Every day sees another violation of rights in the name of the War on Drugs. Property is seized without due process (often without any process at all); innocents are hurt and killed in raids on the wrong homes; tens of thousands of people suffer nightmare brutality in prisons merely for possessing marijuana, a substance much less harmful than alcohol and tobacco; people of color are sent to jail in disproportionate numbers; mandatory sentencing guidelines take away all judicial discretion; the military is used against the citizens of the US; and the US supports and funds a secret war in South America. Meanwhile, law enforcement and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the judicial system, has become systematically infested with corruption due to the huge amounts of money involved in the illegal drug trade.

     The people who started and continue to run this system call their efforts the “War on Drugs,” a metaphor that aptly describes the militaristic mindset that girds it. As in any war (even an unofficial one, declared unilaterally), loss of life among combatants is to be expected, but the killing of innocents, the arbitrary application of the law, the widespread corruption, and the destruction of Constitutional rights and international human rights cannot be excused or tolerated. So let us now judge the authorities using their own framework, that of war.

     According to Merriam Webster, a tribunal is “a court or forum of justice.” It is also synonymous with tribune, “an unofficial defender of the rights of the individual.” Since no court is willing or able to judge the conduct of those running the Drug War, we must form our own.

     Such an act is not without precedent; Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark has conducted unofficial tribunals regarding war crimes committed during the Gulf War and the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. In June 2001, the Korean Truth Commission released its judgments regarding the slaughter of civilians during the Korean War. The most famous citizen's tribunal was the International Tribunal on US War Crimes in Indo-China, formed in 1966 by philosopher Bertrand Russell with the assistance of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and others. This body heard testimony from participants in the Vietnam War, who revealed the American atrocities that were occurring in Southeast Asia.

     Similarly, the Tribunal on US Drug War Crimes would call people who have been involved directly in the Drug War. Among the witnesses who could testify to the injustices this war had inflicted:

• Families of innocents who have been killed. This would include Jim Bowers, a missionary whose wife and 7-month-old daughter were shot to death over Peru after the CIA's contractors mistakenly identified them as drug smugglers, and the family of Tennessee resident John Adams, who was shot to death when the police accidentally raided his house, instead of his neighbor's.

• Those who have been wounded because of mistaken identity. This would include the unnamed man who was shot in the leg in front of his family because, according to the police, he was a Hispanic driving the same kind of Jeep as a known drug dealer. (It turns out that he was an innocent, unarmed man going out to dinner with his wife and children.)

• People who have had their property seized because the authorities claimed they were involved with illegal drugs yet who were never tried and, in many cases, never even charged with a crime. These witnesses would include parents whose property was seized because their minor children allegedly had drugs, and hotel owners whose businesses were seized because a guest allegedly made a drug transaction in one of the rooms. The Tribunal will also investigate cases in which authorities manufactured suspicions in order to justify the seizure of valuable real estate.

• Innocent people who have been arrested because of false information supplied by informants.

• Innocent people who have been framed on drug charges by corrupt law enforcement officials.

• Members of racial minorities who have been harassed because of racial profiling.

• Colombian villagers who have been sickened by herbicides sprayed by US corporations under Plan Colombia (aka, the Andean Initiative).

• Colombian farmers whose non-coca crops have been destroyed by herbicide sprayed by US corporations under Plan Colombia (aka, the Andean Initiative).

• Some of the estimated 34,000 people who will lose college loans and grants because they've been convicted on drug charges at some point in their lives.

• People – including the elderly and the disabled – who have been arrested for using marijuana to alleviate pain, nausea, glaucoma, and other medical problems.

• Drug arrestees who have been beaten/tortured while in police custody.

• People who have been sentenced to unjustifiably harsh terms because of simple drug possession. (Starting under Clinton's watch and continuing to the present, the average sentence for a drug offense is twice as long as for manslaughter.)

     Naturally, the Tribunal would have no legal powers; it would be unable to subpoena witnesses or documents, to make arrests, or to impose any form of punishment. Like all citizens' tribunals, its main purpose will be to air grievances, to give a forum to the victims of injustice, to shine a harsh spotlight on the corrupt, inexcusable nature of this so-called war. The Tribunal will demonstrate in front of the world that US authorities are committing crimes – violating local, state, federal, Constitutional, and international laws, as well as destroying basic human rights – in the zealous pursuit of a so-called war.

     Perhaps such a tribunal would spur a real judicial body to charge at least a few Drug Warriors, in much the same way that Christopher Hitchens' book The Trial of Henry Kissinger is prodding judges in several countries to ask Kissinger some hard questions, with an eye toward eventually prosecuting him for international war crimes and violations of human rights laws.

     Even if no Drug War trial materializes, the Tribunal will have forcefully made a point. We need justice, even if it is the unofficial variety.

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