Proposed federal anti-drug cuts decried

WASHINGTON -- Local law enforcement officials decried Thursday huge budget cuts proposed by the Bush administration to a national network of drug-interdiction task forces, including one that provided more than $12 million to the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area this year.

Members of the Maryland State Police, Baltimore Police Department and the Charles County Sheriff's Department joined a bipartisan group of senators and representatives on Capitol Hill to protest President Bush's recommendations to cut funding for the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area programs by more than half.

Under the administration's budget, funding would be reduced from $227 to $100 million for the coming fiscal year.

Maryland Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, a Democrat who has long supported the program, said that his state likely could make up part of the $12 million spent in his region this year. But to do so, he said, would miss the beauty of the anti-drug effort.

"It's the coordination" among local, state and federal narcotics officials (this translates to "federalization of the local police" LN) that makes the task forces so successful, Hoyer said.


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So, 2.5 million American citizens in prison, largely due to the drug war, is a beautiful thing?

Millions of families ripped apart is a beautiful thing?

Untold monetary, societal and human life costs are a beautiful thing?

And...dead Police Officers, countless other dead, injured, orphaned or widowed victims, a rise in violent crime, criminal gangs, police corruption,rising drug use combined with lower costs, higher purity and easy (UNRESTRICTED...dealers don't ask for ID) access of dangerous drugs to our kids equals SUCCESS?

Someone please explain this to me. I must be a simpleton or something because I can't reconcile "success" with any of the things I see as products of the "drug war".