The Taunton Daily-Gazette in Massachusetts reported this morning that drug peddling is a fact of life on Union St., a short dead street between Main St. and City Hall and the Police Dept., and residents live in fear. The problem, say police and politicos, is a revolving door for criminals and insufficient funding. "We don't do the aggressive policing you see on TV because of manpower," said Lt. Edward J. Walsh. Councilman Thomas Hoye also thinks that skyrocketing housing problems in Boston are sending people southward to places like Taunton and that that is contributing to Taunton's crime woes.

But while these might appear to be the problems, the real problem is drug prohibition -- it is prohibition that creates the street market in the first place. Enforcing it more aggressively on Union St. will only move it somewhere else at best. Keeping accused or even convicted drug dealers incarcerated for longer will only mean that other people will sell the drugs. At best they might do it less openly, and maybe that would help residents in some ways. But it would also likely hurt in other ways -- such as by driving the trade into the hands of the most ruthless people who are willing to take the greatest risks and are the most likely to employ violence -- or by increasing the likelihood of dealers making threats against residents to keep them silent.

The residents of Union St. in Taunton do deserve to have their situation discussed, and the Daily-Gazette deserves some credit for that. But to talk about the consequences of prohibition without mentioning prohibition does not do as much to illuminate things as the issue -- or the people of Union St. -- deserve to have happen.

The online copy of the story has a "voice your opinion" link and an e-mail address for the reporter. I couldn't find letter to the editor information -- please send in if you do.

- David Borden, DRCNet

Australian police have intercepted 400 kg of ephedrine, valued at about $54 million US (according to News 24), disguised as ceramic statues. Authorities report that 800 of 864 statues in the shipment, which originated in Vietnam, were made of the substance that is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

The incident illustrates the sheer stupidity of new laws, such as the one signed recently by Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski, and in many other states, that require prescriptions be written for cold medicines like Sudafed or impose other such restrictions. Prohibition doesn't work. There is too much money to be made selling the drugs. Someone is going to find a way to make and distribute methamphetamine, with or without over-the-counter availability of Sudafed. Who would have thought of statues? It's probably not possible to even think of all the different ways that drugs or their ingredients can be moved around, let alone stop them.

The only rational solution is to legalize and regulate methamphetamine and deal with the problems on an individual basis.

- David Borden, DRCNet

A former Haitian police officer in charge of the airport at Port au Prince has pleaded guilty in a court in Miami of allowing drug traffickers to fly tons of cocaine in to the United States in return for payoffs of thousands of dollars, according to an article in the Miami Herald. Romaine Lestin is the third person to be taken down in a probe targeting officials from the Aristide government.

The article, by Jay Weaver, stuck to the facts, with none of the authorities quoted offering interpretation. But interpretation would be useful. The reality is that there is so much money in the drug trade that bribing the occasional official is an easy matter. It's not that all border/customs officers are corrupt or even corruptible. But it only takes on here and there, and don't think it's only Haitians and Mexicans who get corrupted, it's Americans too -- Customs, DEA, Border Patrol, what have you.

This is one of the many reasons that prohibition can't work. But it's also an example of a consequence of prohibition, the corrupting of institutions, particularly though not exclusively institutions of law enforcement, and the association thereby of government officials with organized crime. Legalization would not mean that drugs can get here now where they couldn't before, because drugs already get here in plenty. But legalization would mean that our institutions would not get corrupted by drug money, and that's important.

The Herald has a web page for letters to the editor and other kinds of feedback here.

- Dave Borden, DRCNet

A former Haitian police officer in charge of the airport at Port au Prince has pleaded guilty in a court in Miami of allowing drug traffickers to fly tons of cocaine in to the United States in return for payoffs of thousands of dollars, according to an article in the Miami Herald. Romaine Lestin is the third person to be taken down in a probe targeting officials from the Aristide government.

The article, by Jay Weaver, stuck to the facts, with none of the authorities quoted offering interpretation. But interpretation would be useful. The reality is that there is so much money in the drug trade that bribing the occasional official is an easy matter. It's not that all border/customs officers are corrupt or even corruptible. But it only takes on here and there, and don't think it's only Haitians and Mexicans who get corrupted, it's Americans too -- Customs, DEA, Border Patrol, what have you.

This is one of the many reasons that prohibition can't work. But it's also an example of a consequence of prohibition, the corrupting of institutions, particularly though not exclusively institutions of law enforcement, and the association thereby of government officials with organized crime. Legalization would not mean that drugs can get here now where they couldn't before, because drugs already get here in plenty. But legalization would mean that our institutions would not get corrupted by drug money, and that's important.

The Herald has a web page for letters to the editor and other kinds of feedback here.

- Dave Borden, DRCNet

(originally posted August 12, our blog is experiencing some technical problems due to excessive comment and trackback spam)

DRCNet's "Prohibition in the Media" blog resumes publishing today after a hiatus. We comment on reporting by Reuters AlertNet, Reuters Foundation publication for international humanitarian nonprofits, on an outbreak of drug trade violence in the Mexican Pacific resort town of Acapulco.