What have nearly 40 years of warring on drugs brought us? Homes invaded, citizens terrorized by the forces of law and order who are sworn to protect them, thousands and hundreds of thousands imprisoned and police officers shot. And the drugs? Well, they keep right on rolling along.

Add Arthur to the list of cops shot in our holy W.O.D. What happened to him is probably the most infuriating. I’ve never been a fan of this undercover cop, superspy, 007 nonsense to begin with. At least not where the W.O.D. is concerned. Why do police brass think God created confidential informants? If clandestine drug buys need to be made, let one of them do it and have plainclothes officers observe it from a distance.

Curious, isn’t it, how the same department that won’t release the names of police officers involved in shooting civilians — to “protect” them — will gladly put an officer like Arthur in harm’s way to make a drug buy. But as I said before, police commanders didn’t endanger Arthur.

We did.

We endangered the life of Alberta Spruill, the New York City woman who was killed three years ago when cops burst into her home, tossed in a flash grenade that led to her having a fatal heart attack. What were they looking for? Drugs. Did they find any?

They didn’t even have the right dwelling. The guy they were looking for was already behind bars. Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year-old Atlanta woman was fatally wounded in 2006 when police conducted one of their famous W.O.D.-inspired home invasions in a search for drugs. No drugs were in her house either.

Those are the more egregious cases. During my years as a columnist, I’ve talked to the mother and daughter who said they sat hugging each other while police ransacked their home and terrorized them, looking for illegal drugs they never found. I listened as members of two Baltimore families told me the curious details of how narcotics cops ended up in their homes: As the result of cell phones.

I kid thee not. In both instances, women had bought cell phones for a male family member, who then used the cell phones to make calls indicating they were involved in drug trafficking.

Did police in either case send undercover officers to the homes to make drug buys to confirm that drugs were present? Oh pish tosh. Why bother with piddling details like confirmation? After all, we’re fighting the holy W.O.D. here.

Prosecutors and judges who issued warrants simply took police at their word that drugs were on the premises. They weren’t, of course. But in doing both these stories I did learn that the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office sent letters to several people advising them that the government was privy to conversations held on their cell phones that those citizens no doubt thought were private.

Those misguided souls now stand corrected. Citizens have been killed, terrorized and their privacy invaded in the name of the W.O.D. Now undercover cops who do our bidding are getting shot. After nearly 40 years we don’t know if the man who lied to us about Watergate was right about the W.O.D. But we do know this.

In the war on drugs, drugs are winning.

Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Baltimore and Maryland for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at [email protected].