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The Drug Wars Immorality and Abject Failure
[FONT=Arial,Geneva,sans-serif]by [/FONT][FONT=Arial,Geneva,sans-serif]Anthony Gregory[/FONT], [FONT=Arial,Geneva,sans-serif]Posted October 4, 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]If the idea is to create a drug-free America, then we can safely say that after hundreds of billions of dollars spent, millions of arrests, and decades of escalating police and military efforts, the war on drugs is a complete failure.
The reason is clear if you think about it. The attempt to use government force and central planning violence and socialism, essentially to effectively mold society by preventing people on an individual basis from growing, producing, transferring, and ingesting drugs of their choice, is a ridiculous fantasy and always has been. There will forever be ways to circumvent the law. There will never be the resources to put an end to the lawbreaking.
Proponents of continuing the war on drugs will sometimes concede its futility, but then compare their crusade to other law-enforcement endeavors with which nearly no one disagrees. They argue that even if it is impossible for the government to stop all murders, it doesnt follow that murder should be legal, and the same is true with drugs.
But comparing drug use to murder is unrealistic. The vast majority of people would agree that even if drug use is immoral in some sense, it is not immoral in the same way as murder. What many might not realize, having not been exposed to libertarian ethics, is the nature of the distinction drug use, in and of itself, is a victimless act, whereas murder, like rape, kidnapping, assault, theft, and trespassing, is a rights violation.
People have a right to life, liberty, and property, and to pursue happiness within the limits emerging from other peoples equal rights to life, liberty, and property. If not for this, theft would not be a crime. Neither would murder nor assault. When a person is murdered, his right to life has been violated. When a person is kidnapped, his right to liberty has been infringed. When a person is robbed, his right to property has been trampled.
These criminal acts enjoy their infamy and they universally evoke emotions of anger and resentment because of the very essence of human nature and what it means to be human. Drug use, unlike any of these real crimes, does not involve a trespass against anyones right to life, liberty, or property. On the contrary, people have a right to peacefully use drugs, and to provide drugs to those who want to obtain them by means of an honest market transaction. You may not approve of their choices, but to interfere coercively with them is itself a violent attack on their rightful liberty.
While most people may not fully understand the moral difference between a victimless vice and a bona fide, criminal rights- violation, they do sense it on some level. The drug war is consequently riddled with difficulties that are not common in efforts to prosecute violent criminals. For one thing, a violent crime leaves behind a victim and that victims friends and family, whereas drug use does not involve a victim who will willingly come forward and report the offense to authorities. Furthermore, most people dont want murderers in their neighborhoods; they will probably call the police if they witness a violent attack in progress; they will cooperate with the state to lock up actual menaces to society. But few people feel the same way about drug use. Even if they see it as an ethical failing or potential social problem even if they dont consciously believe that drugs should be legal they simply dont intuitively conceive of drug use as the same kind of delinquency as an act that inflicts violence on people or violates property rights.
This is why the government has begun to bribe people to turn in drug users, why politicians have begun considering ways to criminalize the mere association with drug users or speech about drugs, and why for years DARE encouraged schoolchildren to report their parents to the authorities if they saw them smoking marijuana. It is becoming just like the days of the Soviet Union, when economic crimes, thought crimes, crimes of dissidence, and other offenses against the state were combated by crackdowns that relied on snitches and thrived on a climate of fear and distrust. With the drug war, just as in the case of the Soviet Union, despite all the terror and agitation produced by the state, there will never be enough resources and prisons to enforce policies so contrary to human nature.
The drug-war scourge
Perhaps as both a result and a cause of Americans not seeing drug use in the same way they see crimes against person and property, tens of millions of Americans have tried illegal drugs at some time in their lives. Drug warriors need to confront this reality. Tens of millions of Americans, even if they dont use drugs now, are likely to have some sympathy for the drug offender that they dont have for the murderer or thief. While most Americans might think it would be good in theory, albeit highly improbable in the real world, to put all murderers behind bars, very few Americans would want to imprison every single person who has committed a drug crime. This is sensible, since doing so would be impossible. Even imprisoning a third of the drug offenders would be economically unfeasible. There are just too many such people. Even if you could catch them all, it would bankrupt the country to prosecute and jail them with anything resembling due process. Thus we see draconian punishments and unconstitutional law-enforcement practices employed in an effort to deter most drug users by making an example of the small minority who are caught and jailed.
This highlights a practical difference between drug users and murderers. Most of us want to see all the murderers punished. But it would destroy America to see even a substantial fraction of the drug users punished. In fact, the mere attempt to cleanse society of drugs by force has already wreaked irreparable damage on America.
The drug war is a scourge on the inner cities, where drug profits lure youth away from taking lower-paying, legal jobs; where shootouts between drug gangs have caused spikes in the homicide and violent-crime rates, just as alcohol prohibition-related violence had; where police are distracted from pursuing violent and property criminals so they can instead fulfill drug-arrest quotas and bust small-time users and dealers. The drug war is a catastrophe for justice and the rule of law, as it has lowered the standard of evidence, shredded the Fourth Amendments protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and cruelly imposes prison sentences for marijuana dealers and cocaine users that are longer than what rapists and other violent assailants receive. The drug war is a plague on foreign relations, as the U.S. government bullies other nations into maintaining aggressive policies against drugs and drops poisonous chemicals on foreign crops in misguided and totally failed efforts to stem the importation of contraband. The drug war is a disaster for civil society, as it has transferred personal responsibility and community concerns to the police, to the legislators, to bureaucrats in Washington, and even to the military.
