Pubdate: Sat, 18 Jun 2005
Source: Star-Banner, The (FL)
Copyright: 2005 Washington Post Writers Group
Contact:  http://www.starbanner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1533
Author: George F. Will, Syndicated Columnist
Note: George F. Will is a columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group.
Cited: Office of National Drug Control Policy 
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov
Referenced: An Analytic Assessment of U.S. Drug Policy 
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20050218_book812text.pdf
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

DRUG-WAR LEADER FACES TOUGH FIGHT

Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director 
of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says Washington 
is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, 
intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that 
the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it 
might, cannot seriously injure?

Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he 
persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which 
heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor 
Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good."

Moynihan: "No, really, this is a big event."

Shultz, unfazed: "Good." Moynihan: "I suppose that you think that so long 
as there is a demand for drugs, there will continue to be a supply."

Shultz: "You know, there's hope for you yet."

Walters understands that when there is a $65 billion annual American demand 
for an easily smuggled commodity produced in poor countries, and when the 
price of cocaine and heroin on American streets is 100 times the production 
costs, much will evade even sophisticated interdiction methods. And, 
Walters says, huge quantities of marijuana are grown domestically, for 
example, in California, Kentucky and West Virginia - often on public lands 
because the government can seize private land used for marijuana cultivation.

Particularly potent strains of the drug are grown indoors. Marijuana 
possession accounts for most of the surge in drug arrests since 1990. 
Critics suggest an armistice on this front in the $35 billion-a-year drug war.

Marijuana's price has fallen and its potency has doubled in the last eight 
years. So say David Boyum and Peter Reuter in their new book, "An Analytic 
Assessment of U.S. Drug Policy," from the American Enterprise Institute. 
They say that, although the number of persons incarcerated for drug 
offenses on any given day has increased from 50,000 in 1980 to 450,000 in 
2003, the inflation-adjusted prices for cocaine and heroin are half what 
they were 25 years ago.

So, should there be an armistice on this front, too?

Walters responds that the bulk of the demand for illegal drugs is from 
addictive users. Of the 19 million users, 7 million are drug-dependent. 
Marijuana use is a "pediatric onset" problem: If people get past their 
teens without starting, Walters says, the probability of use is "very 
small" and of dependence "much less."

Use of marijuana by youths peaked in 1979, hit a low in 1992, and then 
doubled by the mid-1990s. The age of first use of marijuana has been 
declining to the early teens and lower. Often, Walters says, the "triggers" 
for use are "cultural messages" - today, for example, from rap music. 
Nevertheless, teen marijuana use has declined 18 percent in the last three 
years.

Because, unlike with heroin and cocaine, marijuana users do not die of 
overdoses, its reputation is too benign. The 5 million users in the 12- 
to-17 age cohort are, Walters believes, storing up future family, school 
and work problems, and putting their brain functions at risk with 
increasingly potent strains of marijuana.

Last year 400 metric tons of cocaine were seized worldwide, but 200 entered 
the United States. However, some seizures, by causing abrupt shortages in 
some metropolitan areas, cause addicts to seek detoxification. Even 
Prohibition, Walters says, for all its bad effects, changed behavior: after 
repeal, per-capita alcohol use did not return to pre-Prohibition levels 
until the 1960s.

Having studied political philosophy at the University of Toronto with the 
late Allan Bloom, Walters describes the drug war in Lincolnian language: 
"There are certain requirements of civilization - to keep the better angels 
of our nature in preponderance over the lesser angels."

Fighting terrorists, he says, is necessary even though it is like seeking a 
needle in a haystack. Illicit drugs - millions of tons marketed to millions 
of Americans - are at least not a needle-in-a- haystack problem.

George Will is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group.
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