War On Drugs

ATLANTA -- You don't hear much about the nation's "war on drugs" these days. It's a has-been, a glamourless geezer, a holdover from bygone days. Its glitz has been stolen by the "war on terror," which gets the news media hype and campaign trail rhetoric. Railing against recreational drug use and demanding that offenders be locked away is so '90s. But the drug war proceeds, mostly away from news cameras and photo-ops, still chewing up federal and state resources and casting criminal sanctions over entire neighborhoods.

There is a way to stop Baltimore's murder epidemic. Improve Baltimore's schools. Revive Baltimore's neighborhoods. And it doesn't involve more police, higher taxes or longer prison sentences. Instead, it requires restructuring what is possibly the city's biggest industry. Legalize heroin and cocaine sales, and you erase the economic force behind Baltimore's heartache. Would it lead to new addicts? Of course. Would it send a bad message to kids? Yep. Would it cause problems we can't envisage?

LAURENS, Iowa -- Methamphetamine has claimed every tooth in Dennis Patten's head, which is why his face is caving into his jaw and why just about everything south of his neck is falling apart. The squat Patten is a 28-year veteran of the Iowa drug wars, 25 of them spent as an addict and the past three as an uncertain, just-say-no convert torn by occasional gnawing cravings for the drugs that have crippled him. "I can't honestly say that if you dumped some [meth] right here," he said, tapping a couple of fingers on a table in front of him, "that I'd turn it down."

Six weeks ago, it looked as if the governor of Maryland was willing to inject some common sense into the costly and asinine war on drugs. Instead of forcing low-level drug dealers to serve a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison -- at a cost to Maryland taxpayers of $24,000 a year -- O'Malley appeared to support parole for these offenders after a couple of years behind bars. The change would have applied only to nonviolent offenders. It was aimed at the dealer-user -- that is, the drug addict who sells dope to maintain his own habit.

In Washington, there's a sense that many issues regarding the war in Iraq will come to a head in September. The month was specifically referenced 15 times by Tony Snow and White House reporters at the press secretary's Thursday briefing. In September, members of Congress will be returning from their long August recess, when they will have heard from constituents. September is the end of the federal fiscal year, and soon after that, the Bush administration will have to submit another war-funding bill under vastly changed political circumstances.

Time for cease-fire in failed drug war Every bit of data about the drug war indicates that it is a colossal failure ("Data show war on drugs failing as cocaine gets cheaper, purer," May 5). From 1995 to 2005, the federal drug war budget rose 79 percent. During that time, the number of people in the United States who had used drugs in the past year rose 55 percent, drug-induced mortality went up 116 percent, drug arrests went up 25 percent and drug rehab admissions went up 22 percent.

MEXICO CITY -- The United States and its Latin American allies are losing a major battle in the war on drugs, according to indicators showing that cocaine prices dipped for most of 2006 and American users were getting more bang for their buck. Despite billions of dollars in U.S. anti-drug spending and record seizures, statistics recently released by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy suggest that cocaine is as available as ever. Cocaine users and lawmen care about price and purity.

ATLANTA -- All wars have a way of creating collateral damage, as the desk-bound bureaucrats euphemistically call the dead innocents, destroyed buildings and decimated towns that just happen to be in the way of bombs and bullets. Kathryn Johnston was collateral damage in America's misguided "war on drugs." On Nov. 21, the 88-year-old woman was shot dead by Atlanta undercover police officers who crashed through her door after dark to execute a "no-knock" search warrant for illegal drugs.

I hear men who grew up in Baltimore - guys my age, some a little younger, some 20 years younger - talk about homecomings, but not the kind associated with high schools or the military, Thanksgiving or Christmas. The two Marine Corps veterans I spoke with last week used the phrase "I got home" in reference to their release from prison, not active duty. "I got home in oh-three," Ben Townsend said. He's 48, a former Marine, former drug dealer, formerly homeless man looking for a job. "Got home in 2002," said Mark Lonesome, 28, former Marine, former drug dealer, also in need of work.

HOUSTON -- Not so long ago, before the war on terrorism, Carlos Barron was a foot soldier in the war on drugs. As an FBI narcotics investigator, he tracked Mexican drug lords who were importing cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. His sleuthing and testimony led to the conviction of a renowned kingpin. "It used to be immediate gratification," Barron says of the old days fighting drug trafficking. "We had a case, and we took it all the way. You put cuffs on him and you put him in jail." Today, the culprits he is pursuing are not so recognizable, and the rewards have never been more elusive.