From: [c--o--n] at [dsm1.dsmnet.com]
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: How to win the drug war
Date: 30 Jul 1994 20:24:09 GMT

The Old Reporter
James Flansburg
How to win the drug war
        Cedar Rapids lawyer David M. Elderkin and I have been 
friends since the 1960s when he fired up a successful 
campaign to abolish Iowas justice of the peace system.
        For those whove crossed swords with him in the 
courtroom, at the conference table or in the political 
arena, I offer an observation: If you think its tough being 
against him, you ought to try being on his side sometime.
        Elderkin and some others -- notably, conservative 
columnist William F. Buckley Jr. -- want to decriminalize 
drugs and try a new approach.
        The drug war, says Elderkin in a recent letter, "is 
overflowing our prisons, corrupting our law-enforcement 
people, destroying constitutional rights, ruining whole 
countries and wasting billions of dollars that could be used 
for prevention and cure."
        I agree.  Elderkin knows I do.  But I dont put it in 
every column, and he takes that omission as evidence of 
timidity, if not cowardice, and he includes The Register and 
the rest of the American press in his indictment.
        "Your only defense seems to me to be that you are not 
the only one who is afraid," he says.  "John Culver told me 
one time that three-fourths of the senators in the U.S. 
Senate agreed that drugs should be legalized, but were 
afraid to say so.  In view of the fact that they were 
protecting their jobs, they had some reason to keep quiet.
        "But the press in these United States does not have the 
same reason.  You didnt even comment on the political 
cowardice of both Branstad and Bonnie Campbell in 
repudiating the legalization idea and refusing to even 
discuss it."
        "Someone has to start the ball rolling, and it is not 
coming from politicians.  It must be by some part of the 
news media with conscience and courage."
        My guess is that Elderkin learned that technique as a 
Marine officer on Okinawa -- not in law school or in 
practice -- but, in any case, I believe hes right about a 
lot of people being unwilling to look at the facts and think 
them through again.
        It probably is another of those issues that will turn 
out to be settled in the coffee shops and taverns and church 
basements long before its puzzled through by the policy-
makers in the Iowa Statehouse and in Washington.
        We keep sending more and more people to prison and keep 
building more and more prisons and dont even scratch the 
problem.
        The countrys prison population has doubled in the past 
10 years, Elderkin noted in a recent essay in the Cedar 
Rapids Gazette.  "The number of federal prison inmates now 
doing time for drugs is greater than the entire federal 
prison population in 1980."
        Follow and old reporting rule that says trace a policy 
for what it does rather than for what the policy-makers say 
they want to do and you come up with a disturbing idea.  
Pork barrel.  New prisons mean new money for towns; new 
money for guards and counselors and purveyors of food and 
supplies.  A growth industry fired by government dollars.  A 
politician raising questions may look good in the history 
books, but, in the short run, all that wins is a guarantee 
that his district wont get a prison, wont get in on any of 
the bonanza.
        In that light, take a look at the stealth and secrecy 
that Gov. Terry Branstad and company and the Clarinda 
booster groups used to push for a new prison at Clarinda.
        In that light, consider the federal governments 
failure to do the one thing that would immediately disrupt 
the drug business: Call in all $100 bills.  Just say that as 
of Friday, the $100 bill is no longer legal tender but can 
be traded in for change or deposit at any bank over the next 
two weeks.
        What next?  I dont know.  Lets see what that would 
do.  Our tradition is to try things and see if theyll work, 
and if they dont, go on to something else.
        In my view, the drug wars departure from tradition is 
whats pushing conservative thinkers like Elderkin and 
Buckley to favor decriminalization.  The drug war amounts to 
whipping a dead horse, they say, and its time to recognize 
that fact.
        In their view, the drug war is doing more damage to the 
system and its institutions than it is to the drug trade.  
And to the people themselves.
        How much of todays crime can be attributed to 
overcrowded prisons being forced to give early releases to 
violent prisoners to make room for the non-violent drug 
offenders?
        It doesnt faze Elderkin or Buckley, but how 
decriminalization would work is scary.  But no more so than 
the prospect of being on their side on anything.
        JAMES FLANSBURG is a Register columnist.
        The Des Moines Register, Saturday, July 30, 1994, Page 
7A.