From: Jim Rosenfield <[j n r] at [igc.apc.org]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Date: 04 Jul 94 15:03 PDT
Subject: Police News on the WOD

A Drug Economy

By Robert LeConte
Police News Spring '94

We've been down this road before. In the 1920s, Americans amended
the U.S. Constitution to prohibit alcohol, launching, in the
process, the greatest crime wave in history.  Citizens soon
figured out that crime was worse than Demon Rum (which flowed
just as strong), and prohibition was repealed.

Currently there is talk of repealing our drugs laws, for many of
the same reasons. But the problems law enforcers face with drug
enforcement are more analogous to Vietnam than to bootleggers.
Like that armed conflict, our tough-talking politicians have us
fighting drugs like we fought communism in Southeast Asia, one
patrol at a time, with body counts and gong-ho rhetoric. But drug
busts and seizure press conferences are not winning a war in
which - as Kennedy described Vietnam - "the enemy is at any given
time, everywhere and no where."

It is possible to build enough prisons, create enough courts, and
hire enough law enforcement officers to effectively wage an
all-out war on drugs. But - and this is the important part - IT
IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Since 1981, well over 150 billion of our
tax dollars have gone to interdict roughly 10 percent of the
drugs coming into America. If tough new laws and more money
double our success rate, we're still fighting a losing battle.

Our failure has bred frustration, which is the only way to
explain some of the battlefield tactics that have grabbed
headlines. My friend Chief Gates suggested we take drug users out
"and shoot `em."  It was a comment made out of total frustration,
that he did not mean for a minute, for it would have sentenced
his own son to death (As discussed in his book "Chief").  Patrick
Buchanan suggests that we execute all drug dealers the
enforcement of which would get one thousand police officers
killed in the first year.  Jack Kilpatrick modified that view
somewhat. In his nationally syndicated column he suggested that
we get "serious" about drug enforcement by publicly hanging drug
dealers.

I wish we could indulge Mr. Kilpatrick and hang a few, televise
it live on FOX, put it on the front page of every newspaper. The
next day Kilpatrick himself could interview the street dealers
about the impact it had.  Let me save you some time - you won't
be able to find two dealers who even heard of it. Of course, you
may want to provide dealers with press clippings and the grisly
photos, but good luck scaring straight someone who attends about
ten funerals a year. "Say what? They killed who?"

As frustrating as it is to admit, arresting, prosecuting and
incarcerating non-violent drug offenders has become an
ineffective and expensive means of providing for the general
welfare. Prohibition puts coke on the gold standard and overloads
the criminal justice system with small-time dope dealers - who,
if you really wanted to punish them, would be denied a criminal
economy and forced to find real work.

There is, of course, the moral question, best addressed by our
new "Drug Czar", former New York Commissioner Lee Brown.  Last
year, Lee told POLICE NEWS that decriminalization of drugs would
mean genocide for the black community. But Director Brown, what
if I told you about a segment of America in which one out of four
men between the ages of 20 and 29 is in our criminal justice
system (the percentage jumps to 50% in Washington, D.C.); in
which the majority live below the poverty line; or in which four
out of five children are born without a father in the household?
The black community is in a genocide countdown, right now. The
problem is not so much the physical effects of drugs. The problem
is a criminal economy (and a welfare system) that makes a mockery
out of an honest day's work.

Non-violent drug abusers, who sincerely want help, do not need to
dance the arrest/hold/release cha-cha. They need intervention,
not slogans and the slammer. Those drug-abusers who are violent
need the dark end of a prison cell and they need to stay there.

I do not agree that America should simply "decriminalize" all
drugs. But, there is no question a new approach is long overdue.
I'm convinced that if the DEA and the FDA had regulated
controlled substances 20 years ago, we would not be in the
epidemic we're in now.  Crack almost certainly would not have
thrived - it was invented because the high cost of drugs made a
cheaper version more profitable. And gangs, deprived of a
criminal economy, would not have flourished, saving thousands of
innocent victims of drug warfare.

I would join other conservative voices like William F. Buckley
and former D.C. Police Chief Jerry Wilson in regulating drug use
provided the feds implement the following:

1.Police were given the resources and authority to create
drug-free zones (as they have on many streets and housing
projects), including random sobriety check points.

2.As George Will suggested in a recent column, we need to further
research ways of chemically blocking the cocaine high. (We
successfully treat heroin users with methadone a drug in which
the users have the good manners to simply lay down and fall
asleep.)

3. We should start linking aid to dependent children with mothers
who test drug-free. (The household in Chicago in which 19
children were found laying two deep on mattresses in the middle
of February received $4,000 a month in public assistance. The
seven adults who also lived in the house were arrested. One
admitted to being a drug addict. Another was out at the time of
the raid - giving birth. The child was born with a coke
addiction.

4.We should enact William F. Buckley's proposal that would put
drugs in a regulatory scheme that would take all but the most
serious cases out of the judicial system, with the stipulation
that anyone caught selling the stuff to minors will he executed.

5.The DEA needs to limit its mission to helping local law
enforcement rid our schools and streets of drugs and drug
dealers. Drugs should he kept out of public sight and absolutely
out of the hands of young people. Our pursuit of the Drug Kings
has little impact hack home. (Pablo Escobar is dead. Now all we
have to do is invade Columbia and apprehend the thousands of
other South Americans in the drug trade. Of course, we did invade
Panama, partly because of the government's drug running. Earlier
this year, our own government told us that more coke blows
through the country now than when Noriega was in power.)
Convincing any federal agency to reevaluate and refocus its
mission is not easy, but if the DEA put all its resources into
our schools and streets it could have real impact.

6.Finally, America's civil courts need to insist that those who
take drugs take full responsibility for their actions. The law
should provide little recourse for a person whose abuse results
in the lose of their drivers license, job, children and access to
unlimited health coverage.

Ultimately, whether a drug or alcohol abuser sinks or swims will
largely depend on the support they receive from family, friends
or church. Federal, state and local officials have little impact.
All the king's horses and all the King's men are not a damn bit
of good when protecting someone from self-destruction.

If, however, that drug or alcohol abuser steps over the line and
his addiction threatens the safety of others, then federal, state
and local officials need to come crashing down like a ton of
bricks.  Unfortunately, as every criminal knows, what's looming
overhead is more like a lone, ornery blue bird.

Let me put that in perspective: roughly one-fifth of all crimes
result in an arrest, only about half of those lead to convictions
in serious cases, and less than 5% of those bring a jail term.
Even that number leaves prisons so overcrowded that the average
prisoner serves just one third of his sentence. (Is that the
police force that you joined? It's not the one I joined)

The criminal justice system has become ineffective, because like
so much of our government, we think we can do it all. We can't.
Our tough talking politicians pass laws like "Lawyers in
Wonderland," where Uncle Sam will give you a handout if you're
good or a quick tour of a correctional facility if you're bad.
The government that thinks it can raise illegitimate children
with a subsidy, is the same government that thinks it can save
drug abusers from self-destruction with guns and battering rams.

Police officers need to insist that our law makers take a hard
look at our resources and set priorities. Our laws need to make a
distinction between abusers who require medical intervention and
abusers who require law enforcement intervention. And when those
laws are passed, police officers should have the resources and
authority to effectively enforce them or take them off the books.

To those civilians who will undoubtedly write to remind me that
any changes in our current strategy would make drugs more
accessible to the dopers who want them - all I can suggest is
that you walk to any number of street corners in our cities. If
you are not sure where the drug dealers are, throw a brick -
believe me, you'll hit one. Just do me one favor - throw it hard.