FEDERAL WAR AGAINST THE SICK

NEW YORK -- Last Monday, the FBI warned that "a planned attack may occur in
the United States or against U.S. interests on or around Feb. 12," thanks to
12 terrorists led by Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeei, a Saudi-born Yemeni. Suspecting
this, federal officials should have deployed as many dedicated, talented
agents as possible to protect high-profile targets such as San Francisco's
Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf or the pyramidal Transamerica Tower.

Think again. Washington instead chose Feb. 12 to unleash tough, gun-toting
Drug Enforcement Agency officers against AIDS and cancer patients. These
federal agents raided a suspected cannabis cultivation center in suburban
Petaluma, Calif., and medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and
Oakland. They arrested four men who led these operations.

This unjust, outrageous and ill-timed misallocation of law-enforcement
resources epitomizes the Bush administration's new effort to repackage the
War on Drugs within the War on Terror.

"If you're buying illegal drugs in America, it is likely that money is going
to end up in the hands of terrorist organizations," President Bush declared
Feb. 12. His point is not without merit when it comes to cocaine, some of
whose proceeds reach Colombia's Marxist FARC guerrillas. Likewise, the
Taliban profited from heroin and opium smuggling. Of course, the War on
Drugs relegates these products to the black market, where shady characters
dwell, rather than the sunshine of free trade.

That said, one has to smoke something pretty strong to conclude that someone
who uses marijuana to fight life-threatening AIDS wasting syndrome somehow
is in cahoots with Al-Qaeda. The Sixth Street Harm Reduction Center, a
facility the DEA crushed Feb. 12, served some 200 people enduring AIDS,
cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease and other serious illnesses. They now must buy
their cannabis through illegal drug dealers, or simply watch themselves
deteriorate and die.

Three of the center's associates face between five and 40 years in federal
prison. Officials say James Halloran, 61, grew more than 1,000 marijuana
plants in Oakland. That could cost him 10 years to life behind bars. Compare
these staggering potential terms to the actual penalties two men received
Jan. 31 for unwittingly helping 9-11 hijackers Abdulaziz Alomari and Ahmed
Alghamdi secure bogus Virginia ID cards. Victor Lopez-Flores got 27 months
in prison while Herbert Villalobos earned a four-month sentence. His
previous 18 weeks in custody earned his immediate release.

The Bay Area clampdown recalls the DEA's Oct. 25 closure of the Los Angeles
Cannabis Resource Center. It operated with the blessing of West Hollywood
officials and the L.A. County sheriff, all elected authorities. That was not
enough to keep 30 DEA agents from spending six hours yanking 400 marijuana
plants from its premises along with computers, documents and the medical
records of its 960 patients.

Until the Feds intervened, these outfits operated legally. Fifty-six percent
of California voters approved Proposition 215, a medical marijuana measure,
in 1996. Initiatives also have legalized medipot in Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Maine, Oregon, Nevada and Washington. While the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled last May that therapeutic grass suppliers cannot assert marijuana's
"medical necessity" to avoid federal drug laws, it did not address the
validity of state statutes permitting clinical cannabis. Federal
heavy-handedness has made drug decriminalizers rail against DEA chief and
former GOP congressman Asa Hutchinson. As the Drug Policy Alliance's Glenn
Backes says: "You have an appointed official, a career politician from
Arkansas, who sits in Washington, D.C. and tells the voters of California
and the other seven states that have supported medical marijuana: "It
doesn't matter what you vote for. I have your tax dollars and I'm going to
spend them going after sick people."

Of course, drug warriors like Hutchinson target healthy pot smokers, too.
The FBI reports that 734,498 Americans were arrested for marijuana
violations in 2000. Nearly 88 percent of these individuals -- precisely
646,042 -- were arrested for mere possession.

As the U.S. confronts budget deficits and a growing surplus of enemies
dedicated to America's destruction, Washington must rearrange its
priorities. Neither cancer patients nor classic rockers who use marijuana
will murder another 3,000 innocent civilians in cold blood.

Every federal agent who stops pot smokers from lighting up is one less agent
who can prevent Americans from blowing up.