AN EX-DRUG SMUGGLER'S PERSPECTIVE

I was one of the "masterminds" behind the importation and sale of
approximately 75 tons of pot from Southeast Asia to the U.S. in 1986
and 1987. It was the culmination of a 20-year career as a drug
smuggler, a deal that netted in excess of $180 million wholesale. And
the only thing the government got out of those drug hauls was the
sales tax from the cash my gang spent. There were, of course, some
financial forfeitures once my gang was finally rounded up some years
later. However, had rational minds prevailed over the past 70-plus
years, the U.S. government would have reaped huge benefits from
organizations like ours.

But no. Rather than accept the fact that some 30 million Americans
cannot possibly be criminals, our society has squandered almost a
trillion dollars in a futile effort to stop drug use.

We're hearing a lot about drug-related violence in Mexico these days.
But listening to the news recently, I heard of a police sweep in
Toronto-where I live some months out of the year. The operation
involved more than 1,000 police officers and netted, among other
things, a vast quantity of firearms, including loaded AK-47s,
sawed-off shotguns and 34 handguns, none of which were obtained
legally. These weapons came from the United States and were smuggled
north. Here is how it works (I know firsthand): Canadian gangs grow
pot in apartment buildings, putting everyone who lives there in
danger. Once harvested, the pot is traded to U.S. gangs for cocaine
and guns. America's arcane drug laws provide the currency for these
gangs to exist.

South of the border, it's even worse. Some analysts say Mexico is on
the slipperiest of slopes toward becoming a failed state, and illegal
drugs are playing a huge part. Drug traffickers are able to operate
only because they have currency. Take away the currency, you take
away the drug traffickers.

In my days in that business, guns were nowhere to be found. Now,
however, I cannot imagine anyone being in the trade without a gun. It
has to stop, but how?

Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist, recently wrote, "I'm
sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for
Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a
federal prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County [California]
judge for 25 years. And what are we talking about? He's begging me to
tell you we need to legalize drugs in America."

A judge is saying this. Say it ain't true, baby, but it is. And he's
not the only one saying it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper
(in whose jurisdiction I was sentenced to 10 years in prison) says
the same thing. That's why he is involved with Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition, a group of former and current police officers,
government agents and other law-enforcement agents who oppose the war on drugs.

According to LEAP, "After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S.
policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37
million arrests for non-violent drug offenses, our confined
population has quadrupled, making building prisons the fastest
growing industry in the United States." More than 2.3 million U.S.
citizens are in jail, and every year we arrest 1.9 million more,
guaranteeing prisons will be busting at their seams. Every year, the
war on drugs will cost U.S. taxpayers another $69 billion.

While the U.S. has only 5 percent of the world's population, it has
25 percent of the world's known prison population. This startling
number is due to one major factor: our arcane drug laws. It is time
we stopped treating a medical condition with law enforcement.

Ultimately, does the fact that people smoke pot make them criminals?
Is the struggling heroin addict a criminal? If he is, it is only
because we are not treating the root of the problem.

It is time to legalize marijuana. The tax revenue generated could
then be used to help addicts. I work with these folks every day, in
one way or another, and not one of them wants to live the way they
do, but they don't know how to stop. They need help, not punishment.

Back in the 1920s, America saw one of the most violent organized
criminal elements in history. Who can forget the tommy guns, the
blood on the street and names like Luciano and Capone? Well, they
exist today, it's just that the names have been changed to Escobar
and Huerta Rios. As LEAP so succinctly puts it: Alcohol prohibition,
drug prohibition, same problem, same solution.