This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, September 23rd, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The War on Drugs is a dead metaphor if you ask the Obama administration, but the war

rages on, both in the US and abroad.

That from Neil Franklin, executive director of law enforcement against prohibition, he argues that

if the war on drugs were over,

the president would have already brought the troops home.

When you're fighting a war on drugs,

whether or not it's been declared dead or not, isn't it sort of just baked into the cake that you have to use these very

intense types of tactics like SWAT raids to to fight the fight. I started my undercover drug work back in the end of the 1970s, going in the 1980.

And back then the narcotics agents, the undercover guys were very much involved in the cases.

And what I mean by that, when it came time to serve a search warrant

on someone's home that agent was involved they went on a raid you know they

identified the home you know because sometimes we we hit the wrong homes nowadays

but they're pretty much involved and this is important because your

reconnaissance is

extremely important.

You have to know what the people are about.

Are they armed?

Do they carry guns?

Do they have dogs?

Do they have kids in a home?

...