TWO DRUG WARS

... If You Can't Stop The Major Movers, At Least, Collar A Celebrity Now
And Then

There is something satirical, or maybe just plain silly, about the arrest
over the weekend of aging hit maker Dionne Warwick for possession of
marijuana at Miami's airport. It wasn't a whole lot of pot, mind you; no
false-bottomed suitcases worthy of some perspiring, shifty-eyed "mule"
making a delivery for one of the major narco- trafficking cartels. No, just
11 cigarettes, stuffed inside a tube of lipstick, as reported on page 2 of
Monday's Gazette.

Heck, in Miami - legendary port of entry for the world's drug trade - 11
joints isn't exactly the kind of haul for which authorities ordinarily
would summon the press. You've seen those news conferences where they stack
bags of cocaine or heroin or crystal meth in front of a podium while the
local DEA chief reads solemnly from a prepared statement. Where would they
even find a table small enough to display 11 joints for the cameras?

Were it not for the pop diva's lingering prominence, of course, the whole
thing would have been but another blurb on a police blotter. In any event,
at 61, Warwick probably is no more of an insidious influence on America's
youth than is fellow sexagenarian crooner Willie Nelson, known to spend a
lot of his time on- and off-stage under a cloud of cannabis.

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, as noted on page 11 of the same day's
Gazette, investigators seem to be unearthing ever more tunnels under the
California-Mexico border. It appears stepped-up border security in the wake
of Sept. 11 has driven drug traffickers underground, literally.

Through one of the tunnels alone, U.S. Customs officials believe, some $20
million in cocaine and marijuana made its way into the United States over a
three-month period. That would have made a heck of a news conference - if
only law enforcement had been able to grab the stuff before it hit the streets.

It would be a cheap shot to say they were too busy busting Dionne Warwick.
Still, we couldn't help finding finding irony in the two developments when
placed side by side - in what really are two distinct drug wars.

In one war, local, state and especially federal law enforcement is spending
billions of dollars on the smoke-chasing, windmill-tilting endeavor of drug
interdiction. And yet, our ever-porous border only has become more porous
still amid attempts to secure it. If anything, the subterranean conduits
offer contraband an express route.

Which is inevitable when you consider where there's a will there's a way,
and the will is inexorable given the incentive of drug prices inflated by
the very illegality of theoretically controlled substances.

Hence, the other drug war - the one that trips up an occasional celebrity,
if not for long; Warwick was charged with possession of less than 5 grams
of marijuana, then released on her own recognizance.

Both wars ultimately are unwinnable, to be sure, but authorities must
figure that so long as they can't stop the stuff from coming in and can't
stop Americans, famous or otherwise, from using it, they might as well at
least score some points by making an example out of someone with a higher
profile. As we said, all so very silly.