WhackyNation

Of all the outlandish actions the present Democratic Congress has taken in the recent past, the stupidest of them all is the investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform into the charge that pitching ace Roger Clemens was injected with steroids and human-growth hormones (HGH) at least 16 times a decade ago.

Doesn’t Congress have anything more important to do than stick its nose into an arena it has no business investigating — professional sports? It’s apparent that the lawmakers are more interested in the publicity value of the affair than they are in attending to the important business of Congress.

It’s no surprise that the congressional investigation, well covered by television, radio, and all the news services, has produced nothing more than unsupported accusations by Clemens’ onetime trainer, Brian McNamee, and pitcher Andy Pettitte and vehement denials by Clemens. It has turned out to be nothing more than a “he-said, he said” exchange.

Most significant of all is the fact that the whole ridiculous episode should have been tossed into the waste basket before it started because the charge is that Clemens took the medications at least ten years ago — before pro-baseball officials took action to ban the use of steroids and other drugs to enhance performance.

In other words, even if Clemens should prove to have been lying and actually did use the steroids and HGH, he did it before their use was outlawed and therefore broke no rules. It’s not unlike a case that the court system would toss out because a statute of limitations has run out. Frankly, I think the entire steroid controversy has been blown out of importance and even legal bounds. Pro sports should have recognized long ago that the intake of certain medications should be considered the athlete’s business and not that of the league, the courts, or even Congress.

In that regard, I recall an observation made by medical researchers a few years ago. After a longtime study, they said steroids and other performance-enhancing medications shorten an athlete’s life and are, therefore, dangerous. Athletes who ignore that warning are taking a perilous road. But that should be enough to warn them against doing so.

In any event, it is clear that probing pro athletes for the use of steroids and other medications is absolutely no business of the Congress of the United States.

The so-called “War on Drugs” America is supposed to have been waging for several years has been a failure for sure — but certainly not for the reasons some complainers have pointed out.

One loud camp of complainers has insisted that the only way to win the “War” is to legalize all drugs so the police and justice systems can control their sale and use. That group’s reasoning is that legalization will take the profit out of drug dealing and make control much easier. Such reasoning, if adopted, would bring a national disaster.

The “legalizers” apparently have conveniently forgotten the example provided by the nation’s experience before and after Prohibition. The 18^th amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in January, 1919, banned the production, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquor in all the states.

Prohibition, which had already been adopted in half the “dry” states, was championed by anti-alcohol crusaders, led by what was called the Anti-Saloon League. A great majority of Americans favored the action.

However, the rise of racketeering and illegal production and sales of alcoholic beverages of all kinds eventually brought a reverse reaction and ultimately the repeal of the 18^th Amendment and the return of legalized alcohol.

Was the repeal of the law a good thing? I think not. The worst drug problem in the U.S. today, by far, is drunkenness. It is one of the leading factors in highway deaths, and it is directly responsible for untold numbers of personal and family tragedies. How many thousands or millions of persons would be alive today if we had not repealed Prohibition?

Another group of complainers believes we could win the drug war by beefing up all our police forces and writing laws that are much tougher on drug addicts. I agree with them, but they don’t go nearly far enough.

The major problem is the continuing influx of drugs into the U.S. from foreign nations that do nothing to stop the illegal flow. How can we stop the deadly influx? I think the President and Congress should take strong, positive action against any nation that fails to take steps to cut off the illegal drug supply to the U.S.

Any nation that refuses to do so or which permits drugs to move through its territory to the U.S. should be punished severely by America. How can that be done? Easy. We should impose immediate sanctions on such rogue nations, cut off all ties with them, end all trade imports and exports with them, and warn other countries that if they don’t honor our sanctions, they, too, will be similarly punished.

Only an international crackdown on all drug outlets and a determination to hold the line till the drug trade is banished will win the “War on Drugs.”

Presidents from Nixon and Reagan on through the present administration have addressed the growing drug program in the U.S., but all their efforts have barely begun to solve the dilemma. What may appear to some to be a real war on drugs on the home front is nothing more than a skirmish compared to the situation on the international front, which is supplying most of the illegal drugs and dope.Going back to President Reagan, I remember all too well the warnings that were issued in many quarters over his call for drug tests of all federal employees. A portion of his program was effective, but the campaign overall was not the success it should have been. One of the stumbling blocks was the fact that the drug tests were not general and did not apply to all employees equally. For that reason, the courts found numerous objections.

