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week, the FBI warned that "a planned attack may occur in the
United States or against U.S. interests on or around Feb. 12,"
thanks to 12 terrorists led by Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeei, a Saudi-born
Yemeni. Suspecting this, federal officials should have deployed
as many dedicated, talented agents as possible to protect high-profile
targets such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's
Wharf, or the pyramidal Transamerica Tower.
Think again.
Washington instead chose February 12 to unleash tough, gun-toting
Drug Enforcement Agency officers against AIDS and cancer patients.
These federal agents raided a suspected cannabis cultivation center
in suburban Petaluma, California, and medical-marijuana dispensaries
in San Francisco and Oakland. They arrested four men who led these
operations.
This unjust,
outrageous, and ill-timed misallocation of law-enforcement resources
epitomizes the Bush administration's new effort to repackage the
war on drugs within the war on terror.
"If you're
buying illegal drugs in America, it is likely that money is going
to end up in the hands of terrorist organizations," President
Bush declared February 12. His point is not without merit when it
comes to cocaine, some of whose proceeds reach Colombia's Marxist
FARC guerrillas. Likewise, the Taliban profited from heroin and
opium smuggling. Of course, the war on drugs relegates these products
to the black market, where shady characters dwell, rather than the
sunshine of free trade.
That said,
one has to smoke something pretty strong to conclude that someone
who uses marijuana to fight life-threatening AIDS wasting syndrome
somehow is in cahoots with al Qaeda. The Sixth Street Harm Reduction
Center, a facility the DEA crushed February 12, served some 200
people enduring AIDS, cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, and other serious
illnesses. They now must buy their cannabis through illegal drug
dealers, or simply watch themselves deteriorate and die.
Three of the
center's associates face between five and 40 years in federal prison.
Officials say James Halloran, 61, grew more than 1,000 marijuana
plants in Oakland. That could cost him ten years to life behind
bars. Compare these staggering potential terms to the actual penalties
two men received January 31 for unwittingly helping 9/11 hijackers
Abdulaziz Alomari and Ahmed Alghamdi secure bogus Virginia I.D.
cards. Victor Lopez-Flores got 27 months in prison while Herbert
Villalobos earned a four-month sentence. His previous 18 weeks in
custody earned his immediate release.
The Bay Area
clampdown recalls the DEA's October 25 closure of the Los Angeles
Cannabis Resource Center. It operated with the blessing of West
Hollywood officials and the L.A. county sheriff, all elected authorities.
That was not enough to keep 30 DEA agents from spending six hours
yanking 400 marijuana plants from its premises along with computers,
documents and the medical records of its 960 patients.
Until the Feds intervened, these outfits operated legally. Fifty-six
percent of California voters approved Proposition 215, a medical
marijuana measure, in 1996. Initiatives also have legalized medipot
in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Maine Oregon, Nevada, and Washington.
While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last May that therapeutic grass
suppliers cannot assert marijuana's "medical necessity"
to avoid federal drug laws, it did not address the validity of state
statutes permitting clinical cannabis.
Federal heavy-handedness
has made drug decriminalizers rail against DEA chief and former
GOP congressman Asa Hutchinson. As the Drug Policy Alliance's Glenn
Backes says: "You have an appointed official, a career politician
from Arkansas, who sits in Washington, D.C. and tells the voters
of California and the other seven states that have supported medical
marijuana: 'It doesn't matter what you vote for. I have your tax
dollars and I'm going to spend them going after sick people.'"
Of course,
drug warriors like Hutchinson target healthy pot smokers, too. The
FBI reports that 734,498 Americans were arrested for marijuana violations
in 2000. Nearly 88 percent of these individuals — precisely
646,042 - were arrested for mere possession.
As the U.S.
confronts budget deficits and a growing surplus of enemies dedicated
to America's destruction, Washington must rearrange its priorities.
Neither cancer patients nor classic rockers who use marijuana will
murder another 3,000 innocent civilians in cold blood. Every federal
agent who stops pot smokers from lighting up is one less agent who
can prevent Americans from blowing up.
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