SUPER BOWL ADS FIRE NEW SALVO IN FUTILE DRUG WAR

It's a shame Canadians can't see American Super Bowl ads. If we had, we
would have seen an omen of things to come.

We would also have seen evidence that, despite what commentators were
saying after Sept. 11, irony is alive and snickering.

On Sunday night, the White House ran the most expensive public service ads
ever, two 30-second spots that cost $3.4 million U.S.

The message: "Terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit
acts of murder. If you quit drugs, you join in the fight against terror in
America.

It was just the latest indication the United States is planning to tie the
war on drugs to terrorism and ramp up the 80-year-old fight.

Drug warriors, including the president, have been spreading the message for
months.

The House Speaker has a committee on the issue. The DEA hosted a conference
called "Target America: Terrorists, Traffickers and Your Kids." (When they
drag out Your Kids, you know something's up.)

Like all good frauds, this one has a kernel of truth. Terrorists around the
world ­ including al-Qaeda ­ do use illegal drug sales to fund their
activities.

But why do terrorists get into drugs? They don't traffic sugar. They don't
smuggle bananas. Why illegal drugs? Is it because they are drugs? So are
coffee, tobacco and alcohol, yet terrorists don't sell smokes or beer.

In fact, they turn to illegal drugs because they are illegal. When a
substance is banned, producers and sellers risk arrest, so they demand a
big markup. As a result, things that are cheap to produce but illegal ­
like cocaine and marijuana ­ become wildly profitable. Those huge profits
attract anybody who wants to make big bucks fast. That includes homicidal
maniacs eager to buy AK-7s and one-way plane tickets.

If sugar were banned today, terrorists would be smuggling it tomorrow. The
same goes for anything else people want.

That's not conjecture. It's history. Consider plain old beer.

When alcohol was banned, thugs and murderers suddenly became brewers and
distillers. Gangsters fought machine-gun battles over lowly suds. The press
of day called them "beer barons."

And today? A whole lot of the Super Bowl viewers urged by the White House
to "quit drugs" were quaffing a drug that once made murderers rich. The
White House's message was even sandwiched between beer ads.

Budweiser was one of the game's "proud sponsors." The "King of Beers" had
huge signs in the stadium along with Coors and that international
drug-dealing syndicate, Hooters.

And where did the fans in New Orleans go after the game? Why, Bourbon
Street, the world-famous drug ghetto.

And if that doesn't convince you that irony is not dead, consider the
pregame appearance by George Bush Sr., whose election to the White House
was funded in part by heaps of cash from the drug lords of the tobacco
industry.

So there were really two messages about drugs during the Super Bowl.
Illegal drugs: evil, criminal, finance terrorists. Legal drugs: good,
American, finance Republicans.

The hypocrisy of the White House is grotesque. Its misrepresentation of how
terrorists finance themselves is shameful.

But, worst of all is the American government's refusal to acknowledge
overwhelming evidence that the illegal drug trade cannot be stamped out by
force.

Over the last 20 years, American anti-drug spending rocketed up.
Imprisonment of drug offenders soared along with it: the U.S. has more drug
offenders in jail than the EU has imprisoned for all crimes.

And yet in the U.S. today, drugs are more available then ever, a fact
underlined yet again in October in a study commissioned by the White House
itself.

It is tempting to think this idiocy is an exclusively American issue that
can be left to the gringos. It's not. Far from it.

In Colombia, guerrillas, paramilitaries and sundry lunatics reap profits
from the cocaine and heroin trade ­ money that funds horrific atrocities
and fuels the endless civil war. The story is similar in nations the world
over. Wherever there is instability, the illegality of drugs feeds the chaos.

Canada is far from immune: witness the Hells Angels. But for us, the chief
risk of a ramped-up war on drugs is more erosion of our freedom to make
choices.

Many are starting to look for new directions and seeing them in what
European countries are doing. But if Uncle Sam declares war again, Canada
will be drafted.

The draft notice came Sunday night. It's a shame Canadians can't see
American Super Bowl ads