Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2001
Source: The Monitor (TX)
Copyright: 2001 The Monitor
Contact:  http://www.themonitor.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1250

UNWINNABLE 'WAR'

Present Drug Policy Doomed To Failure

As the second day of the U.S.-Mexico Border Summit begins at the University 
of Texas-Pan American, it's interesting to note what isn't on the 
conference agenda. Missing from all the seminars on trade and business and 
health and the environment is any frank talk about the drug policies of 
either nation.

They might not want to talk about it, but attendees at the border summit 
need to admit what more and more citizens of the United States and Mexico 
have concluded: The "war" on drugs is a failure.

As much as they would like to, as much as they attempt to, politicians 
cannot end self-destructive behavior just by passing laws. Whether it's 
tobacco, alcohol or fatty foods, people will not stop consuming a substance 
just because it is harmful, or just because it is illegal.

The United States sprays herbicides on Colombian jungles and production 
continues. Police tell schoolchildren to "Just say no" and demand 
continues. Governments pass laws, and the behavior continues. When faced 
with evidence of their failure, lawmakers and police think the solution is 
another law, one more program, some more money.

It's time to stop this futile effort to save people from themselves. We 
need to find another way to reduce substance abuse, focusing on treatment 
and decriminalization instead of interdiction and punishment. And the 
United States can't tell other countries to do all the work.

We're sure conference attendees from Mexico would agree: It's unfair for 
the United States to blame other countries for its drug problem when U.S. 
citizens provide the biggest market. Demand for substances the American 
government has declared illegal continues to increase. Despite what the 
drug warriors claim, this demand can't be stopped, any more than the demand 
for alcohol was stopped during American Prohibition from 1919 to 1933.

The market for illegal drugs is so huge and so lucrative, it ends up 
financing gangs more powerful than some governments. In Matamoros this 
year, armed men stormed a police station and rescued one of their own who 
had been arrested by police. Later, the police commander and his assistant 
were murdered. Drug money has corrupted officials on both sides of the Rio 
Grande.

The present U.S. drug policy is unfair to its citizens. It has led to 
increased police harassment of minorities and harsher sentences against 
nonwhite defendants. It subjects people to searches at roadblocks, in 
airports and elsewhere - searches that are so far beyond unreasonable they 
are insane.

It has also produced forfeiture laws that defy the Fourth Amendment and 
require owners to go to court to get their own property back from the 
police. Many times, the proceeds from these seizures go to fund the police 
agencies that took the goods or money in the first place. In the past, we 
called it "highway robbery." Now the term is "law enforcement."

Officials must admit the "war" in its current form is not winnable. What do 
we mean by the "war on drugs," anyway? The whole concept of declaring war 
on an inanimate object is ridiculous. You can't defeat drugs' army. You 
can't occupy drugs' capital city. You can't force drugs to surrender.

When the border summit ends, we hope attendees will take that concept with 
them when they leave.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart