reprinted from Jan. 8, 2004

  I cannot repeat it too often: Our justice system is being seriously corrupted by the War on Drugs.

Let me try to explain why and how, in simple terms. The War on Drugs is essentially a war on the citizens of the U.S., because it is designed to apprehend and punish people doing something they want to do... something that harms nobody else directly. It's activity that should simply be legal. Drugs are no more harmful than booze. Seventy years ago, the U.S. wised up and re-legalized alcohol after a great deal of destruction to our society. It must not take us that long to decide that the War on Drugs is every bit as destructive.

Just as was true during Prohibition, many special law enforcement forces have been established to enforce drug laws. Just as during Prohibition, harmless activity has been driven underground, made more expensive, which makes it a natural, immensely profitable criminal black market activity. Because the potential profits are so high, those deciding to participate in this criminal activity are not only street thugs, but have included many educated professionals and business people. Just as was true during Prohibition, criminal drug organizations can be quite complex, organized, innovative, and ruthless.

The result has been an increase in the complexity, size, and expense of enforcement forces. Task forces have been created to specialize in drug law enforcement. Just as was true during Prohibition, corruption among law enforcement is a constant problem, because there is so much money involved.

One of the problems with governmental organizations of any kind is that they are VERY difficult to close down once begun. As President Reagan put it:

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.  Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth."

Private businesses fail all the time, and close their doors, but the pressure to keep public employees on payroll is immense. Public employee unions have great political power, and government organizations are almost impossible to bring a successful lawsuit against, so they manage to find ways to continue in operation, even long after they've been shown to be ineffective, or even corrupt.

Most Americans suspect, or know, that those with enough money get a different sort of justice than do the poorer citizens. That inequality has reached a new peak because of the War on Drugs and the effect it has on government employees who deal with drug laws.

Special law enforcement units, task forces, whose only task is to pursue and trap drug law violators, can only be judged successful by the number of arrests they make, the amount of drugs they confiscate, and by the value of property they can confiscate under forfeiture laws. They're under a lot of pressure to product those results, and what is happening as a result is disgraceful. Often, such task forces are required to partially fund their operations through confiscated property, which is a terrible incentive toward corruption. For law enforcement, there is an incentive to cut deals, or even overlook criminal activity in order to capture property that can be sold to fund the task force. The alternative can mean laying off police officers, or even closing down a task force, so deals are cut, and they're cut with the willing participation of district attorneys.

DA's are judged by the number of convictions they get, and there is a lot of deal-cutting once the cases reach them. Because law enforcement sends them more cases than they can effectively handle, they cut deals with defendants in order to get guilty pleas, often reducing sentences in return.

Here's an example from the Dallas, Texas area:

* Fred Snow sold cars and cocaine.

* William Burl Hatchett beat his prostitutes and forced them to have his name tattooed on their bodies.

* David Treft cooked an estimated half-million dollars worth of methamphetamine.

All three faced prison; all three got probation.

That's because – though the district attorney denies it – the North Central Texas Narcotics Task Force struck deals with them and others for lighter punishments in exchange for cash, cars, motorcycles, jewelry and other property that the task force needed to fund its operations. Denver McCarty, a former task force prosecutor, said he offered the deals to a half-dozen defendants during the last two years because the task force needed the money to stay in business.

Listen to what David Treft had to say about his arrest:

Mr. Treft said task force members told him he could agree to forfeit cash and three vehicles or spend the rest of his life in prison. He took their deal before a grand jury could hear his case.

"It was more like a robbery than a bust, he said. "They ran right over me and came right after my bikes. ... They didn't even care about the drugs," Mr. Treft said. "They were like kids in a candy store. They were jumping up and down, all oooing and ahhing when they uncovered my bike."

Mr. Treft said he was later given the option of buying back his seized property and paid the task force $15,000 for his 1996 Chevrolet and 2002 custom-built motorcycle.

He said his attorney, Stephen Wohr, told him he could get his other motorcycle back for another $12,000. He said he couldn't come up with the money in time and the bike was forfeited, along with more than $13,000 in cash, two television sets and camera equipment.

Another example, illustrating that money simply buys reduced sentencing:

Kevin Kuntz, 39, was facing life in prison after task force agents found several methamphetamine labs at his home. He received 90 days in prison, followed by eight years' probation, in exchange for $100,000, according to his attorney, Fred Marsh.

Also arrested at the Little Elm house on the same charges as Mr. Kuntz were Glenn Boliver, 37, of Lake Dallas, and Patrick Pappas, 40, of Watauga.

Mr. Pappas agreed in April to plead guilty to a lesser charge and received a 12-year prison sentence. Mr. Boliver's case went to federal court, where he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in September and was sentenced 19 years in prison.

His [Boliver's] attorney, Clifton Holmes, said, "My guy didn't have $100,000."

We've heard a lot of propaganda that the War on Drugs concentrates on stopping "drug kingpins" rather than low-level dealers. While it's true that they concentrate on finding and catching "kingpins", the result is likely to be that those very "kingpins" are the ones who receive little or no prison time, because they are the ones with property and cash to trade for leniency. Law enforcement can still get the arrest, district attorneys can still get a conviction, but the criminal can buy his way out... and go get back into business. Meanwhile, the lower-level offenders, having little to trade with, go to prison for very long terms, where they become a very expensive financial burden on all of us.

The War on Drugs has created an immense illicit drug industry that simply didn't exist when such drugs were legal. It's insanity and most Americans do realize that, but it is causing destruction in so many ways that aren't very apparent. It's corrupting law enforcement, the court system, and is coming close to bankrupting our nation... and it accomplishes absolutely nothing worthwhile. It is an extreme case of the use of force having wide-reaching and disastrous results.