WHICH WAR ARE WE FIGHTING?

"Don't you know there's a war on?"

So ran one of the more popular admonitions of World War II. It meant, in
effect, "What you're doing ain't exactly contributing to the effort, so
best you mend your ways." The principle applies today. It's time for this
country to mend its ways in a number of areas that no longer contribute
(even if they ever did) to the common defense and the general welfare.
Among them: the so-called war on drugs.

Time to call it off. We favor decriminalizing drug possession and use,
starting with marijuana. But before explaining why, it's necessary to
understand how these items got criminalized in the first place.

A century ago, all drugs were legal - and the human wreckage littered the
landscape. A generation of Civil War veterans addicted to morphine;
countless middle-class ladies dosing away their unhappiness with laudanum
(an opium derivative); cocaine in Coca Cola; and an unregulated patent
medicine industry using addictive substances to "treat" everything from
impotence to flatulence.

According to Philip Gold, cultural historian and senior fellow at Seattle's
Discovery Institute, "Progressive Era reformers allied with the emerging
medical profession and the AMA to attack the problem, both using the issue
to advance their own larger agendas." Reformers seeking to create what's
now known as the "nanny state" got drug abuse added to their list of public
health concerns. The doctors reined in the patent medicine industry and
garnered a monopoly on the prescription of drugs. By the 1930s, it was
illegal to possess any number of "controlled substances" without a doctor's OK.

The issue resurfaced in the '60s, and the positions of both sides froze
into their pre-9/11 sterility. Arguments in favor of legalization ranged
from "It's My Body and I'll Wreck It if I Choose" (and who pays your
insurance?) to the common-sense notion that criminalizing drugs turns users
into criminals, both by non-violent personal use and by the often-violent
crimes users commit to pay for their habits. Arguments against legalization
generally drew on the basic nanny-state mentality "Everything good should
be a right; everything bad should be a crime" mentality, along with any
number of religiously-attuned jeremiads.

Also popular: Marijuana use inevitably leads to harder drugs, from people
playing with statistics. Yes, 90 percent of hard drug users may have
started on marijuana, but that doesn't mean 90 percent of marijuana users
move on to harder drugs. Only occasionally did people bother to ask whether
the "war" on drugs was working, and at what cost.

Gary Becker, a Nobel laureate in economics, has. In a September Business
Week article, he noted that the United States now spends $40 billion
annually fighting this "war." Drug offenders, from kingpins to yuppies to
derelicts, now account for 30 percent of all inmates in the burgeoning
prison population. The Libertarian Party, in a Nov. 30 release, adds that
in 2000 alone, police arrested 734,498 people for marijuana violations (up
from 704,812). Of these, nearly 90 percent were charged only with possession.

Is marijuana harmful? Dr. Charles Tannock, a British psychiatrist and
member of the European Parliament, wrote in the Nov. 21 edition of Wall
Street Journal Europe that "the toxicity of the drug itself is probably
smaller than that of aspirin, in terms of lethal dose."Marijuana is not
physically addicting, unlike heroin.

Now, obviously, advocating legalization is not the same as encouraging use.
Sky diving and smoking cigarettes are legal activities which we don't
encourage - in fact, we discourage cigarette smoking as the health risks
exceed the benefits. But we don't propose outlawing these activities.

Beyond that, it's time for Americans to face up to the fact that
international drug smugglers are not simply modern-day Al Capone violent
thugs but basically in it for the money. Drug trafficking funds any number
of terrorist organizations. Every American who buys illegal drugs, directly
or indirectly, gives aid and comfort to this nation's enemies.

And finally, police have more important things to do than fill the jails
and courts with petty drug offenders. And it's not just that the resources
are needed to track down terrorists. Since 9-11, many cities have seen an
upsurge in major crimes committed by people who know that, with so many
police off doing homeland security work, their chances for a successful
murder, burglary or rape are greatly enhanced.

Nancy Reagan popularized the "Just say No" approach. It's still valid, but
we would add, "Don't you know there's a war on?" No matter how lightly we
dance around it, let's admit we are in World War III - against 60 countries
and thousands of enemies within our midst.