Whistler's Angel (28 page)

They’d accept the loss as a cost of doing business. But some, many hundreds, had no criminal intent. Some were merely on vacation. Some had won the money gambling. Some merely liked to carry a few thousand in cash for any number of reasons. Perhaps they had no credit, or they didn’t trust banks, or perhaps they simply enjoyed flashing rolls. Their money would be seized and they would soon learn that the legal costs of getting it back would be greater than what they had lost in the first place. They would also be reminded that they still could be charged, and would be if they didn’t go away.

Claudia was listening. “Like those articles Mom faxed us. But this makes it sound even worse.”

Whistler nodded. “It’s worse than you know. Your mother was not the first person to be framed and it isn’t all just the police. Any vengeful ex-wife or ex-husband can do it. Any business competitor, any rival, and it’s easy.”

She handed him his coffee. “How easy?”

Whistler pointed to a house on the shore. A luxury home; it had its own private dock. “See that house. Let’s say that my ex-wife owns it. No, wait, we’ll rule out vengeance. We’ll stick to simple greed. Say I don’t know the owner. Never met him.”

“Okay.”

“One way or another, I get into that house. I stash a sellable quantity of cocaine in something that’s likely to have the owner’s prints on it. I tell the cops that I’ve heard he’s been dealing. I say that someone told me where he keeps it, that he sells it from the house. My word is all they need in terms of probable
cause to go to some judge for a warrant. Next they’ll call in the DEA to make the actual raid. That’s because when the Feds are involved in a seizure, 80% of the proceeds, by law, revert to the local jurisdiction. If the locality should do it on its own, that amount would usually go to the state. The locality would rather keep the money.”

“So, they find the drugs you’ve stashed…”

“The Feds, by the way, will have first asked the owner whether he has any drugs on his property. He’ll say no, and now there’s another charge against him. It’s a felony to lie to any federal official. When the drugs are found, that house is instantly seized. When the house is later sold by the U.S. Marshal’s Service, I get 10% of the take.”

“
That’s unless he’s found innocent. He probably would be.”

“
He might; he might not, but that wouldn’t really matter. Guilt or innocence has very little to do with how the seizure laws work.”

She said, “Adam, I find that hard to believe.”

“You do? Why is that? Because this is America?”

“And because there’s such a thing as constitutional protection.”

“The constitution means what the courts say it means. It protects individuals from unreasonable search and seizure…or at least it protects them in principle. But the courts have said that property isn’t a person and does not rate the same protection.”

She had closed one eye. “Then who does this man go to?”

“For what? To get his house back? He can bid on it himself. He might want to because that would be cheaper and quicker than trying to get it back through the courts. Either way, the man’s reputation is ruined. If this happened, he must
have been guilty.”

“That’s outrageous, Adam.”

“Yeah, but it’s the law. It’s extortion, but it’s legal. And it won’t stop anytime soon. It’s easy money.”

“Laws can be changed. No one’s trying to change it?”

“Ragland is, for one. And look what happened to him.”

“Are you…saying you think that’s why someone wants him dead?”

Whistler shrugged, then shook his head. “No, not really. I’ve no reason to think so. Actually it’s more that I’m hoping it isn’t. I’m hoping that the motive will be some grudge that has nothing to do with you or me.”

Whistler supposed that he had drugs on the brain. Oddly, however, if drugs had been the motive…or rather Philip Ragland’s position on drugs…it’s
the traffickers who probably would have wanted him silenced as much as the anti-drug side. Traffickers don’t want the drug laws reformed. Take away prohibition and their business dries up. Whistler knew, however, that no
trafficker had done this. They would not have been that sloppy or stupid.

If Ragland won his Pulitzer for a series of reports in favor of the “more enlightened European model,” Whistler knew what Ragland’s position must have been. It must have been much like his father’s. Start by accepting the world as it is, not as you’d like it to be. There has never been a drug-free society. Scrap all the drug laws as they’re now on the books. Adopt the successful Dutch and Swiss systems that emphasize treatment and containment. Let doctors treat addicts under strict controls instead of not letting doctors treat them at all. Recognize that addiction is an illness, not a crime, much the same as alcoholism. Decriminalize, therefore, all private use and put all your effort into choking off the source. Keep coming down hard on the traffickers.

Whistler reached to switch back to the CNN channel. It was still on Ragland. And a similar topic. This one mentioned that Ragland had personally funded a number of drug treatment centers.

Claudia asked, “But does drug treatment work?”

“Sure it does. What there is of it,” he answered.

“I sure wouldn’t think so from all that I’ve read. Doesn’t only a tiny percentage stay clean?”

“Yes, but that’s true of diets and of trying to quit smoking. Most people who try are going to fall off the wagon. However, while they’re trying, and even if they fail, their consumption is down and that’s something at least. Most will try again until it finally takes. But the government does not want to pay for treatment centers. They’d rather spend the money, up to ten times the money, to put drug users in jail.”

