Sen. Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee, obliquely acknowledged the futility of the drug war in comments made supporting a bill to combat illegal logging of which he is a cosponsor, on Tuesday of last week:

The Senator from Oregon [Ron Wyden (D)] made a point that is maybe the central point here when he compared our efforts to stop illegal logging to our efforts to stop the bringing of illegal drugs into the United States. We all know the tremendous amount of effort we go to, for example, to keep cocaine out of the United States. We send millions of dollars to Colombia and to other countries and we try to stop that. But the real problem we have is we are a big, rich country, and there is a big demand for cocaine here. So no matter what we do in the other countries, the cocaine still keeps coming in, and the same with other illegal drugs. Here we have a chance to make a much bigger difference than we can with illegal drugs. We still are creating the demand problem. This is a country that accounts for 25 percent of all the wealth in the world. It is a country that perhaps buys a huge volume of illegal timber from around the world. Well, we can stop that. This is not a drug addiction, this is a business practice, and it is a practice we can stop according to the laws of this country. When we stop it, we will make an enormous difference for our country and for the other countries.

So what is the next logical step in this line of reasoning?

Visit the Thomas web site and find page S13967 in the Congressional Record to see it in print. Thanks to DPA's Grant Smith for the tip.