Thanks partly to its association with 1960s counterculture, marijuana use has long been considered vaguely un-American. Never mind that millions of Americans have indulged in it. The pot-smoking pinkos of yesterday are -- according to the Bush administration -- the aiders and abettors of terrorists today.
A new series of antidrug ads aimed at teenagers, commissioned by the WhiteHouse Office of National Drug Control Policy, blames consumers of illicit drugsfor the proliferation of terrorism. "Drug money supports terror," the adsproclaim. "I helped a bomber get a fake passport," one young actor confesses.Others own up to helping terrorists blow up buildings, murder police officers,and teach other kids how to kill. "Where do terrorists get their money?" the adsask. "If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you."
You can view a typical "I helped" ad (and other official anti-drugpropaganda) at www.mediacampaign.com. There you'll find details about the "undeniable link between terror groups and illicit drugs. ... Twelve of the 28 terror organizations identified by the U.S. Department of State in October 2001 traffic in drugs." You'll also find a role for yourself in the fight against terrorism. In addition to shopping, you can stop using drugs -- illegal drugs, that is; you may continue smoking tobacco and abusing alcohol or valium. "If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terrorism in America," the president has proclaimed, making it clear that using particular drugs is tantamount to treason. (You are, after all, either with the president or against him.)
I don't mean to deny the link between the drug trade and terror. Traffic inillegal drugs has greatly contributed to violence at home and abroad. (Beforedrug trafficking was blamed for international terrorism, it was financing thearms race in America's streets.) But I do mean to mock the administration'slimited understanding of cause and effect. Blaming drug consumption -- and not drugprohibitions -- for the violent trafficking in drugs, the administration remindsme of a terrier I once had who refused to approach the intersection where aspeeding car had grazed him, although he blithely continued crossing otherstreets. He blamed his injury on one particular street, not the perils of runningin front of any particular car.
He was a smart dog and not entirely illogical, but his analysis was deeplyflawed, like the administration's analysis of the link between terror and drugs:It's not the demand for drugs that creates a highly lucrative, violent, andapparently ineradicable black market; it's the prohibition of drugs that aregreatly in demand. It's not the demand for drugs that props up repressiveregimes that nurture and harbor terrorists. It's American support for thoseregimes that agree to combat the illicit drug trade. When the antidrug ads ask,"Where do terrorists get their money?" the right answer is, "If you pay taxes,some of it may come from you." In the spring of 2001, the Bush administrationgave $40 million dollars to the Taliban because it promised to crack down onopium growers.
Meanwhile, impoverished Americans who rely on government subsidies have beenmade the casualties, not the beneficiaries, of the war on drugs. Under a 1988 law(passed by a Democratic Congress, signed by President Reagan, and strengthened byPresident Clinton, who ordered its stepped-up enforcement), public-housingtenants may be evicted from their apartments if any member of their household orany guest is caught using illegal drugs "on or near the premises," whether or notthe tenant had any knowledge or control of the drug use. A unanimous SupremeCourt recently upheld this harsh "one-strike" law in a case that dramatized itsabuses. Decided on March 26, HUD v. Rucker allowed the eviction of a 63-year-old great-grandmother whose disabled daughter was caught with cocaine some three blocks from the projects, as well as the eviction of a 75-year-old partially paralyzed man whose caregiver was found with cocaine in his apartment.
The war against drugs has long been a war against poor people andracial minorities, as its opponents stress. (African Americans constitute a smallminority of the nation's drug users but a large majority of people sentenced fordrug offenses.) When the children of affluent people are caught using drugs,they're apt to end up in treatment programs; the children of poor people are morelikely to end up in jail, while their parents may end up on the streets. Youdon't have to be soft on drugs to recognize the inequities. As Dan Abrahamson,director of legal affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance (formerly the LindesmithCenter-Drug Policy Foundation) remarked, "Jeb Bush was not kicked out of hispublic housing due to his daughter's drug use."
Indeed, a federal appeals court had enjoined the no-fault eviction ofunelected public-housing tenants, noting that it raised "serious" due-processquestions by allowing "tenants to be deprived of their property interest withoutany relationship to individual wrongdoing." But neither the relatively liberalnor the conservative wing of the Supreme Court perceived any constitutionalrestriction on no-fault evictions. All the justices (except Justice StephenBreyer, who did not participate in the decision) apparently agreed with Congressthat the scourge of illicit drug use poses a greater threat to poor people livingin subsidized housing than a no-fault eviction policy that may render themhomeless if one of their grandchildren is caught with a joint on a nearby streetcorner. What are all these drug warriors smoking?
