Our high visibility war on drugs threatens to leave an indelible scar on the nation’s social fabric, one infinitely more ominous than that left by the drugs its generals and supporters so piously seek to eliminate. The near hysteria over the nation’s “drug crisis” has created an atmosphere in which a large segment of the public has indicated an enthusiastic willingness to relinquish a significant measure of its Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure to stop this corrupting epidemic.
It’s noteworthy that in drafting the Bill of Rights, Jefferson and his colleagues drafted the Fourth Amendment specifically to prevent our government from employing “writs of assistance”, a British tool to justify searches of private homes by government agents seeking smugglers who violated trade and navigation laws.
What the anti-drug zealots seem to have lost sight of is that in a free society each individual has the inalienable right to make his/her own decisions so long as the results of those choices do not infringe on the rights of others. Inherent in that decision making process is the right to make bad decisions, and then be prepared to live with the consequences.
Our government has no right nor any obligation to protect people from their own follies . . . nor should we forget that in a free society the government can not force its people to act wisely and responsibly through threat or coercion. Rather it can only seek to educate, persuade and reason with them.
Nevertheless, local, state and federal authorities seem hell-bent on solving the “drug crisis” using tactics similar to those which proved so ineffective in fighting the “manufacture, sale or transportation”, but interestingly not the use, of alcohol during prohibition. And, for the politicians, fighting drugs, as with other moral matters, provides a convenient diversion from his/her having to take public stands and make controversial votes on far more crucial issues such as the budget deficit and the savings and loan scandal.
Predictably, these drug enforcement efforts have fallen prey to simple market economics . . . a philosophy we have loudly applauded the countries of eastern Europe for adopting in recent months. Large numbers of Americans have voted with their wallets and life styles. During prohibition they wanted to drink . . . today many wish to use drugs.
To supply this enormous appetite, growers, producers, transporters and distributors have emerged in the purest spirit of a free-enterprise, capitalistic system. Highly publicized governmental programs to forcibly shut down this multi-billion dollar industry have had little long-term effect on the net supply. However, they have driven street prices up, made drugs one of the nation’s most lucrative business opportunities, provided an environment in which violent crime has flourished, made “criminals” of millions of Americans who wish nothing more than to privately use drugs
recreationally and simply be left alone.
More ominous has been the avalanche of legislation and court decisions justifying and validating vastly expanded governmental powers of search and seizure, often without any semblance of probable cause; the periodic use of gunboat diplomacy on foreign soil, for which we rightfully criticize other nations; and the imposition of unreasonable penalties for even the apparent possession of the most minute quantities of drugs, many times without affording the individual his/her rights of due process. We are told that such actions are for our own good . . . to save us from evils of drugs.
Unfortunately, tomorrow’s crisis will cost us yet another set of rights!
Meanwhile, there has been an overt effort at distancing America’s two most wildly used legal drugs from the “illegals”. In spite of overwhelming evidence that both alcohol and tobacco are extremely dangerous and potentially addictive substances, no credible efforts are underway to criminalize or restrict their manufacture, distribution or private use.
Still, each year some 390,000 Americans die of tobacco related diseases . . . while insurance, health and lost productivity costs of this deadly and addictive substance run in excess of $52 billion annually. Despite these gruesome statistics, our government continues to spend taxpayer dollars subsidizing the tobacco industry.
On our highways, more than 25,000 American loose their lives in alcohol related accidents. Tens of thousands more die from serosis of the liver and other alcohol induced diseases. The other social costs of alcohol abuse approach those of tobacco.
Meanwhile, a fierce debate rages over the merits of legalization of today’s illicit drugs. Opponents are convinced that making drugs legal is to openly condone their use, thereby encouraging greater usage.
To the contrary, the mere fact that a product is legal does not carry with it a tacit suggestion the product is good or should be used. While alcohol and tobacco are legal, cheap and readily available, most Americans know and understand their use (in the case of tobacco) or abuse (where alcohol is concerned) are serious hazards to one’s health.
