COM 0819.002 2008-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Then - Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who had his doubts, has since watched his worst fears come to pass. "Look what happened. ft's an ongoing tragedy that has cost us a trillion dollars. It has loaded our jails and it has destabilized countries like Mexico and Colombia,' he said. In 1970, proponents said beefed -up law enforcement could effectively seal the southern U.S. border and stop drugs from coming in. Since then, the U.S. used patrols, checkpoints, sniffer dogs, cameras, motion detectors, heat sensors, drone aircraft — and even put up more than 1,000 miles of steel beam, concrete walls and heavy mesh stretching from California to Texas. None of that has stopped the drugs. The Office of National Drug Control Policy says about 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin and 110 tons of methamphetamine are sold in the United States every year — almost all of it brought in across the borders. Even more marijuana is sold, but it's hard to know how much of that is grown domestically, including vast fields run by Mexican drug cartels in U.S. national parks. The dealers who are caught have overwhelmed justice systems in the United States and elsewhere. U.S. prosecutors declined to file charges in 7,482 drug cases last year, most because they simply didn't have the time. That's about one out of every four drug cases The United States has in recent years rounded up thousands of suspected associates of Mexican drug gangs, then turned some of the cases over to local prosecutors who can't make the charges stick for lack of evidence. The suspects are then sometimes released, deported or acquitted. The U.S. Justice Department doesn't even keep track of what happens to all of them In Mexico, traffickers exploit a broken justice system. Investigators often tail to collect convincing evidence — and are sometimes assassinated when they do. Confessions are beaten out of suspects by frustrated, underpaid police. Judges who no longer turn a blind eye to such abuse release the suspects in exasperation. In prison, in the U.S. or Mexico, traffickers continue to operate, ordering assassinations and arranging distribution of their product even from solitary confinement in Texas and California_ In Mexico, prisoners can sometimes even buy their way out. The violence spans Mexico. In Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of drug violence in Mexico, 2,600 people were killed last year in cartel - related violence, making the city of 1 million across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, one of the world's deadliest. Not a single person was prosecuted for homicide related to organized crime. And then there's the money. The $320 billion annual global drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet. A full 10 percent of Mexico's economy is built on drug proceeds — $25 billion smuggled in from the United States every year, of which 25 cents of each $100 smuggled is seized at the border. Thus there's no incentive for the kind of financial reform that could tame the cartels. "For every drug dealer you put in jail or kill, there's a line up to replace him because the money is just so good,' says Walter McCay, who heads the nonprofit Center for Professional Police Certification in Mexico City. McCay is one of the 13,000 members of Medford, Mass. -based Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of cops, judges, prosecutors, prison wardens and others who want to legalize and regulate all drugs. A decade ago, no politician who wanted to keep his job would breathe a word about legalization, but a consensus is growing across the country that at least marijuana will someday be regulated and sold like tobacco and alcohol. California voters decide in November whether to legalize marijuana, and South Dakota will vote this fall on whether to allow medical uses of marijuana, already permitted in California and 13 other states. The Obama administration says it won't target marijuana dispensaries if they comply with state laws. Mexican President Felipe Calderon says if America wants to foci the drug problem, it needs to do something about Americans' unquenching thirst for illegal drugs. Kerlikowske agrees, and Obama has committed to doing just that. And yet both countries continue to spend the bulk of their drug budgets on law enforcement rather than treatment and prevention. "President Obama's newly released drug war budget is essentially the same as Bush's, with roughly twice as much money going to the criminal justice system as to treatment and prevention,' said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. This despite Obama's statements on the campaign trail that drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue.' Obama is requesting a record $15.5 billion for the drug war for 2011, about two thirds of it for law enforcement at the front lines of the battle: police, military and border patrol agents straggling to seize drugs and arrest traffickers and users. About $5.6 billion would be spent on prevention and treatment. 'For the first time ever, the nation has before it an administration that views the drug issue first and foremost through the lens of the public health mandate,' said economist and drug policy expert John Carnevale, who served three administrations and tour drug czars "Yet ... it appears that this historic policy stride has some problems with its supporting budget' Carnevale said the administration continues to substantially over - allocate funds to areas that research shows are least effective — interdiction and source -country programs — while under - allocating funds for treatment and prevention. Kerlikowske, who wishes people would stop calling it a 'war on drugs, frequently talks about one of the most valuable tools they've found, in which doctors saeen tor drug abuse during routine medical examinations. That program would get a mere $7.2 million under Obama's budget. "People will say that's not enough. They'll say the drug budget hasn't shifted as much as it should have, and granted I don't