Money Laundering and War on Drugs

Your article on money laundering (front page, June 26) testifies to the futility--indeed, the hypocrisy--of our latest “war” on drugs. Is anyone surprised? When President Bush declared his war in September, 1989, the prestigious Economist had already dismissed it as “Mission Impossible,” with no more chance of success than our disastrous prohibition of alcohol.

Bush had to know this, if only on the basis of his experience as head of the south Florida drug interdiction task force, just when crack cocaine use was reaching epidemic proportions, and while our illicit Contra supply planes were alleged to be returning loaded with drugs.

This farce is best seen as part of a package intended to convince Bush’s crucial middle-class constituency that he will not let any aggrieved minority get uppity. It includes his strenuous opposition to “quotas” (and his disruption of recent unofficial negotiations on civil rights), stern anti-crime measures--more expensive than effective--that leave us with the industrial world’s worst statistics on crime and punishment, conservative courts eager to assert majority rule and continually impoverished social programs.

Much has been made of recent big drug busts, but these are Pyrrhic victories; for those engaged in this lucrative traffic, they simply represent an acceptable business risk. While we focus on cocaine, we may be faced with a new “upper-downer” cycle ripe for the big heroin dealers and a whole new money-laundering setup.

MARSHALL PHILLIPS

Long Beach