An excerpt from one of Ragland’s programs came on. No, it wasn’t a program. It was Ragland at some hearing. He was testifying before congress.
His words startled Whistler because it almost seemed as if he’d picked up on Whistler’s train of thought.

“Above all,” he was saying, “start telling the truth. Admit that the drug war has been a disaster. Admit that most of what you’ve been saying about drug use is at best misleading and at worst an outright lie. Admit that the Dutch and
Swiss have been right and that what they are doing is working. Admit that addiction has gone down, not increased, wherever common sense laws have been enacted. Admit what every honest clinician has long known – that cannabis has never been a dangerous drug. If it’s harmful, it’s far less harmful than alcohol and only slightly more toxic than coffee. Admit what’s been known for more than three thousand years. Admit that it’s a medicine that can ease more human suffering than almost any legitimate drug. Chemotherapy patients

and those suffering from AIDs are able to eat food and keep it down. People
wracked by migraines can get instant relief. Give a little cannabis to a patient with Glaucoma and the pressure…that can
blind
them… is eased in two minutes.
Will you give it? No. Will you consider it? No. So you force these sufferers, those who can afford it, to fly off to one of the more civilized countries, one whose leaders have listened to its doctors. One whose leaders, I might add, are not gutless.”

A gavel came down. “That will do, Mr. Ragland.” The hearing room had erupted into laughter and cheers.

Claudia asked, “It that all true?”

“Pretty much.”

“Do those congressmen know that?”

“Some do. Most don’t want to. That’s why he said, ‘gutless.’ Any congressman rash enough to agree, at least in public, knows he won’t be in office very long.”

Ragland, once again, was saying much the same thing. “Some of you know what I’m talking about. But admit it? You won’t. You’d be called soft on crime.

And as most of you know, the stakes are too high to let a little thing like truth get in the way. The war on drugs has become a big business. Twenty billion a year and that’s just law enforcement. Add in all the prisons built to lock up drug offenders, most of whom are there for personal use or for selling a miniscule amount. Add in the lost income of lives that have been ruined by mandatory sentencing guidelines. Five years for possessing five grams of crack, an atrocity against urban blacks.”

Ragland paused to study their faces. He said, “You’re sitting there thinking, ‘What makes that an atrocity? These animals are guilty, are they not?’ The fact is that blacks use far less crack than whites. But they’re there; they’re available, you can pick them off the street and they usually can’t afford a decent lawyer. The result? As we speak, there are more blacks in prison for simple
possession of
just marijuana
than for all crimes of violence put together.”

He said, “Add in police corruption – cops stealing and dealing. Add in more human cost; the muggings, the burglaries. Add in tens of thousands of women turning tricks in order to finance a need they can’t control and despising themselves for what they’ve become.”

The camera, tight on Ragland, pulled back a few feet to show some people nodding in agreement. Whistler recognized one of them. It was Ragland’s wife.
Same intelligent face. And she was, of course, a good deal more composed than she had been the last time he saw her. Her husband was still speaking. This was more than a film clip. The news show that was running it was letting it go on well beyond the sort of sound bites that were usual. Whistler guessed that this network agreed with Ragland’s views, and was probably the network that carried his show. Ragland seemed to be just warming up.

He said, “Add in all sick who are in chronic pain, people hurting so badly they wish they could die. Any doctor could ease their pain if you’d let them. But do you? No, you don’t. Any doctor who prescribes enough pain drugs to help them risks having his license to practice suspended. You intimidate the doctor; you intimidate the pharmacist; you let the patient suffer, and for what? Because the DEA zealots say it sends the wrong message. Use drugs to feel better? Oh, we can’t allow that. We can’t let some old lady who’s dying of cancer risk getting addicted to morphine, God forbid. We’ve got to protect that old lady from herself. Can’t any of you grasp how imbecilic that is? Don’t any of you have the guts to stand up and…”

A gavel came down. “You’ve been warned, Mr. Ragland.”

“My Black Lab had cancer. I had to put him down. But that dog was kept free of pain all the way and he died a calm and dignified death. My mother had cancer. She died trying to scream. Mr. Chairman, do you see an inequity here? It’s okay to help my dog but not okay to help my mother. I wish to God that I
myself had had the guts to go out and buy morphine on the street. But let’s say I did. Let’s say I decided to treat my mother as mercifully as I treated my dog.
You hypocrites would have had me locked up. Not one of you would have…”

A gavel came down hard. “Mr. Ragland, that’s enough.”

“Very well, I’ll change the subject. Let us talk about our children. We
must protect them from drugs, must we not?”

“I believe that’s what we’re here for, Mr. Ragland.”

“You’re aware that our children can readily buy drugs. Most don’t, but all of them can. Am I right?”