 374-4049). And he expresses mixed feelings about the
consequences of the bust in Ouray County.

"There was corruption, and it needed to be fought," Master's said. "Still,
I don't feel good about it.

"A large number of people in prison are victims of the drug wars," he said.
"No matter if they are cops who are corrupted by it, or dealers or addicts.
They are all victims of a terribly misguided policy."

There always will be morally weak people, and they must be weeded out of
law officers' ranks. For the sake of law enforcement as an institution,
though -- if not for myriad other reasons -- we ought to reconsider whether
this is a war the law ought to be fighting.