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[FONT=Arial,Geneva,sans-serif]by [/FONT][FONT=Arial,Geneva,sans-serif]Anthony Gregory[/FONT], [FONT=Arial,Geneva,sans-serif]Posted October 4, 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Times,Times New Roman]If the idea is to create a drug-free America, then we can safely say that after hundreds of billions of dollars spent, millions of arrests, and decades of escalating police and military efforts, the war on drugs is a complete failure.
The reason is clear if you think about it. The attempt to use government force and central planning violence and socialism, essentially to effectively mold society by preventing people on an individual basis from growing, producing, transferring, and ingesting drugs of their choice, is a ridiculous fantasy and always has been. There will forever be ways to circumvent the law. There will never be the resources to put an end to the lawbreaking.
Proponents of continuing the war on drugs will sometimes concede its futility, but then compare their crusade to other law-enforcement endeavors with which nearly no one disagrees. They argue that even if it is impossible for the government to stop all murders, it doesnt follow that murder should be legal, and the same is true with drugs.
But comparing drug use to murder is unrealistic. The vast majority of people would agree that even if drug use is immoral in some sense, it is not immoral in the same way as murder. What many might not realize, having not been exposed to libertarian ethics, is the nature of the distinction drug use, in and of itself, is a victimless act, whereas murder, like rape, kidnapping, assault, theft, and trespassing, is a rights violation.
People have a right to life, liberty, and property, and to pursue happiness within the limits emerging from other peoples equal rights to life, liberty, and property. If not for this, theft would not be a crime. Neither would murder nor assault. When a person is murdered, his right to life has been violated. When a person is kidnapped, his right to liberty has been infringed. When a person is robbed, his right to property has been trampled.
These criminal acts enjoy their infamy and they universally evoke emotions of anger and resentment because of the very essence of human nature and what it means to be human. Drug use, unlike any of these real crimes, does not involve a trespass against anyones right to life, liberty, or property. On the contrary, people have a right to peacefully use drugs, and to provide drugs to those who want to obtain them by means of an honest market transaction. You may not approve of their choices, but to interfere coercively with them is itself a violent attack on their rightful liberty.
While most people may not fully understand the moral difference between a victimless vice and a bona fide, criminal rights- violation, they do sense it on some level. The drug war is consequently riddled with difficulties that are not common in efforts to prosecute violent criminals. For one thing, a violent crime leaves behind a victim and that victims friends and family, whereas drug use does not involve a victim who will willingly come forward and report the offense to authorities. Furthermore, most people dont want murderers in their neighborhoods; they will probably call the police if they witness a violent attack in progress; they will cooperate with the state to lock up actual menaces to society. But few people feel the same way about drug use. Even if they see it as an ethical failing or potential social problem even if they dont consciously believe that drugs should be legal they simply dont intuitively conceive of drug use as the same kind of delinquency as an act that inflicts violence on people or violates property rights.
This is why the government has begun to bribe people to turn in drug users, why politicians have begun considering ways to criminalize the mere association with drug users or speech about drugs, and why for years DARE encouraged schoolchildren to report their parents to the authorities if they saw them smoking marijuana. It is becoming just like the days of the Soviet Union, when economic crimes, thought crimes, crimes of dissidence, and other offenses against the state were combated by crackdowns that relied on snitches and thrived on a climate of fear and distrust. With the drug war, just as in the case of the Soviet Union, despite all the terror and agitation produced by the state, there will never be enough resources and prisons to enforce policies so contrary to human nature.
The drug-war scourge
Perhaps as both a result and a cause of Americans not seeing drug use in the same way they see crimes against person and property, tens of millions of Americans have tried illegal drugs at some time in their lives. Drug warriors need to confront this reality. Tens of millions of Americans, even if they dont use drugs now, are likely to have some sympathy for the drug offender that they dont have for the murderer or thief. While most Americans might think it would be good in theory, albeit highly improbable in the real world, to put all murderers behind bars, very few Americans would want to imprison every single person who has committed a drug crime. This is sensible, since doing so would be impossible. Even imprisoning a third of the drug offenders would be economically unfeasible. There are just too many such people. Even if you could catch them all, it would bankrupt the country to prosecute and jail them with anything resembling due process. Thus we see draconian punishments and unconstitutional law-enforcement practices employed in an effort to deter most drug users by making an example of the small minority who are caught and jailed.
This highlights a practical difference between drug users and murderers. Most of us want to see all the murderers punished. But it would destroy America to see even a substantial fraction of the drug users punished. In fact, the mere attempt to cleanse society of drugs by force has already wreaked irreparable damage on America.
The drug war is a scourge on the inner cities, where drug profits lure youth away from taking lower-paying, legal jobs; where shootouts between drug gangs have caused spikes in the homicide and violent-crime rates, just as alcohol prohibition-related violence had; where police are distracted from pursuing violent and property criminals so they can instead fulfill drug-arrest quotas and bust small-time users and dealers. The drug war is a catastrophe for justice and the rule of law, as it has lowered the standard of evidence, shredded the Fourth Amendments protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, and cruelly imposes prison sentences for marijuana dealers and cocaine users that are longer than what rapists and other violent assailants receive. The drug war is a plague on foreign relations, as the U.S. government bullies other nations into maintaining aggressive policies against drugs and drops poisonous chemicals on foreign crops in misguided and totally failed efforts to stem the importation of contraband. The drug war is a disaster for civil society, as it has transferred personal responsibility and community concerns to the police, to the legislators, to bureaucrats in Washington, and even to the military.
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