DRUG WAR IS A FAILURE, SO LET'S EXPERIMENT

Without being rash, can we at least appraise the impact of prohibition?

Imagine a nightmare in which terrorists brutally murder 40,000 people
in just five years. Now imagine that their base of operations is not
across the globe, but directly adjacent to the United States. No
doubt, hearing of such a thing, many of my conservative colleagues
would be demanding a massive mobilization against the latest evils of
Islamofacism.

But the real-life killers I have in mind, who revel in decapitating
their victims (Al Capone's got nothing on these guys), aren't Muslim
fanatics. They're narco-terrorists exploiting Mexico's failed war on drugs.

Most of the latest carnage appears to have been spearheaded by the
Los Zetos gang, a group of former Mexican military men who
simultaneously commit heinous acts of violence while building roads,
schools and clinics for the impoverished. Sound familiar? It should
- -- because whether you're talking about the Taliban or Mexican drug
cartels, both employ similar tactics that result when governments
grant them de facto monopoly status in the distribution of illicit
drugs. And the sad irony is that the exorbitant black-market profits
used to finance their operations are a result of prohibition itself.

So far, the international response to Mexico's agony has been
feckless at best, dangerous at worst. In America, where the appetite
for illegal substances shows no signs of abating, the violence is
rapidly spilling into the Southwest. Yet Washington continues to
subsidize Mexican President Felipe Calderon's quixotic crackdown
while also concocting inscrutable schemes to track the villains.
Operation Fast and Furious had the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives sitting by as straw buyers bought AK-47s for
rival gangs south of the border. Because no one in the Obama
administration can come up with a suitable explanation, it now looks
more like a cynical ploy to shift blame for the escalating violence
in Mexico to U.S. gun dealers.

Regardless, America's entrenched drug warriors remain undeterred.
They simply refuse to recognize that the state isn't very good at
keeping adults from "abusing their freedom" by doing foolish things.
Of course, decriminalizing drugs is no panacea, and shouldn't be seen
as such. But it's worth recalling that the very same temperance
movement that gave us the 18th Amendment and a nationwide ban on
distilled spirits eventually led the effort to repeal it. At some
point, we need to ask whether incarcerating first and asking
questions second is the most effective response for nonviolent drug offenders.

Perhaps it's finally begun.

Nearly 80 years after the end of alcohol prohibition, the Global
Commission on Drug Policy declared the war on drugs a failure with
"devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the
world." Most of the deleterious effects reside in urban America,
where young people find it much more lucrative to deal than to learn
a trade. For all of the problems associated with alcohol, and there
are many, you simply don't see gangs shooting one another (and
innocent bystanders) over a six-pack of Bud.

The commission, including such diverse notables as George Schultz,
Paul Volcker and the former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and
Columbia, notes that after 40 years of failing to stem the flow of
narcotics, it's high time (pardon the pun) for a "paradigm shift" in
global policy. The United States alone has spent $1 trillion on
narcotics enforcement over the last 40 years, and Harvard economist
Jeffrey Miron estimates the total budgetary impact to state and
federal governments at around $88 billion per year, including lost tax revenue.

Even current U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske admitted that
interdiction "in the grand scheme ... has not been successful."

Not long before they died, conservative stalwarts William F. Buckley
Jr. and Milton Friedman came to the conclusion that perhaps the most
important public policy change the United States could undertake
would be to end the second failed experiment in prohibition. And
while no serious observer is advocating a rash repeal of drug laws
overnight, U.S. Reps. Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced
legislation that would allow the "laboratories of democracy" known as
the states to develop their own rules on the use of marijuana within
their borders.

That might be a good place to start.

Jason Lewis is a nationally syndicated talk-show host based in
Minneapolis-St. Paul and is the author of "Power Divided is Power
Checked: The Argument for States' Rights" from Bascom Hill
Publishing. He can be heard locally from 5 to 8 p.m. weeknights on
KTLK Radio, 100.3-FM.