DRUGS A WAR WE MUST WIN : Some Among Us Would Seek to Surrender : History teaches that advanced societies cannot survive if their fundamental values are not continuously nourished.

History teaches that no matter how violent and unprovoked the enemy’s attack or how just and winnable the war, there will always be some among us who will work for our defeat or surrender. We call them fifth columnists.

Today, we have a fifth column in the war on drugs. “People of America, let us give in to our enemy,” it urges. The enemy, the fifth column argues, is not all that bad; if approached in the right way, it could even be our friend. So why continue to waste valuable resources and national energy on an unwinnable war? Let’s legalize drugs and get on with living the good life, the fifth column advises.

I suppose that calling pushers of drug legalization treasonous would be too extreme. But I’ll continue to wonder why they choose to weaken our war effort just when we, as a nation, are beginning to take the offensive.

We are on the offensive. In Washington, there is a comprehensive, fully funded national strategy in place that includes use of the armed forces and diplomatic initiatives to fight the drug war. The Colombian government has re-established its authority over the Medellin cartel, Manuel Noriega is in jail, and Mexico has been pressured to further clamp down on traffickers and marijuana growers. At home, drug-infested neighborhoods in city after city are being liberated by a combination of good people and good policing. Six thousand police officers are in classrooms across the nation each day teaching millions of kids the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) curriculum. Teaching our children self-esteem, self-discipline, a reverence for the law and our moral values is beginning to pay off. And Operation Cul de Sac in South Central Los Angeles has proved so successful that 200 youngsters who were too afraid to leave their homes to attend Jefferson High School are now back in class.

Despite these and other examples of progress, the fifth columnists chant, “Legalize drugs, and crime will automatically go down.” That would happen, they argue, because decriminalization would take the profit out of dealing. The fact is that the kind of crime that puts fear into the hearts of citizens was lowest during Prohibition. People were not burglarized, robbed and killed by drinkers who needed money to buy a bottle of illegal whiskey.

In any event, the economic argument for legalization is perhaps the most interesting--and the most spurious. As James Q. Wilson wrote last month in Commentary:

“Addicts would no longer steal to pay black-market prices for drugs, a real gain. But some, perhaps a great deal, of that gain would be offset by the great increase in the number of addicts. These people, nodding on heroin or living in the delusion-ridden high of cocaine, would hardly be ideal employees. Many would steal simply to support themselves. . . . Society could decide to support all unemployable addicts on welfare, but that would mean that gains from lowered rates of crime would have to be offset by large increases in welfare budgets.”

Advocates of drug legalization say that the money would come from a tax on drugs. But such a levy couldn’t be too high, lest our druggies do their buying in a tax-free black market. Once again, we are being asked to accept what bulls excrete.

Dr. Herbert Kleber, the Bush Administration official in charge of demand reduction, predicts that legalization might lead to a five- to six-fold increase in cocaine use. Why wouldn’t the number of murders in Los Angeles increase by a similar factor of five or six? (Half of the 874 murders in Los Angeles last year were drug-related.) That translates to 2,400 homicides. A Los Angeles with that murder rate would be a very exciting and interesting place in which to be chief of police, but I would not want to live here.

Some sentimentalists (myself included) worry about babies who have been prenatally exposed to drugs. In 1988, 375,000 addicted babies were born in the United States. Researchers say these infants lack the enthusiasm of healthy newborns, that their facial expressions are flat and joyless. What kind of people would we be if we allowed such joyless faces to be born into our society in ever-increasing numbers? Probably people who should find a holiday to celebrate other than Mother’s Day.

Addicted babies will require special treatment and assistance as they grow up, probably for the rest of their lives. Their drug-using mothers will certainly not provide the necessary help. Of course, society could use some of the revenue generated by a drug tax to help offset this huge welfare cost--if there is any money left after the increased number of addicts are taken care of. If there is no money, the problem might be solved by sterilizing all women of child-bearing age who play around with drugs. Clearly, either alternative is incompatible with our values.

History repeatedly teaches us that advanced societies cannot survive if their fundamental values are not continuously nourished. Times columnist Jim Murray said it best when he wrote about proposals to get government involved in legalized sports betting:

“The state has apparently succumbed to the argument that gambling is always going to be around, so why not get in on it? OK? But, why stop there? People are always going to rob banks. So why not get in on that? Let’s license bank robbers for a percentage of the take. Humanity is always going to sell dope, embezzle funds, cheat widows and orphans, rig the stock market. Should government get in on that, too? The government’s notion seems to be, why should the crooks get all the money? We’ll become the crooks.”

Murray doesn’t believe that is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our Republic. Neither do I.

Come on, folks. We can, we will, we must win the war on drugs--not for the “Gipper” but for ourselves, our kids and the future of our nation. If we don’t, we do not deserve to survive.