Editorial:
Just
Another
Front
Page
Drug
Bust
10/15/99
Adam J. Smith, Associate Director, [email protected] This week, front page, another enormous victory for the drug war establishment: Operation Millennium. After a yearlong investigation by numerous American and Colombian agencies, a bust. Thirty-one people were arrested, including the leaders of the Cali Cartel, a trafficking organization that U.S. officials claim was responsible for importing tons of cocaine into the U.S. each year. What didn't appear in the story was any mention of whether this most recent "historic" bust would have any impact on the availability of drugs on our streets or even on the price of those drugs. The answer, based upon the long history of major, historic busts in this never-ending war, is certainly "no." What will result is more fighting, more gunshots, more innocents caught in the crossfire along every stage of the Colombia-Mexico-U.S. distribution route as rival groups and remnants of the current group battle it out for a newly-available piece of the lucrative black market. Someone else will make the money now, and the cynical among us will not be blamed for wondering whether the new boss (same as the old boss) is perhaps more to the liking of the DEA, the CIA or the Colombian military. Headlines, photo ops, rows of guns, stacks of cash, kilos of powder. It is all too familiar and all too absurd. A kilo of raw opium costs $90 in Pakistan and $290,000 in the U.S. Does it matter who brings it in? Is there any doubt, given the economics of Prohibition, that someone will? Are we supposed to believe, now, after all this time, all these busts, that given just a few more resources, better cooperation, a little more time, that these front-page arrests will stem the flow? Shield our communities? Protect our kids? Cops, in any uniform, are trained to be cops. They are right to be proud when they topple large criminal enterprises. It is what we ask them to do. But we, as a society, have need for a broader perspective. These busts, these "victories," are an illusion. Oh yes, some very bad people will go to prison, and justice in this case may well be served. But in the end, after the shooting and the turf wars and the reorganization of the hierarchy of the supply chain, we are left exactly where we started, with an uninterrupted stream of black market drugs on our streets. Unregulated. Untaxed. Uncontrollable. Until the next front-page bust.
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