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The War on Drugs
Our nation and our state are involved in an enormously expensive and not very successful war on drugs. This war is the most costly in our history, and the main human enemies are our own innocent citizens whose lives are lost and rights are violated in pursuit of an unobtainable objective.
Trying to prohibit drugs isn't a new idea. It was tried during Prohibition with the familiar results of growth in organized crime, enormous corruption in government and law enforcement, loss of innocent lives and the gross violation of the fundamental rights of American citizens. Prohibition was repealed because it became clear that the benefits were overwhelmed by the horrific cost to society and its citizens. As a nation we should learn from our mistakes, but today we seem bent on repeating them.
About 40 million Americans are occasional, peaceful users of illegal drugs. Their casual use has little impact on society and they lead useful and productive lives. Current drug prohibition laws make criminals of these harmless citizens and force them into a dangerous criminal sub-culture.
The war on drugs makes drug distribution enormously profitable and puts it in the hands of violent criminals and organized crime. Criminals make great fortunes, carry on territorial warfare, corrupt police and courts and terrorize citizens in the process. Because drugs are illegal there is no way to regulate or control them. Pushers can sell impure and dangerous drugs, there are no limits on who they sell their drugs to, and victims have no recourse if they are harmed. The war on drugs puts drug users in constant peril and the violence of drug crime endangers innocent bystanders.
The great irony of the war on drugs is that at the same time as it endangers us by encouraging crime and violence, it also puts honest citizens at risk from their own government. In its desperation to win this unwinnable war the government has passed laws and instituted policies which put citizens in danger and trample on civil liberties. In this war we all become suspects. We face random drug testing, highway check points, intrusive surveillance, and guilt by association. Your property can be seized without a trial if the police merely claim it is associated with drugs or drug money. Just doing business in cash makes you an instant suspect.
Before 1914 most of the drugs which are illegal today were legal and in common usage. The social impact of drugs was very limited, drug prices were low and organized crime played little or no role in drug distribution. Most drug users lived normal, productive lives and destructive addiction was at a very low level.
One of the most outrageous aspects of the war on drugs is the enormous waste of resources. Instead of having the police protect citizens from crime, their time and resources are wasted persecuting non-violent drug users, thereby creating more criminals. Instead of using prisons to house killers, rapists and thieves they are filled to bursting with harmless drug users at vast expense to the taxpayers.
Lifting the prohibition the least destructive drugs would take drug distribution out of the hands of criminals, reducing violence and weakening organized crime. Legal drugs would be less expensive and less dangerous. Addicts could become productive members of society and support their habits without turning to violent crime. Police resources could be directed to preventing crime and protecting citizens. Prison overcrowding would end and we could keep violent criminals locked up for meaningful terms.
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