Monday, 24 August 1998
America's `War on Drugs' claims its latest victim: Americans' freedom
Molly Ivins/LIBERTY
And in other news . . . The War on Drugs is ripping up the Constitution, endangering
American liberty and encouraging law enforcement officers to act like bandits. The
unpleasant ramifications of the War on Drugs are too numerous for one column, but
the area of asset forfeiture deserves special consideration.
* On Oct. 2, 1992, a team of officers from the Los Angeles police, the National Park
Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Forest Service, the California
National Guard and the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement staged a raid on
the home of Donald Scott, a 61-year-old rancher, near Malibu. Armed with high-powered
weapons, flak jackets, a battering ram and a presumably legal search warrant, they
kicked in the door and rushed through the house. Scott's wife began screaming; he
went to her side with a gun and was shot to death before her eyes.
The officers found no marijuana plants, other drugs or paraphernalia. It turned out
that Scott was bitterly opposed to all drug use.
According to The Nation magazine, a subsequent investigation revealed that there
was no credible evidence of marijuana cultivation on Scott's ranch, that the Sheriff's
Department had knowingly sought the search warrant on legally insufficient information,
and that much of the information supporting the warrant was false, while exculpatory
evidence was withheld from the judge. As they invaded the property, the officers
- with two forfeiture specialists in tow - had a property appraisal of Scott's $5
million ranch and instructions to seize the ranch if 14 marijuana plants were found.
* The owner of an air-charter business in Las Vegas lost his livelihood when he unknowingly
chartered a plane to a drug dealer.
* Last year, NBC's ``Dateline'' did a prize-winning expose of the practice of Louisiana
sheriff's deputies stopping motorists with little or no cause and seizing cars and
cash under the state's forfeiture laws. The deputies started a slush fund with the
money. According to ``Dateline,'' deputies used the fund to pay for a ski trip, pizza
and doughnuts; thousands of dollars were unaccounted for.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, all this started in 1984, when Congress
passed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which allowed drug money and ``drug-related
assets'' to be funneled into the police agencies that seize them. Between 1985 and
1991, the Justice Department collected more than $1.5 billion in illegal assets;
in the next five years, it almost doubled this intake, according to a report by The
Nation. Local law enforcement agencies fight to ``federalize'' their drug busts because
if a U.S. attorney ``adopts'' a forfeiture, 80 percent of the assets are returned
to local police, whereas under many state laws, forfeited assets go to school funds,
libraries, drug education or other programs. According to The Nation, some small-town
police forces have increased their budgets by a factor of five or more through seizing
assets.
This is also deforming the efforts to control drugs; police forces can get far more
money by busting small-time marijuana buyers in reverse stings (where the cops sell
drugs to unsuspecting customers) and then seizing their assets than they can by,
say, going after major methamphetamine dealers who work on street corners.
This entire practice is rapidly becoming worse and worse, causing more and more injustice,
police lawlessness and distorted law enforcement priorities. This is one of those
times when the right and the left can unite in opposition to government abuse. The
American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association have opposed these
practices. Rep. Barney Frank, the liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, and Rep. Bob
Barr, the conservative Georgia Republican, both support reform. The Wall Street Journal
is as concerned as The Nation. Surely the property-rights people, who seem to consider
the Endangered Species Act a threat to liberty, would like to join the ACLU on this
one.
The political problem is that we have created a monster. Law enforcement just loves
asset-forfeiture laws; agencies have practically become self-financing through these
abuses. And when the coppers of the nation stand in unison and say, ``We need this
for law 'n' order,'' mighty few politicians are willing to go against them. (Envision
the ads in their re-election campaigns: ``My opponent sided with the drug dealers
and against the police officers of our fair state.'')
The only way to get the politicians to undo what they have done is to build public
pressure to stop this outrageous practice.
Take pen in hand . . .
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
------------------------------------------------------------------------