Good Cause, Wrong Target

Perhaps it’s cathartic for the U.S. Senate to launch a $2.6-billion “war on drugs” and to pass a thundering resolution condemning Mexico for failing to cooperate fully with U.S. drug-enforcement efforts. We share the Senate’s frustration that nothing the United States has attempted so far has made any dent in the drug traffic that already has corrupted several Latin American countries and threatens the lives of millions of Americans. And yet it’s clear that last week’s actions by the Senate are empty gestures, large on symbolism but unlikely to have any impact on the drug trade.

The Senate’s 63-27 vote to impose sanctions on Mexico is particularly hollow. Although the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act allows the federal government to cut by 50% the non-humanitarian foreign aid given to any nation that has not been “fully cooperative” with U.S. drug-eradication efforts, Mexico does not receive any such aid. And President Reagan has announced already that he will veto any sanctions for Mexico as contrary to national security. The surest sign that this little flurry of Mexico-bashing was inspired by election-year concerns was that some senators admitted they were voting for the sanctions because they knew in advance that Mexico would never actually suffer any penalty; the bill’s most ardent supporters, including Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), are those up for reelection and determined to display their anti-drug records to the voters.

The expensive “war on drugs” that the Senate approved Wednesday is, at the least, well-motivated; it promises a big jump in the federal drug-enforcement budget, chiefly to boost the interdiction of narcotics from abroad, as well as more money for state and local police agencies, prisons and drug rehabilitation. The trouble is that this drug war is a budget-buster that would put total domestic spending above the ceiling the White House and Congress adopted last fall. To fund the drug-enforcement measure, Congress would either have to cut other domestic programs or come up with new revenues.

Underlying both Senate moves is what we consider a failure of understanding. Like the Reagan Administration, the Senate still tends to blame the drug infestation on foreigners, whether peasants growing coca in Peru or the powerful Medellin drug cartel or Mexican policemen willing to be corrupted by smugglers. While their efforts are inadequate, most of the Latin American countries that produce drugs have tried, under U.S. pressure, to eradicate acres of coca, to persuade farmers to switch to other crops and to pursue drug tycoons. Some, such as Peru, must simultaneously battle terrorist organizations; others, including Colombia and Mexico, have seen their own law officers slain on a scale the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has never experienced.

Latin leaders are frustrated, too, as they have been telling U.S. officials for years--frustrated that the United States seems unable to turn off the demand for drugs. If there were not millions of willing buyers here in the United States, there would be no drug-importation problem, no Latin American peasants who would stake their livelihoods on coca. As Francis A. Keating II, the assistant Treasury secretary for enforcement, said last week during a tour of Peru’s coca-growing valleys: “If we wanted tomatoes, they would grow tomatoes. If we wanted cantaloupes, they would grow cantaloupes. It’s just too bad that what we want is dope.”

Somehow, Americans have to find a way to turn off the demand. Unfortunately, there is no consensus in this country about how to deal with either casual drug users or confirmed addicts. Police and prosecutors push for stiffer sanctions for users, judges and physicians for more rehabilitation programs. Meanwhile, the problem grows more acute. Just this week, a UCLA study offered new evidence of the direct link between drug use and crime; it found that three out of every four crime suspects booked into Los Angeles-area jails have illegal drugs in their system. Drug possession has become so common a crime that first-time offenders usually are diverted to rehabilitation instead of sentenced to jail. The Los Angeles district attorney’s office won’t prosecute anyone for possession with intent to sell unless he is found with at least eight small bags of marijuana or five balloons of cocaine. But tougher laws aren’t the answer: There aren’t enough prosecutors or jails to handle all the users the police already arrest. Taking one step back and focusing on street dealers, as the Los Angeles Police Department is doing with its current gang sweep, pays some dividends, but even massive arrests reduce the availability of drugs only temporarily.

The truth that no one--not the White House, not Congress, not ordinary citizens--wants to face is that the United States is awash in drugs and that fresh ideas for combating drugs are unlikely to be generated in the heat of election-year politics.