PROTECTING THE PUBLIC FROM THE THREATS OF TERROR AND DEPRESSION

Money Wasted Fighting The Unwinnable War On Drugs Would Be Better Spent On
Antiterror Security Measures

Special to The Japan Times

In his Sept. 30 New York Times article, "The Fear Economy," MIT economist
Paul Krugman warned that the American public should be prepared for a
possible deflationary spiral comparable to the Great Depression of the
1930s and Japan's milder but chronic depression of the 1990s. A major
depression could certainly result from the psychological fear triggered by
the present terror. So Krugman tried to assure the American public that the
collapse of the twin WTC towers should be less devastating to the economy
in monetary terms than has been any of "America's recent natural disasters"
- -- such as severe hurricanes or earthquakes.

He is right. Even in terms of human casualties the present body counts,
while in thousands, are not really so high relative to other avoidable
causes of death. For example, the annual death toll from smoking in the
United States alone amounts to about an awesome 400,000, including 53,000
dying from passive smoking, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

If an economic depression is imminent, if it is indeed related to the
public psychology, and if because of this the public feels a need to
"escape," then we have a better proposition. While Krugman's "unorthodox
remedies" seem to include letting the Bank of Japan print and disperse
money, our own heretical proposal is to revamp the contemporary prohibition
on drugs. It may sound far-fetched, but it could succeed in "killing two
birds with one stone" or perhaps even no stone at all.

Regarding the Sept. 11 attacks, it is far more important to know what has
really happened rather than to know what to call them. This is because
there is a fine distinction between knowing the name of something and
knowing something. Reacting to what has happened by calling it a "cowardly
act" or a "war," we are only likely to provoke those supporting the
attackers into calling it a "sacred war," so that the suicide attackers
themselves become martyrs.

Punishing those organizations and individuals responsible for the attacks
is unlikely to hinder the possibility of future "cowardly acts" unless
those who want to become "martyrs" are somehow eliminated prior to their
martyrdom.

Six decades ago, the Japanese public had been firmly indoctrinated into
believing that they were waging a "sacred war" against the "goblin beasts."
They failed to stop their kamikaze attacks and bamboo lancing despite,
regardless of, or even all the more because of the devastating atomic
bombings. Thus it was not only the Japanese but also the Allies who were
fortunate that the Showa Emperor had the courage to surrender
unconditionally to the Allies and to order the Japanese public to stop
fighting. Indeed, rather than what moniker to lend to the series of
terrorist attacks, we instead need to seek an understanding of what is at
their root in order to effectively counter such acts in the future.

Rather than counter them, however, such foul play ought to be prevented or
avoided altogether. And while nothing can be terror- proof, we could easily
allocate far more resources to airport and airplane security. But will we
be able to pay for such security enhancement?

We believe that allocating resources presently devoted to the so- called
war on drugs could fund some measure of terror prevention. This terror
prevention, however, should be distinguished from the "war on terror,"
which is a terrible error. The latter is no more rational a manner to
regain public security than is continuing the war on drugs. Both waste
immeasurable resources -- legal infrastructure, labor force, taxpayers'
money, and above all human lives.

According to Gwynne Dyer, a London-based journalist, $450 billion a year
(almost 10 percent of world trade) flows into the hands of "professional
criminals," who have become "rich enough to subvert entire countries." His
observation appeared in The Japan Times July 26, less than two months prior
to the attacks in the U.S. But lest the reader misunderstand Dyer's main
thrust, we hasten to add, his article was titled "Legalization: The Drug
War's Best Weapon." He notes that heroin is a highly addictive substance,
but cigarettes are "even more addictive and a grave health hazard to boot."

What would then happen if narcotics less hazardous than cigarettes were
legalized? Thomas Szasz, an American psychiatrist, answers this question by
raising this simple question: Don't we know that if opioids were
deregulated and sold in the open market, thieves would have no more reason
to steal opium from pharmacies than they have to steal onions from
supermarkets?

Why are opioids stolen? It is because they are worth a lot on the black
market. Why are they worth a lot? It is because they are regulated. Who
wants drug controls then? Our hypothesis: Both professional criminals and
professional noncriminals. The latter's vested interest lies in the
production of legal drugs on the one hand and the war on drugs on the other.

We see no reason why smoking (apparently more deadly and even more
addictive than is heroin) is politically and legally sanctioned, while
lesser evils to society at large are totally unacceptable. As a natural
economic consequence of drug regulations, some American pharmacies
reportedly do not even carry opium-based pain-relief pills for fear of theft.

Who benefits from such regulations the most? Our wild speculation: The
tobacco industry does. If other drugs, which are less of a societal health
hazard than nicotine and which are more effective in making people "high"
or "stoned" were legalized, then certainly fewer people would die from
their consumption. If, indeed, any such presently illicit drug was
legalized on par with nicotine and caffeine, so that proper hazard warnings
were provided, then we suspect that the public -- including smokers,
nonsmokers and smokers-to-be alike -- would be better off.

The only other clear losers, other than illicit drug dealers, would be
those in the tobacco industry. And even they could seek employment and
profits elsewhere, although they would no longer enjoy the "quasi rent"
that they have gained at the expense of a net overall loss to society.

Thus, the war on terrorism and the war on drugs seem to us to be inexorably
intertwined, albeit perversely, through vested interests in the tobacco
industry. The tobacco industry, as the producer of a legal drug, has
incentives to keep other potentially competitive drugs from becoming
legalized. It has incentives to lobby for the drug war and, to the extent
that it succeeds, operators in the drug-related black market keep raking in
hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

These operators include opium magnates in the Middle East (e.g.
Afghanistan) and the drug lords in South and Central America, as well as
their local distributors. And only a small fraction of the take of this
worldwide net of organizations needs to be invested in controlling some
poor, sick minds to undertake subversive activities.

One means of their control appears to be through religious fanaticism; such
groups are at large everywhere. Only a few years ago a number of graduates
from Japan's "Ivy League" universities dispersed sarin gas in Tokyo's
subway for some unfathomable cause, being allegedly indoctrinated by a
religious leader who to this day insists on his innocence because he is
"unsighted," albeit enlightened.

We would not be surprised if drug money caused some of the dive in world
stocks just before and after the Sept. 11 incident. If it was, then the war
on drugs should be fought all the more by legalization, gradually at least,
if not right away. Further, money and human resources allocated to law
enforcement in the war against drugs need not be reduced, only reallocated
to airport security or elsewhere as needed. They could also be increasingly
allocated to drug education, prevention of passive smoking, etc.

In light of the aforementioned staggering death tolls from smoking, it is
about time that even the Japanese (who allegedly cannot say "no") say "no"
to this ongoing tragedy.

Finally, if nonnicotine-based drugs were legalized with proper warning
labels and instructions, the mass of people whose labor is now misallocated
or not used could avoid premature death caused by the consumption of legal
narcotics and also possibly become engaged in economically productive
activities.