High-cholesterol, sodium-laden and fatty foods are also documented health hazards. One need only walk through the aisles of any supermarket to spot hundreds of examples of each. Yet no one is really believes the government is encouraging their consumption.
The misuse of automobiles, guns and pleasure boats claim thousands of lives each year . . . far more than the some 6,000 who die from drug abuse . . . but such misuse of these legal products in frowned upon by almost everyone.
In each of these cases, legalization does not equate to any sort of “official” encouragement of the use or abuse the products. Rather, increased scientific research has provided the rationale to suggest certain products are hazardous and sometimes lethal.
Tobacco and alcohol use is dropping. Whereas 40% of adult smoked in 1965, that figure is only 27% today. Overall American domestic consumption has dropped from 625 billion to 525 billion cigarettes between 1982 and 1989.
The sales of distilled spirits is off over 20% in the past decade, while wines sales are down 14% and beer 7%. Even
drug usage has fallen, particularly among the middle and working classes. It has also become extremely antisocial and unacceptable behavior to have one-for-the-road.
Decreased usage of these products has not resulted from the invasive or Machiavellian measures, so much a part of most drug programs. Rather, they have been a product of education, persuasion and reason.
While legalization of drugs holds some risks and may encourage a few people to experiment, it holds the key to many important social benefits which present drug (criminalization) policies can not match.
- Perhaps most important, legalization would stem the tide of the social engineers who know what’s right for everyone and are ever willing to subvert our fundamental rights to implement their view of morality on us.
- Legalization would cease to make criminals out of millions of Americans who elect to use drugs recreationally, as they do with tobacco and alcohol.
- It would allow us to free up prison space now taken up by people guilty of little more than growing small quantities of and/or smoking or ingesting some pot or other substance.
- Market forces (now providing enormous profits and justify risks taken by drug traffickers) will work to lower the drug prices, effectively putting today’s drug cartels out of business.
- The skyrocketing of drug-related, violent crime would be vastly reduced . . . and our inner city streets and housing projects would quickly become much safer.
- The IRS could reap a windfall by taxing drug distribution as they do alcohol and tobacco.
- All alcohol, tobacco and drug tax dollars collected could, and should be allocated for education and treatment programs, whereas only a small percentage of the alcohol and tobacco taxes are used toward these ends today.
- Programs could then be more effectively developed and focused on the urban underclass where today’s programs are notably ineffective. Concurrently, a great deal more could be done to reach all pregnant women in the country, counseling them as to the horrible dangers to their unborn children which can result from even mild substance abuse during pregnancy.
- Women who continue substance usage during pregnancy are then knowingly violating the rights of their unborn children, which would remain an unacceptable and punishable behavior.
- Billions of taxpayer dollars now spent on marginally effective interdiction, intervention, prosecution and incarceration programs could be saved and redirected to other programs including education and deficit reduction.
Legalization is not a panacea. However, it represents a better alternative for a free society than the politically saleable, emotional satisfying but generally ineffective programs of the past and present.
Moreover, the amendment required that when search warrants were issued that they be based on “probable cause” that a law was being violated. The mere affirmation of belief or suspicion was not enough to justify the issuance of such warrants.
Their simplistic response has been to seduce the American public into accepting the premises that the ends being sought, those of taking a few drunks off the highways or interdicting drugs on the highways or oceans, justify their means of relaxing, and in some cases eliminating basic rights guaranteed to all Americans.
It is frightening to listen to polls which indicate that a majority of Americans are willing to allow police to make random stops and searches on our highways . . . and the coast guard to routinely stop and search the boats of American citizens without any indication that those individuals being detained and questioned are guilty of anything!
And what is being accomplished from these Gestapo tactics?
Today, we live in a country where the two substances of greatest abuse, tobacco and alcohol, are legal . . . and in the case of tobacco, actually subsidized by the American taxpayers.
Yet, each year some 390,000 Americans die of tobacco related causes. The health care, insurance costs and lost productivity directly attributable to this addictive, tobacco related diseases and illnesses cost Americans over $52 billion, $221 per person, annually.
