END DRUG WAR; FOCUS ON TERRORISM

If we expect to win the war on terrorism, we have to call off the war
on drugs. There are three reasons:

We can't afford both.

The drug war feeds terrorist networks and diverts law enforcement from
focusing on immense new perils.

The drug war was failing anyway. If we want to reduce drug dependency
and the crime associated with it, then intensive treatment programs
will be far more effective.

Sadly, official Washington isn't admitting any of these truths. House
Speaker Dennis Hastert has gone so far as to declare that "by going
after the illegal drug trade, we reduce the ability of terrorists to
launch attacks against the United States."

First flaw in the argument: If our primary goal is Osama bin Laden and
his Middle East-based network, choking off drug demand here (even if
we could) wouldn't help much. Virtually all the heroin flowing out of
Afghanistan goes to Europe, not the United States.

But there's a larger flaw: What makes America's drug market so
lucrative to suppliers in Latin America and elsewhere is our efforts
to keep it illegal. Black markets always generate huge profits and
networks of brutal, underground operators. Ties to terrorists are inevitable.

"We have spent a half-trillion dollars on the drug war since 1990 and
we are less safe and less healthy than ever," says Kevin Zeese,
president of Common Sense for Drug Policy and long-term opponent of
the prevailing national policy. "We're making more arrests and
incarcerating more people, but the supply of drugs is up and prices
are down."

Zeese, like most reformers, favors a legally controlled market that
would focus on treatment and remove the hyperprofits of today's
illegal trade.

He charges the drug war actually "blinded our government to
terrorism," citing reports in Boston news media that FBI agents in the
'90s actually apprehended Raed Hijazi, an admitted al Qaeda member.
Hijazi, according to the reports, provided the agents with information
on the Boston area terrorist cell later involved with the Sept. 11
hijackings. But the FBI was reportedly interested only in information
Hijazi had on heroin trafficking.

Such incidents suggest that even if our federal, state and local
governments found enough cash to fight a simultaneous war on drugs and
war on terrorism, split agendas could mean that we end up losing both
struggles.

In a contorted way, one can argue America could "afford" to lose the
war on drugs. Through the 1990s, times were good, government budgets
sufficiently elastic, and the criminal justice system was kept busy.
City neighborhoods may have been devastated, but there was little
political outcry because the millions who got incarcerated tended to
be politically less potent-the poor and minorities.

But terrorism is different. It's not some social choice (alcohol is
OK, marijuana or crack get you prison, etc.). Rather, terrorism is a
grim, undeniable force. Fed by global poverty and religious extremism,
it could well be the most frightening, multifaceted threat to the
lives, homes, cities and livelihoods of Americans since the Civil War.

The harsh fact - especially for state and local governments - is that
resources are finite. Every cop who isn't chasing a kid selling
cocaine on a city street is a cop who could be guarding a subway
station, a stadium or public plaza. Every detective not tied up in
drug cases can be checking leads on potential assaults on city water
reservoirs or local power stations.

"Every dollar spent intercepting cocaine, heroin or marijuana,"
suggests Zeese, "is a dollar that could be spent intercepting bombs."

Or take the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Every DEA agent
who isn't involved in a futile effort to stop an easily replaceable
drug shipment from entering the United States can be investigating
terrorist cells or working to prevent bioterrorism or nuclear
terrorism. Yes, nuclear terrorism, which almost surely will be tried
against us in the coming years.

It is time to get serious, and deal with dire threats first.
Instinctively, some federal agencies are shifting already. The FBI has
changed its focus to terrorism. The Coast Guard has reportedly
switched close to three-fourths of its personnel and boats from drug
interdiction to antiterrorist patrols. Sharp moves in priority are
also reported at the Customs Service, Public Health Service and Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

But until we flip our drug policy, putting prevention and treatment
first, and stop pursuing the millions of drug users in our own
population, we'll have neither the resources nor the focus to pursue
the very real terrorist threat that we face.