Another Victim of the War on Drugs

On November 21, 2006, 92 year old Kathryn Johnston was shot dead in her home while trying to defend herself from Atlanta police who were executing a no-knock warrant.

Ms. Johnston managed to fire one round from her old gun before she died in a hail of police gunfire that also wounded several officers. The public and her family were rightfully outraged over the killing.

While much has been said this past year about correcting police procedures for drug raids, little attention has been given to the issues of drug enforcement and no-knock warrants.

Untold billions of dollars and many innocent lives have been lost in our national obsession with the "War on Drugs." We are no better off today than we were in the 1960s.

Out jails are packed with non-violent drug offenders, scarce law enforcement resources are being diverted to enforce drug laws, yet both violent crime and drug use are on the rise. Like Prohibition, the War on Drugs is not working.

No-knock warrants have no place in our free society. When a mistake is made, the outcome is usually bad.

Law enforcement will tell you that they need no-knock warrants so they can get in before the drugs get flushed down the toilet. What insanity is it that our precious law enforcement resources are being wasted on busting such small amounts of drugs?

If the government must go after street drugs, go after the big dealers and shippers. That would free up resources and jail beds.

Outlaw no-knock warrants so we can all sleep at night without worrying that some SWAT team with the wrong address will bust down our doors, forcing us to die while trying to defend ourselves from some unknown assailant.