Sex, Drugs and Prosecution

This week's commemoration of Law Day provides a moment to observe the application of justice in the nation's capital, particularly the enforcement of laws governing illegal drug activity and the practice of "the world's oldest profession": prostitution. Attention should be given to the demand side of the equation -- i.e., the people who buy drugs and the men who buy women's bodies for sex.

Let's say it up front: The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who is responsible for prosecuting all federal crimes and all serious local crimes, is no slacker when it comes to illegal drugs. In 2000 alone, more than 5,700 people were arrested in the District for drug possession.

A few drug possession prosecutions really stand out.

For example, there's the case of the 27-year-old quadriplegic who used a chin-operated wheelchair and who, in 2004, as a first-time offender, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for marijuana possession. He died on the fifth day of his incarceration because of a lack of appropriate medical treatment.

There's the D.C. government agency director who was charged in 1994 with misdemeanor crack cocaine possession. The official pleaded guilty to attempted possession in a deal with prosecutors.

The police didn't stumble on him by accident. They heard he was using another person to buy cocaine for him. Police turned the buyer into an informant and gave him three rocks of crack to give to the official the next time he wanted to buy drugs.

And everyone recalls the former mayor who was never suspected of manufacturing, selling or distributing illegal drugs. The government, however, believed he was a user and set out to prove its point by concocting an elaborate sting operation. The authorities arranged for a former girlfriend to lure the target into a D.C. hotel room, where he was captured on a surveillance camera smoking government-supplied crack cocaine. FBI and D.C. cops arrested him on the spot in a scene played over and over around the world.

Message: D.C. drug users beware.

But what about those men in our midst who regard women as a commodity to be bought and exploited?

That question is brought to mind by the case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a. Jeane Palfrey, a.k.a. Julia, a.k.a. Pamela Martin, who was indicted in March on federal racketeering charges in connection with a prostitution service she allegedly ran that catered to men in hotels and homes in the Washington area.

Palfrey maintains that the company she ran was "a high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior."

Be that as it may.