Among the questions raised was that the tests were not administered across the board. In addition, the Reagan administration, as well as those that followed, did not come up with a satisfactory definition of which jobs were truly “sensitive.” As the President’s order put it, those federal employees who were in sensitive jobs and who were caught purchasing and using illegal drugs were to be fired pronto. Sensitive jobs could include those dealing with security, with the shipment of goods and other products from foreign lands, with intelligence agencies both at home and abroad, and with any position or service that could be involved in military affairs or our embassies abroad.

Presidents Ford, Carter, Eisenhower, the first President Bush, Clinton, and the present President Bush all expressed deep interest in solving the complicated domestic and international drug and dope puzzle, but no permanent solution was found — and remains unsolved to this day. As one could expect, the Left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union was a serous hindrance, instead of a help in solving the problem. As it is still doing today, its leaders said way back in Reagan’s day that pursuing tests and other actions to ferret out the drug dealers and users was an abridgement of individuals’ constitutional rights of privacy and protection under the law.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. The ACLU is one of the principal stumbling blocks in creating an effective deterrent to drug use and sales, as well as any attempt to curb their use and sales abroad in the countries whose drug dealers keep shipping drugs and dope to the U.S. virtually undisturbed.

Contrary to the A.C.L.U.’s view of the entire sordid drug problem, the soaring sale and use of the foul stuff at home is a national emergency, not a Sunday picnic. That issue aside, I strong believe and have been stating for many years now that the most glaring omission in the anti-drug programs of all our Presidents has been the absence of determined diplomatic and even military action against those nations whose officials and law-enforcement agencies pretend nothing is going on when drug shipments pass through en route to the United States.

What needs to be done has been clear as day for many years. Presidents, security and law-enforcement agencies, and Congress should start with total and unequivocal sanctions against any nation that ignores or refuses to do anything about illegal drug shipments that originate or pass through their domain on the way to the U.S. And we should expand those sanctions to those nations that refuse to abide by those sanctions and deal with the offending nations. It won’t do any good to block drugs at one end while they’re flooding in at the other.

Should America adopt a nationwide policy of “tough pocketbook justice” against both the sellers and the users of illegal dope and drugs? Thanks to the precedent set several years ago by a New York Supreme Court justice, Lewis Douglass, I would say to every judge in the U.S.: “Go for it!”

It was more than 15 years ago that Justice Douglass won his way into my personal book of heroes with his brilliant, logical idea. It could be the turning point in our war against drugs, a war we have been losing. Unfortunately, few other jurists have taken their cue from the New York justice and helped turn the tide in that ongoing war.

Justice Douglass’ novel solution was to fine a convicted drug dealer millions of dollars, the amount depending upon the cost, treatment, and hospitalization of drug users he had supplied. Although his anti-drug-dealer formula has yet to find its way into other courtrooms around the U.S., one must hope that the pattern is set and that the Douglass solution will become the status quo.

Thus far, the justice’s brilliant concept has remained alive in New York State and has become one of the strongest victim-compensation laws in the nation. Under that law, criminals’ assets are seized and they are forced to make restitution to those they have victimized — and, if they can’t pay it, their prison time is automatically extended.

There is hope that Washington State, at least, may follow suit. It has a new law that is not as strong as the one fostered by Justice Douglass, but at least it attempts to cover some damages owing to the drugs peddled by the drug dealers.

In Washington, as in New York, the way has simultaneously been opened for a parallel course in law and litigation that seeks punishment of the user of illegal drugs and dope. It is a natural followup to the law inflicting severe punishment upon the drug peddlers and their cohorts.

Justice Douglass’ judgment incorporates the old adage of making the punishment fit the crime. Since nothing else seems to be working in most other states to banish the terrible drug scourge, maybe hitting the dealers where it hurts will finally slow the flow of dope and drugs — and finally right a terrible national wrong.

Now, it seems to me that it’s up to Congress to take the next important steps in the war on drugs and dope. First, it should borrow a page from the Justice’s book and pass legislation that would make it national and local law for courts to punish drug and dope dealers by requiring them to pick up the tab for illness and injuries sustained by persons to whom they have sold their foul stuff.

Then — and this is an old refrain of mine — it should make the so-called “War on Drugs” more than just a slogan by punishing nations from which and through which the foreign drug lords are routing their carloads of cocaine, peyote, heroin, marijuana, and other illegal substances to and through the U.S.

We should cut off all trade with nations that do not eradicate the drug trade and also impose sanctions against them, similarly punishing other nations that do not honor our sanction action. Only with such stringent curbs will we ever win the real War on Drugs.