G-Men, Guns Blazing, Won’t Solve Local Drug Problems

Months after a presidential campaign full of tough-talking rhetoric about drugs, we now have a “drug czar,” and it’s time to deliver. Unfortunately, the gap between expectations fueled by the campaign rhetoric and the reality perceived by law enforcement professionals has become a chasm.

The city of Washington looks to William Bennett, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, to end the mayhem on its street corners. The Los Angeles City Council has asked the new czar to launch an all-out attack on drug crime in Los Angeles. As Bennett takes inventory, he will find few resources he can utilize to respond to these demands, and lots of resistance to their deployment.

Drug offenses under federal law and drug offenses under local laws are identical. Federal authorities have always focused their resources on major importing and trafficking cases, however, leaving the prosecution of street peddlers to local law enforcement agencies. This division of responsibility makes a lot of sense. Federal agents employed by the Bureau of Customs, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI are better equipped to sustain the long, complex investigations needed to penetrate the large conspiracies that import most of the cocaine smuggled into the United States. Congress has provided the tools needed for such investigations, including wiretap warrants and witness relocation programs. Federal agents have even penetrated the international cartels that process and package tons of illicit drugs. Shifting these agents to patrolling our cities would seriously undermine efforts to intercept drugs before they hit the streets.

In creating the position of drug czar and authorizing him to designate “high intensity drug trafficking areas,” Congress expressed no intention to shift the traditional focus of federal enforcement efforts. The law enumerates the factors the czar should consider in making such designations: the extent to which an area is a “center” for illegal drug production or distribution; the determination of local authorities to respond aggressively to the problem, measured by the commitment of local resources, and the harmful impact of the area’s activity on other parts of the country. The local homicide rate is not included on this list.

The dozens of murders that fill the newspapers of Washington and Los Angeles each week are not the work of large drug conspiracies. They occur at the lowest level of the distribution pyramid. Most of the blood being spilled is in turf disputes among street sellers or the gangs that seek to control them. Local authorities are certainly overwhelmed by the increase in drug violence and are anxious for more officers to respond to it. Diverting federal agents to respond to these demands makes little economic sense, however. It makes even less political sense. It costs much more to deploy a federal agent than to hire and train a local police officer. And for every city that is declared a “high intensity drug trafficking area,” there will be 10 more clamoring for equal treatment.

If Los Angeles qualifies for the high intensity designation, it should be because it has become the money-laundering and drug financial center of the United States. The billions of dollars in drug cash flowing through the Federal Reserve Bank should be traced to their source and seized. That will take lots more federal agents, but it won’t stop the flow of blood on Los Angeles streets.

The creation of a drug czar has resurrected Hollywood images of federal “untouchables” of the 1920s, riding into Chicago with guns blazing and sending the gangsters scurrying for cover. That’s not quite the way it happened. While federal agents built the case that sent Al Capone to prison for tax evasion, the Chicago murder rate never let up until the gangsters themselves organized a peace conference in Atlantic City.

Peace will not be restored to the ghettos of Washington or Los Angeles by a show of federal force. Peace will be restored by the citizens who must live in ghettos and barrios, working with local officials and police officers whom they know and trust, and who are accountable to them. That’s a long, slow and expensive process. The sooner we realize that, the quicker we’ll roll up our sleeves and get to it. Political leaders who hold out the promise of a federal czar to lead us to salvation are deluding themselves and diverting public attention from the real problem.