Pubdate: Tue, 11 Dec 2001
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Section: News; Pg. 19A
Copyright: 2001 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.jsonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/265
Author: Robyn Blumner, St. Petersburg Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism)

WATCH THE WAR ON TERRORISM MORPH INTO THE WAR ON DRUGS

As the United States wages a war on two fronts, against both terrorism and 
drugs, Ethan Nadelmann poses a fair question of priorities. "Which white 
powder do we want the government looking for?" asked Nadelmann, executive 
director of the Lindesmith Center, a non-profit drug policy organization. 
"Do we want them focused on anthrax, or do we want them focused on cocaine?"

Our profligate $50-billion-per-year drug war is certainly diverting 
potential resources from our fight against terrorism. But what worries 
Nadelmann even more is the way these two wars are converging. He believes 
that in the near future, all of the law enforcement and military 
infrastructure we have built to investigate and prevent terrorist 
activities will be incorporated into the war on drugs.

"The question becomes whether, down the road a few years, when we have in 
place a new, very well-funded, large-scale . . . security apparatus focused 
on counterterrorism, will pressures begin to emerge to refocus it at the 
war on drugs -- where what the government will be looking for will not be 
hundreds of (terrorists) who might do massive damage to a large number of 
people, but millions of (drug users) who could potentially do little damage 
to anyone but themselves," Nadelmann said.

Already there are signs that the war on drugs and the war on terrorism are 
seen by our national leaders as one and the same. In September, after the 
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, House Speaker Dennis 
Hastert (R-Ill.) announced the formation of a task force to combat drug 
trafficking. "The illegal drug trade is the financial engine that fuels 
many terrorist organizations around the world, including Osama bin Laden," 
Hastert said.

Actually, one need only keep up with the news to know that the outlandish 
profits generated by black-market drugs are used to support terrorist 
campaigns. Hence, the term "narco-terrorist."

The most obvious examples are within our own hemisphere. Colombia is a 
nation ripped apart by its high-volume drug trade, the profits of which 
have gone to underwrite leftist rebel movements as well as right-wing 
paramilitary death squads. Similarly, illicit drug profits supported the 
Shining Path guerrilla insurgency in Peru.

The United Nations estimates that the world trade in illicit drugs 
generates about $400 billion annually -- plenty of money to send a dozen 
men to flight school.

The government could plug this spigot almost overnight, but, unforgivably, 
it chooses not to. All we would have to do is move our prohibitionist drug 
war into more sensible territory, including legalizing marijuana and 
decriminalizing and regulating the use of harder substances. Ending alcohol 
prohibition showed us that organized crime will get squeezed out as profits 
plummet and legitimate businesses enter the market.

This is obvious to nearly everyone but our political leaders. The American 
people have pretty much had it with the zero-tolerance drug war, as evinced 
by the widespread public support for medical marijuana initiatives and the 
California initiative to put non-violent drug offenders in treatment rather 
than prison.

But beyond a handful of brave truth-sayers such as Republican Gov. Gary 
Johnson of New Mexico, politicians refuse to catch up. Too many of their 
powerful constituent groups -- police, prison officials, attorneys and 
manufacturers of materiel -- have fed their careers at the drug-war trough. 
The Drug Enforcement Administration alone employs more than 9,000 people.

So despite the way our policy of drug prohibition provides a source of 
funds for overseas terrorist activity, the U.S. will not cede an inch. 
Instead, we continue to arrest more than half a million people annually for 
simple marijuana possession and to raid medical marijuana facilities 
regardless of the people's expressed will.

The nomination of narco-hawk John Walters as drug czar is a signal from 
President Bush that no thoughtful, common-sensical approaches to the drug 
problem will be entertained.

But what is most chilling is the way the new police powers of extrajudicial 
detention and surveillance, justified by the need to combat terrorism, will 
inevitably leach over into drug enforcement.

Nadelmann makes the astute point that, just as voters and the courts were 
beginning to draw limits around the way law enforcement could invade 
privacy or dispense with due process in pursuit of the drug war, the war on 
terrorism emerged with its no-holds-barred exigencies.

For those who think government power over the individual should have 
constraints, Sisyphus' rock has rolled down the mountain once again.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager