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Here's the Libertarian op-ed that goes along with the ad mentioned in
Fitz's recent forwarded post.
I have a lot of respect for the Libertarian Party for seizing this moment
to drive this message home.
It's a bit synchronnistic (?) but I have been reading the book Deep As The
Marrow by F. Paul Wilson (The guy who created Repairman Jack). Published in
1997. The story line is that the president of the US has called for the
legalization of all drugs and has organized crime and the drug cartels up
in arms planning his "removal" from office. They kidnap the daughter of his
personal physician and seek to get him to arrange for the president's death
so that no one is the wiser. Good Stuff! And it does a bang up job of
examining just what the Libertarian Party is taking about with this recent
effort on their part to associate the "War on Drugs" with "terrorism," and
not the other way around.
L.A.
The truth about drugs and terrorism
by Steve Dasbach
<http://www.lp.org/press/op-eds.php?function=view&record=27>http://www.lp.org/press/op-eds.php<http://www.lp.org/press/op-eds.php?function=view&record=27>?function=view&record=27
Here's a bold way to strike back at terrorists that the government hasn't
thought of yet: End the War on Drugs.
Ending the War on Drugs would take the profit out of drug-trafficking and
inflict a crippling financial blow on terrorist networks.
The War on Drugs turns ordinary, cheap plants like marijuana and poppies
into fantastically lucrative black market products, funneling vast profits
into the hands of drug cartels and their terrorist allies.
Why? Because the more risk there is in selling any product -- the risk of
arrest, from rival gangs, or of seizures from police -- the more the price
is inflated to compensate for that risk.
Even the U.S. government acknowledges this.
In a report, "The Price of Illicit Drugs: 1981 Through the Second Quarter
of 2000" (October 2001), the federal government notes:
"A kilogram of pure cocaine costs about $25,000 at the wholesale level.
This is a high price for a product that is basically agricultural, requires
inexpensive chemical processing, and has minimal shipping costs....
Consequently, [law enforcement] programs almost certainly explain high
wholesale prices....
"Illicit drug prices are many magnitudes higher than would otherwise be the
case were there no effective source zone, interdiction, and domestic law
enforcement programs."
Which federal agency published this report, acknowledging that the War on
Drugs boosts the price of illegal narcotics by "many magnitudes" -- and
creates windfall profits for terrorists?
The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). That's the same agency
that is now running newspaper ads accusing the 94 million Americans who
have peacefully used drugs of "supporting" terrorists.
One typical ONDCP ad shows a close-up of a young woman's face, and says:
"Last week, I washed my car, hung out with a few friends, and helped murder
a family in Colombia."
The bottom of the ONDCP ads state: "Drug money helps support terror. Buy
drugs and you could be supporting it too."
But claiming that drug users are to blame for financing terrorists is like
a maniac who kills his parents, and then throws himself on the mercy of the
court because he is an orphan.
After all, the government-created War on Drugs causes the very problem
these ads complain about by driving up prices and generating exorbitant
profits for terrorists. That's why terrorists love the War on Drugs.
How much does the War on Drugs inflate the price of illegal narcotics?
In the Hoover Institution's Hoover Digest (Issue No. 1, 2000), Joseph D.
McNamara, former police chief of Kansas City, Missouri and San Jose,
California, wrote: "The vast profits resulting from [drug] prohibition -- a
markup as great as 17,000 percent -- have led to worldwide corruption of
public officials and widespread violence among drug traffickers and dealers
that endangers whole communities, cities, and nations."
Consider that figure: 17,000 percent. That's the extra profit terrorists
make because of the War on Drugs. Without the War on Drugs, $100 worth of
cocaine would be worth 59 cents, a $25 bag of marijuana would be worth 15
cents -- and terrorists who depend on illegal drug profits to finance their
bloody attacks would be almost penniless.
The U.S. government acknowledges that terrorists profit from illegal drugs.
At its website -- www.theantidrug.com -- the Office of National Drug
Control Policy writes: "Twelve of the 28 terror organizations identified by
the U.S. Department of State in October 2001 traffic in drugs."
And in a speech on September 21, U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
said: "The illegal drug trade is the financial engine that fuels many
terrorist organizations around the world, including Osama bin Laden."
The bottom line is that the War on Drugs dramatically increases the price
of drugs.
As a result, terrorists flock to the drug trade -- and earn hundreds of
millions of dollars in artificially inflated profits. Then they use that
money to finance violence against innocent people, corrupt law enforcement,
wage civil wars, and destabilize governments around the world.
Without the War on Drugs acting as a price support system for the drug
cartels, many terrorist groups would find their funding squeezed to almost
zero. And Americans would be safer as a result.
The fact is that politicians don't need to keep trotting out new government
programs to combat terrorism. Instead, they should eliminate one government
program: the War on Drugs.
Until they do that, they should stop blaming pot-smoking teenagers for
funding terrorism, and blame themselves instead.
* Steve Dasbach is executive director of the Washington, DC-based
Libertarian Party.
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