IT’S A GRAY AREA:

As sophisticated people know, life is full of distinctions. One of those critical distinctions we will discuss is the difference between drug problems and problems caused by drug money.

There is no doubt that illicit drugs can be addictive and cause harm. Many people’s health and lives have been ruined, and families torn apart emotionally and financially because of the havoc caused by the abuse of and addiction to illicit drugs.

But there are also big problems caused exclusively by drug money. For years we have heard and read about the large-scale violence and corruption among drug dealers in Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan and other countries, including the United States. These problems are not caused by the drugs themselves, but by drug money.

Similarly, it is for drug money that drug-addicted people commit crimes, which include burglaries, purse-snatchings, check offenses, shop-lifting and prostitution. Although all illicit drugs themselves are extremely inexpensive to raise, manufacture and package, they are expensive because they are illegal, and that expense causes many crimes.

For example, marijuana is not called “weed” for nothing. It will grow virtually anywhere. Despite our efforts for its eradication, marijuana is California’s largest cash crop (No. 2 is grapes, if you care). And even though the Drug Enforcement Agency has gone to great lengths to convince us that the opium poppy can be grown only in mountainous regions, the National Park Service grew those poppies for years at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home before the DEA found out and ordered them removed. If opium poppies grow in Virginia, they will grow anywhere.

But now I want to talk to you about another drug-money problem of which you probably are not aware. The following scenario occurred in my courtroom about every four or five weeks when I was sitting on a Juvenile Court calendar. There would be, for example, a single mother of two small children who made a bad decision — hooking up with the wrong boyfriend. The man would be selling drugs, and the mother would generally be aware of it, but that is the way things were.

One fine day the boyfriend would offer the mother $500 to take a package across town and give it to “Charlie.” She knew the package contained drugs, but she was behind on her rent. So she would do it. And then she would be arrested and convicted for the offense of transporting drugs, and sentenced to five years in prison.

When incarcerated, the mother would legally abandon her children. As a consequence they would all come to me in Juvenile Court on the Abused and Neglected Children calendar.

So I would have this young mother in my court in a jail jumpsuit and handcuffs, and I would tell her the truth: She would not functionally be a part of her children’s lives for the next five years. At that point she would usually become misty-eyed.

But then I would tell her the brutal truth: Unless she were really lucky and had either a close personal friend or family member willing and able to take custody of her children until she was released, her children would probably be adopted by somebody else. At that point she would usually break down in tears.

But if that is not enough to break you down, I can probably dissolve you in tears as a taxpayer. In the first year, we will be spending upward of $5,000 per month per child on group home fees until they are adopted. In that first year, we will be spending about $60,000 per child, times two children, plus an additional $25,000 to keep the mother in prison. As a result we will spend about $145,000 to separate a mother from her children!

And who gets to enforce this situation? I do, because I have sworn to uphold the law. But I do not have to do it quietly, and that is why I am passing on this story to you.

If we would change our drug laws to hold people accountable for their actions instead of what they put into their bodies, we would begin greatly to reduce drug-money crime. And this could be easily done by undercutting the market for the sale of illicit drugs to adults.

As was discussed in an earlier column, we could start by treating marijuana like alcohol. That would result in the savings of huge amounts of taxpayer money spent on efforts to eradicate marijuana and to prosecute non-violent marijuana users. In addition, we could generate additional billions of dollars annually simply by taxing the sales of marijuana to adults, just as we do with alcohol. And marijuana would become less available for our teenagers than it is today. Why? Because illicit drug dealers don’t ask for ID.

So what is not to like? We should pattern our conduct after most countries in Europe and start to address these problems as managers instead of moralists. This would reduce the crime, violence and corruption brought about by drug money. And then we could refocus our efforts upon the actual drug problems themselves.

I think that everyone agrees that the federal government does not have all of the answers in this area, so why don’t we allow each state to decide what is best for its people? This is the concept of federalism upon which our great country was founded. There are viable alternatives to our present failed federal policy of drug prohibition, so let’s allow each state to try some alternatives. What do you think?

JAMES P. GRAY is an Orange County Superior Court judge and author of the book, “Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It — A Judicial Indictment Of The War On Drugs.” He can be reached at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or at his blog site at www.judgejimgray.com.