Positive Liberty

My mentor, Harry Browne, rarely referred to the “war on drugs” without the modifier, “insane.” It’s accurate and it just rolls off the tongue — “the insane war on drugs.” How crazy is the war on drugs?

Judge Jim Gray, along with a prominent California, business attorney, writing for the LA Times, provide a compelling yet concise description of the lunacy of our war on a substance, titled “This is the U.S. on drugs.” Their piece is well done. I recommend you bookmark it, because you’ll rarely find the argument made so quickly, so simply, and so definitively.

My endorsement of this article has most to do with the efficiency of its argument. But I do have a couple minor quibbles.

While it’s seemingly intuitive that cops benefit from jobs and opportunities for advancement in the war on drugs, I don’t believe there’s sufficient evidence for authors’ claim that cops support the drug war. Someone has studied this, more empirically, and I can’t recall who it was or where I read it (sigh), but cops don’t support the drug war, either in lobbying expenditure or in polls of their ranks. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is a growing national organization that is telling the public the truth about the war on drugs. And I haven’t met one cop yet, who, in private conversation, thinks it’s working well enough to be continued. In fact, most of them don’t believe they’d lose their jobs if it ended, but rather think they’d still have plenty to do fighting more real crimes.

Also, while I understand the political efficacy of suggesting that drugs the government deems as non-medicinal, like heroin or marijuana, should be labeled as Schedule II — requiring a prescription from a doctor — I’m not happy with that approach. In the very next paragraph, the author’s contend that the criminal justice system’s job description provides for protection from others, it does not provide for protection from ourselves. Indeed, the criminal justice system is just a part of government, and one could, if they were being consistent and logical, say exactly the same thing about government — that is, government exists to protect me from others, but not me from myself.

The authors discuss how much things improved after alcohol prohibition was lifted. But please imagine if the end of Prohibition had included a stage where one had to get a prescription from a doctor to drink scotch, whiskey, or gin. That’s exactly what the authors are suggesting for the end of drug prohibition. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? And the reasons are simple:

1) Marijuana, ecstasy, and some other drugs have social connotations, just like alcohol. And they tend to be far less dangerous than beer is. The primary thing about these drugs that is “dangerous” to society, from a law enforcement perspective, is the prohibition aspect, not the chemical aspect. “Marijuana-induced rage” is an amusing oxymoron.

2) Marijuana, heroin, and some other drugs do seem to have some medicinal benefit, except to some do-gooders, moralists, and lobbyists. One might use them to self-medicate. 100 years ago, a child could, on an errand from his parents, walk into a pharmacy and buy heroin right off the shelf, and no one batted an eye. There was no childhood, heroin addiction problem. It wasn’t forbidden fruit. You and I take vitamins, aspirin or Tylenol, and cold or allergy medicine, all without consulting a doctor. We simply self-medicate, and if we couldn’t these drugs would cost us more in time and fees to doctors, as well as at the prescription counter. You are, usually, in the best position to know whether or not you need to self-medicate. In fact, as I write that last sentence, I’m reminded of an acquaintance…

…who, dying of cancer (I can’t recall what kind anymore), told his closest friends that he didn’t want any more morphine. He couldn’t concentrate and all he did was sleep. And, when he was awake, he still felt pain. He had done his homework, and was convinced that heroin was what he needed. (Perhaps the prohibitionists are concerned he would become addicted, or worse, might overdose and die.) Heroin, he claimed, would deal with the pain every bit as effectively as the morphine. But it would also allow him to spend his final days alert enough to talk with and enjoy some final moments with the people he cared the most about — especially his children and grandchildren.

But these disagreements with the piece are being picky. I really believe this article is exactly the type of argument to present to people who still think we need the drug war. Call it the “gateway article to opposing prohibition.”

Hardball delenda est.

Tags: criminal justice, drug war, Harry Browne, marijuana

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