We suspect — as many Americans do — that drugs are here to stay. Drugs including everything from alcohol to Xanex, coffee to cocaine, tea to cannabis, and tobacco to LSD have been around for years. They only diminish or disappear when people lose interest in them, not when governments decide to eradicate them. Given this most basic reality of the drug situation, a sane drug policy must be one which focuses on steering people away from harmful substances and harmful behaviors, and toward productive lives. Government's primary concerns in the drug policy realm should be protecting citizens from unnecessary crimes and facilitating recovery from drug dependency.

For once, it would be good to see America's leaders attack a prob-lem without using the language and tactics of war. War tends to rally the public passions and to equip the soldiers well, but too often at the ex-pense of not dealing with the root causes of problems.

The drug war is an unconventional war being fought against an unconventional enemy — ourselves. It is time now for all Americans to come to a solemn realization: we cannot help our neighbor by fighting our neighbor.

Drug czar Martinez, President Bush and the Congress have a historic opportunity to learn from the last two decades of intense but failed drug war. We can then make necessary changes in drug policy to help create a safer, healthier America.

Or the administration can persist in repeating the mistakes of the past.