STATUTES AGAINST LIBERTY

David Frum reports on how

anti-drugs laws make victims of innocent Americans

New York THE 'war on drugs' — as Mr William Bennett's 1996 presidential campaign is known here — has entered its rococo phase. Mr Bennett's Office of National Drug Control Policy has let it be known that the administration is breeding special coca-leaf-chomping caterpillars to be air- dropped into Peru's Upper Huallaga Val- ley. Environmentalists are attempting to scotch that idea. Defenders of privacy and property rights have not, however, been as vigilant.

The Department of the Treasury is doing its bit for the drug war by trying to wipe away what remains of banking confiden- tiality in the United States. Last year, it ordered domestic banks to record electro- nically all transfers of money, of whatever amount, from the United States to other countries. Banks are already obliged to notify the Treasury of any cash transaction, or any daily series of cash transactions, of $10,000 or more, and of any purchase of money orders or traveller's cheques of $3,000 or more.

The data obtained from the old and the new reporting rules is to be compiled at a Financial Crimes Enforcement Center in Arlington, Virginia. The centre's compu- ters will also have access to the vast data bases of the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Reserve, the Customs Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the State De- partment and most of the state financial regulatory agencies. At the same time, the Treasury, in obedience to the anti-drug act Congress passed in 1988, has begun to insist that all foreign banks that deal in dollars inform the US authorities of their $10,000 or more cash transactions.

The Treasury hopes to assemble the most complete possible picture of the cash transactions of every holder of dollars in the world. The law enforcement agencies have already complained that the Treas- ury's information is not leading them to very many drug dealers, but an imaginative administration should be able to find all sorts of other uses for it.

Two other proposals go even further. Former Treasury secretary Donald Regan

published an article in the New York Times urging that all $50 and $100 bills be voided and replaced. Anybody who wanted to swap large amounts of banknotes would then have to explain where his money came from. Senator John Kerry (Demo- crat, Mass.) has suggested that an electro- nically scannable barcode be printed on every US bill.

Perhaps even more than financial priva- cy, property rights have been casualties of the drug war. Federal law requires the confiscation of any property tied to illegal drugs. The Detroit News reported a few months ago that a convenience store owner in a tough neighbourhood of the city had been arrested when police dogs sniffed cocaine residue on three $1 bills in his cash register. Although there was no suggestion that the shopkeeper himself had done anything worse than sell a bottle or two of beer to a drug user, the bills were seized as was another $4,381 in the shopkeeper's safe. Under the forfeiture laws, the gov- ernment did not need to prove that the shopkeeper was guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt', but only that there was 'probable

cause' to connect him to drugs.

There are some limits to public tolerance of such strenuous police action. In 1988, Vermont police raided the 49-acre farm on which Mr Robert Machin, a tack-to-the- land' Harvard graduate, and his wife grew food for themselves and their five children, and organic vegetables and maple syrup for sale. The police found 12 marijuana plants in the garden. The plants were confiscated and Mr Machin was sentenced to 50 hours of community service.

Then the federal Drug Enforcement Agency decided that Mr Machin was a drug trafficker. On 29 September of last year, federal marshals took over the Machin farm and brought forfeiture pro- ceedings against the couple. If Mr Machin had been convicted of high treason against the United States, his property could not, according to the US Constitution, be taken. For 12 marijuana plants, it could.

Local outrage, happily, saved the Machins. When the governor promised the family's neighbours that she would investi- gate the case, the DEA agreed to drop its charges if Mr Machin would write and distribute a letter about the dangers of marijuana cultivation. He was also forced to consent to regular federal inspection of his land.

Mr Machin had, at least, committed a genuine crime. The 65 gardening stores in 22 states that were raided on 23 October had not. The stores had advertised in High Times, a magazine addressed to the rem- nants of the hippy subculture. Advertising in any magazine is, of course, legal. So Is selling gardening equipment, even garden- ing equipment for indoor gardening. (Most of the equipment that the raided stores sold was manufactured by companies like General Electric, Sylvania and Rubber- maid.) The raids seem to have had two purposes: first, to put High Times out of business by deterring advertisers, and, second, to compel the store owners to hand over customer lists to the authorities.

One of those customers, an orchid grow- er in Raleigh, North Carolina, was quoted in the New York Times on 30 December. Seven federal agents showed up on his doorstep, and asked whether they could search his house. 'For what?' Marijuana plants. And if you say no we'll come back with a warrant and we won't be in a great mood.'

Except for the Machin case, none of these incidents has prompted much in- dignation. The problem seems to be that the Left does not consider property rights and financial privacy to be legitimate civil liberties and the Right has been aroused into a high-testosterone law and order frenzy.

Mr Bennett is the frenzy's principal fomenter. In a television interview on 18 February, he called for 'something analo- gous' to the death penalty for bankers who knowingly handle drug money. When Mil- ton Friedman politely suggested legalisa- tion as a solution on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Mr Bennett wrote a reply which said, 'I find it impossible to respect ' the Nobel laureate's position. An article in the New Republic that hinted that crack was not instantly addictive also drew Mr Bennett's denunciation. He told a congres- sional subcommittee, 'If we're going to win this war, it's going to take a long time. It's going to take persistence in attitude. And this kind of garbage isn't very helpful.' Mr Bennett's intemperance is infectious. Last autumn, Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) offered legislation that would have authorised the Customs Service and the Coast Guard to open fire On aircraft they suspected of drug smug- gling. The Senate did reject the amend- ment in an October vote, but only by 52 votes to 48. The McConnell amendment was endorsed by the then Customs Com- missioner William von Raab and by Mr Bennett.

America's wars generally end with the rights of the citizen radically more con- stricted then they were before. But usually the government can produce a victory as Compensation. What has Mr Bennett got?

David Frum is an assistant features editor at the Wall Street Journal.

'I wouldn't fancy being John Gummer's daughter's guinea pig.'