FIGHT TERRORISM: LEGALIZE DRUGS

We have been warned constantly, but this time it looks like they really
mean business.

Like a bunch of giggly teen-agers, we tried in vain to escape the
inevitable. On Sunday evening, during the Super Bowl, the final notice came
down from the president's office of national drug control policy.

President Bush has plenty of experience dealing with rambunctious teens and
it shows. As a product of Catholic schools, let me applaud the appeal to
conscience represented in those masterful commercial messages, which reveal
the linkage of recreational drug use and international terrorism. Sister
Constantius, who assumed custody of my soul during eighth grade, would be
impressed with the creative application of guilt.

Brazen crusading is apparently a permanent fixture in the yearly
entertainment and athletic gala. Last year's prime tormentors were the
anti-smoking lunatics. Who will ever forget the hideous wheezing and
gasping? It was awful and, you might recall, launched me into a fairly
nasty tirade.

There are some occasions in which the sensitive modern man deserves to be
left alone, and the Super Bowl is one of them. This event is what George
Will would term a "meritocracy." The best of the best compete head-on, and
at the end we have a winner and a loser. There is a profound spiritual
warrior tradition here that should not be profaned by shrill politicians or
do-gooders.

While any form of preaching is impolite and totally out of place on this
important feast day, the message of the anti-drug forces was substantially
on target. I wish to publicly thank Bush's office of national drug control
policy for making in scant minutes a point with which I have for years
struggled.

It is noteworthy that the highest powers in the federal government have
selected one of the most widely viewed television events to place a message
directed at dopers, and at a cost of around $3.5 million. Could they
believe that fiddling with drugs is a middle-class pastime? John Walters,
director of the policy office, told The Washington Post that "since
Americans spend over $60 billion on (illegal) drugs a year, this is a
pretty well-leveraged investment." Indeed.

This marketing strategy is nothing short of brilliant, and the message is
not too subtle. The commercials portray international criminals buying
weapons and ask, "Where do terrorists get their money?" The answer is that
the sale of illegal drugs often funds the likes of Osama bin Laden and a
host of shadowy worldwide organizations sworn to our destruction.

It is pure, simple logic that taking the financial resources away from
"evildoers" would disrupt their rotten schemes against this land of
liberty. This is high-priority business.

Congress, state legislatures and local governments have a solemn patriotic
obligation to the men and women serving in the armed forces, and to the
rest of us to immediately begin the process of decriminalizing the unlawful
substances whose sale provides economic comfort to the enemies of freedom.

As more drugs become legal, the actual cost of goods will be very much less
than $60 billion a year. The good news is that revenues will flow to the
guys and gals who cultivate "weed" and other hard-working believers in free
enterprise. The drug trade will come out of the shadows and operate like a
legitimate business.

When the formerly illicit substances are lawful and controlled, they will
be safer in the same way that the whiskey from the liquor store is less
hazardous than moonshine. More good news. Drug users are accustomed to
paying top price to underwrite dangerous criminal operations and will not
even notice steep state and federal taxes, which can be used, among other
things, to boost military spending.

When restrictions on drugs begin to fall, it will be a bad day for the
enemies of Western civilization. Reform will come in stages, and the first
step is a national conversation about a sensible drug policy.

Nobody in his right mind would suggest legalizing methamphetamines, but
marijuana would be a good starting point. Cocaine and heroin might quickly
follow.

Yes, there are social consequences to more intelligent drug policies. They
are nothing compared to the plague of violence and incarceration that
attends the present stupid approach. The prevailing "get tough" attitude
has brought ruin to many at home and sumptuously funded our mortal enemies.

Where do terrorists get their money? It gushes prodigiously from a global
pipeline created by our foolish and failed war on drugs.