Pubdate: Sun, 19 Apr 2009
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Website: http://www.ajc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Cynthia Tucker
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

HALT WAR ON DRUGS, TARGET THE KINGPINS

Mexico has a point: Americans have contributed mightily to the 
creation of the violent drug cartels now wreaking havoc on the 
border. We are major consumers of their illegal products. In 
addition, we supply many of the weapons they use against rivals, law 
enforcement officials and innocents caught in the crossfire. Federal 
agents estimate that 90 percent of the pistols and rifles confiscated 
from Mexican drug traffickers last year and subjected to traces were 
traced back to gun dealers in the U.S., according to The New York Times.

Before his meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon last week, 
President Barack Obama made a number of moves designed to placate our 
southern neighbors, who are struggling with an out-and-out drug war. 
Obama appointed a "border czar" to crack down on the smuggling of 
guns and drugs, he imposed financial sanctions on three of the most 
notorious cartels, he threatened to prosecute any American who does 
business with drug kingpins.

Noticeably absent from Obama's list of corrective measures was any 
pledge to reinstate the ban on assault weapons, which expired in 
2004. Bullied by the gun lobby, Obama and fellow Democrats are afraid 
to press a common-sense measure that would take weapons of war off 
the streets here and out of the hands of drug thugs in Mexico.

Given that cowardice, it's probably futile to suggest that Obama do 
something visionary, if radical, about the market for illegal drugs 
in this country:

Walk away from the failed and costly "war on drugs"; significantly 
reduce the amount of money spent on enforcement against penny-ante 
dealers and users, abandon draconian laws that give stiff prison 
sentences to nonviolent drug offenders, spend the money instead on 
rehabilitation for addicts.

Some of that money could also be redirected to cracking down on the 
cartels, as Obama has proposed. They are vicious criminal enterprises 
that, left unchecked, can infiltrate the law enforcement and judicial 
establishments of entire countries. As Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) recently 
noted, "the Mexican drug cartels are capable of a very sophisticated 
level of quasi-military violence." The Drug Enforcement 
Administration and the FBI should concentrate resources on those 
kingpins, not on street-level dealers or addicted users doing more 
harm to themselves than anyone else.

In the 40 years since President Richard Nixon first used the term 
"war on drugs," the U.S. has spent billions on punitive law 
enforcement efforts; harassed and intimidated law-abiding residents 
of poor urban neighborhoods; and locked up hundreds of thousands for 
nonviolent drug offenses, resulting in the highest incarceration rate 
on the planet. Meanwhile, the use of illegal narcotics in this 
country has not changed substantially.

Oh, there's an ebb and flow, a change in fashions, an emergence of 
new trends. The crack epidemic, which largely affected black 
communities, is slowly fading, while whites in small towns and rural 
areas have become enmeshed in a devastating love affair with 
methamphetamine. But there is no evidence that Americans' desire to 
indulge in mind-altering substances has been dampened.

Instead, the government's insistence on outlawing narcotics has fed a 
thriving and violent criminal enterprise, much the way that 
prohibition of alcohol fueled violent gangs in the 1920s. Think about 
it: As long as alcohol is sold legally, there are no outsized 
fortunes to be made from selling it illegally, no need for thugs with 
weapons to handle its distribution or collect the profits. The U.S. 
finally came to its senses in 1933 and repealed Prohibition after a 
13-year struggle with the lawlessness it spawned.

For a host of political and cultural reasons, Americans aren't ready 
for the wholesale repeal of laws against illegal drugs. Nevertheless, 
most of us would admit that decades of draconian law enforcement 
haven't helped and have probably hurt, driving up the costs of 
incarceration and leaving countless nonviolent offenders with criminal records.

That leaves Attorney General Eric Holder with an opening to quietly 
redirect federal law enforcement to focus on the most violent drug 
offenders and the most profitable drug enterprises. No more drug 
busts that make evening news but only reel in low-level dealers. If 
the feds were to lead the way, local police authorities might get the 
message and redirect their resources as well.

And we might finally have a policy that puts fewer people in prison 
while still keeping our streets safe.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom