Man charged with making weapons of mass destruction in America

Now, that's a headline that would make a lot of people sit up and take notice. The kind of headline a ratings-hungry producer might use on a semi-sensationalistic local news show or that the editor of a tabloid might cook up. Using today's hottest phrase of menace, it brings to mind images of people in chemical warfare suits, skin blistering, a massive number of people dying in the streets and a myriad of other horrors. It's a story people would certainly want to read or watch.

Thankfully, in reporting the actual story, it looks like the newspapers and TV news shows in northwest North Carolina have a bit more restraint. Too bad their prosecutor doesn't. In a move guaranteed to attract attention - and which will also, hopefully, draw attention to the fact that this is just one of the ways in with our new, amped up anti-terrorism laws can be turned into something a bit different than they were initially intended to be - Watauga District Attorney Jerry Wilson has decided to charge Mardin Dwayne Miller with manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon - using a "weapons of mass destruction" law - for manufacturing methamphetamine.

Now I'm not going to pretend that meth isn't highly destructive. It is. The process of making meth in a home laboratory runs the risk of the various chemical compounds exploding. The sale of meth leads to any number of crimes - not just from users robbing people or stores to get the money to buy the drugs, but also the cuthroat competition that goes on between the dealers, and even some of the gang warfare plaguing so many inner cities. Then there are the lives it destroys through addictions, and the impact those addicts have on their families. So, yes, meth is an incredibly dangerous drug, and one that causes almost incalcuable devestation. As a metaphore, calling it a "weapon of mass destruction" even make some sense - even if it technically meets the requirements of the law being used, using the law in this way strikes me as inappropriate expansion of what is really meant by "weapon of mass destruction".

As for the law itself, here's what is says, in part, as included in the article:

...[T]he term nuclear, biological or chemical weapon of mass destruction applies to "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury and ... is or contains toxic or poisonous chemicals or their immediate precursors."

Obviously, the law was written to be vague enough to include chemical weapons that be created in the future. Unfotunately, it's also vague enough to include a lot of other substances whose manufacturers I highly doubt will be charged with criminal conduct.

I don't know about you, but I would be very surprised if a prosecutor anywhere - especially one in North Carolina - would consider charging someone who manufactures cigarettes under this law, yet it is a clearly a substance that can cause death or serious injury and contains toxic and poisonous chemicals. Pesticides could also qualify (and, indeed, many chemical weapons are very similar to pesticides in their composition). I'm sure many household cleaning products could qualify as well. I think you get the idea.

When, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, legislatures start creating laws intended to make it easier to prosecute terrorists and subject them to harsher punishments, many were concerned that the laws could then be used for purposes other than intended at the time. I think this case is a good example of just how real those concerns can be. It's not hard for a overzealous prosecutor to find a way to describe a set of actions in such a way that they can be made to fit into a law intended to be broad enough to cover situations we may not have yet imagined.

If we're going to have terrorism and weapons of mass destruction laws, then we need to use them judiciously and in the manner for which they were created. Drugs are a huge scourage - don't get me wrong - but we have drug laws under which the proper methods of prosecution are spelled out. If the legislature intends to have drugs punished in the same manner as terrorism, then let them write laws that do so.

Posted by thorswitch at July 26, 2003 06:34 AM | TrackBack