Then there’s alcohol, which alone is the primary cause of some 25,165 highway deaths in 1988 alone. Its other social costs, as with tobacco, run into the billions!
There was a time between the World Wars when the “manufacture, sale or transportation”, but interestingly not the consumption, of alcohol was prohibited by constitutional amendment. This effort to regular social morality was a colossal flop! Americans voted with their wallets and life styles . . . they wanted to drink alcohol. Finally, fourteen years after its passage, this effort to regular the private behavior of people was reversed . . . leaving but a single permanent on the country’s landscape . . . the Mafia.
Today’s “illicit” drugs by contrast accounted for just 6,000 deaths last year. While a tragic number, it represents but a very small fraction of Interdiction efforts cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions while by the best estimates only intercepted 1% of the drugs being brought into the country. Even so, drug enforcement activities have produced a prodigious number of arrest, flooding our courts and prisons far beyond capacity.
But, the thirteen plus years of prohibition did spawn one permanent fixture on the country . . . the Mafia.
There are some interesting parallels which can be under the guise of purging the scourge of drugs from our society,
Orchestrated by an alliance of convenience between the ideologues on the right and the social do-gooders on the left, the American public is being conned into abdicating an increasing number of constitutionally guaranteed rights . . . while concurrently finding a new portfolio of ways to spend billions of additional taxpayer dollars.
Any examination of the drug problem cannot be divorced from the society in which it exists. In many third world countries narcotic substances have been chewed, inhaled and ingested for centuries. In America,
Recent statistics indicate that illicit drug use as declined by nearly 37% during the past year among the college population . . . and that drug abuses has fallen. Meanwhile, statistical information on drug use in the urban underclass has skyrocketed
While legalization may be too large a step for many Americans to take, certainly decriminalization of most drug offenses is a must.
The American people have again, as they did during prohibition, voted with their wallets . . . and at least some proportion of them wish to use drugs, and, in fact, do so in spite of existing laws to the contrary.
Aside from the fact that our national drug strategy is a failure, it is being carried out in a way which is so intrusive to make it unacceptable in a free society.
We must remember, we live in a free society. And in a free society, each individual has the inalienable right to make his/her own decisions, so long as the effects of those decisions do not infringe upon nor violate the rights of others. Further, inherent in the right to make personal decisions is the right to make bad choices . . . after which individuals must be willing to live with the consequences of their actions.
There is no significant evidence that our nation’s drug laws deter drug usage. What can dissuade people from using drugs is education. In 1965, over 40% of Americans smoked. That figure now stands at 27% and continues to drop. Meantime the sales of alcoholic beverages have plummeted, 22% for distilled spirits, 14% for wines and 7% for beer.
These behavioral changes have resulted from the growing body of knowledge about the affects of tobacco and alcohol on the human body together with less tolerance by society of individuals who abuse these substances.
The Justice Department recently proposed civil fines of up to $10,000 for possession of even small amounts of illegal drugs.
An infinitely more effective and, more importantly, less intrusive use of the billions which would be wasted implementing these quick-fix programs would be to put those monies into high-quality educational and treatment programs.
First and foremost, legalization would stem the tide of those who have made a crusade of trying to insulate us from ourselves . . . purposefully eroding some of our most fundamental liberties in the process.
Second, it would cease to make criminals out of millions of Americans who elect to use drugs recreationally, as many do with tobacco and alcohol today. It would also end the hypocrisy which surrounds our government’s selective policies regarding substance abuse.
The legalization of drugs would permit market forces to go to work, driving the prices of theses substances down to a point where there would no longer be any profit motive for channels supplying currently illicit drugs.
The IRS could also reap a windfall, taxing not only the sale of newly legalized drugs, but also the income and profits of those who become part of the legal production and distribution system.
The substantial monies raised from taxing the sale of drugs, as well as that raised from tobacco and alcohol, should be used entirely to fund education and substance abuse treatment programs.
Legalization would reduce a enormous level crime, much of it violent. Individuals would no longer have to steal and kill to support their substance habits. In so doing, our courts would be freed form their largest
