The politics of drug prohibition

…or what can we learn from the repeal of alcohol prohibition?

Here’s our Veritas Omnia Vicinit, opining on law makers, the Bill of Rights, and comparing the War on Drugs with Prohibition. Enough from me, here’s VoV..

In an era where many people self medicate themselves legally or illegally, including our fellow veterans, is it worth examining our drug policy and our expectations for the expected benefits of said drug policy? Or, is it time to consider that in a free society, a truly free society, we recognize that what adults do in private with their own bodies is really none of the government’s business?

I tend to view most of my government’s laws with suspicion, largely due to my nature as I never actually believe that any law is enacted solely for my benefit. It’s my view, and the view of countless more well versed social critics past and present, that the government exists mostly to increase its power over its citizens. Consequently all laws passed are simply nothing more than additional layers of control enacted on an ever less free society. Viewed historically our legislators seldom offer up a repeal of an outdated law while considering adding these additional layers of new laws onto the books. The result is often a mish-mash of conflicting laws that create ludicrous situations where pedophiles serve less time than guys smoking weed. Any society that proclaims itself to be concerned about the safety of its citizens should regularly examine the outcomes related to existing laws and proposed laws as the one true law, that of unintended consequences, often thwarts the best of intentions.

Heinlein, Mencken and others warn that most people like to control the lives of their neighbors, it’s a uniquely human condition that based on our belief system we think we have some right to dictate to others how they can conduct themselves in the privacy and sanctity of their home on their property. The influences of men like John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes on the founders is a well known fact of our nation’s history and the construction of the Constitution by the founders shows much of that influence throughout the document. The warnings of men like Jefferson, Paine, Washington, and Franklin regarding the dangers of government as a body inclined to grow in strength at the expense of the public it was designed to serve are not only no longer taught but mostly forgotten by our fellow Americans these days who wouldn’t know the founders’ version of Liberty if she sat on their faces and wiggled for half an hour. It’s these concepts of liberty that a free people need to consider when formulating policy through their legislators lest they soon find themselves no longer in possession of their nation or their own bodies and property.

Examining the results of our past and current drug and alcohol prohibition one can see, if one is so inclined, a continual erosion of most of the protections offered by the Constitution in the Bill of Rights. The clear infringements on the fourth and fifth amendments in particular should give every American pause. How many states will be affected should Timbs vs Indiana finally rectify seizure without just compensation? Asset forfeiture in drug cases often without due process should have been held unconstitutional decades ago, that we’ve come this far into the drug war without a significant finding by the SCOTUS tells us much about how the government operates in restricting your rights as Americans. If the government feels it can restrict your fourth, fifth, and even the fourteenth as is being argued in Timbs you can bet they will find a clear reason to infringe your first and second amendment rights without hesitation.

Looping back to the drug war, besides losing some basic Bill of Rights protections what have we gained from the drug war? According to the government’s own sources in the DEA and reporting to the FBI by local enforcement arms the drug war fails miserably at actually stopping drugs. Our own government reporting suggests for every pound, kilo, or ton of drugs seized ten times that amount manages to get through their enforcement actions. So we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year in a failed attempt to stop drug lords from making tens of billions of dollars. It’s interesting to note that in a nation that prides itself on the intellectual superiority of its researchers at universities across the nation that our approach to limiting drug use is largely focused on militarizing the police and DEA rather than researching options that might actually prove more successful than our current one in ten success rate at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Based on the current results of the drug war there’s a decent argument to be made that the largest beneficiaries of the current policy are the drug lords who pay only a ten percent cost of doing business while avoiding the costs of regulations and quality control that all legal drug providers are bound by in the production of their products. No wonder it’s worth losing tons of drugs crossing the border as it’s a mostly net profit proposition for them. Thanks to that prohibition they can keep prices higher than legitimate competition would allow and settle their differences with gunfire in the streets instead of lawyers in courtrooms.

Another group benefitting nicely from the drug war, private prison companies. More people in jail makes for more profit in the private prison business. From 1968-1992 government data indicates we increased drug related arrests from 200,000 six fold to 1,200,000 with an average of 400,000 of those arrest for the deadly marijuana and most of those marijuana arrests for possession. So our police departments utilize almost half their resources to jail those public safety menaces known as stoners. I certainly feel safer knowing the kid next door smoking dope in mom’s basement is locked up and mom might lose her house to asset forfeiture for some weed. Who cares about those pesky pedophiles when you can jail a stoner instead?

It’s time we considered whether the supposed benefits of a drug war with ever more militarized police using ever more military style tactics on civilians at a cost of hundreds of billions is worth the effort. If it is I would be surprised, a more intelligent and freedom oriented approach is to research our options and consider reducing the government’s ability to increase its power over us by legalizing some substances or decriminalizing them so we can move forward with treating addicts like we treat alcoholics and de-stigmatizing the treatment process.

Why do I think this matters to veterans? Why should we as veterans even give a shit about the drug war? There are several reasons that come to mind, but some of the basics for me are simple. There is a study currently underway as to the benefits of marijuana versus opioids and other drugs in the treatment of PTSD in veterans, the calming effects of marijuana for some people are well known to the medical community but the usefulness in PTSD treatment has been limited to anecdotal evidence to date. Limiting the drug war allows research in many of these areas to be conducted without fear of prosecution or loss of federal funding for universities. We owe those in our community a commitment to finding the best protocols for treating PTSD right along with bodily injuries in the most efficient and effective manner possible. A comprehensive drug reform policy goes a long way in allowing that commitment to come to fruition. In my opinion that makes the drug war as open for discussion as the GWOT or any other veteran related issue of the day.

When alcohol prohibition ended an interesting thing happened, machine gun wars in the streets over booze disappeared. A corresponding drop in cirrhosis was also noticed by the medical community. The reason for that health benefit was simple, during prohibition concentrated alcohol bottles were much easier to conceal and smuggle so people ended up drinking far more potent alcohol than they would have chosen on their own given options as consumers to choose those alternate beverages. As prohibition ended consumption of beer and wine increased and hard liquor declined dramatically. People wanted to feel inebriated but far less so than prohibition had allowed. Drugs work the same way, we see it now with the addition of fentanyl into the mix. Concentrated smaller quantities, deadlier in fact, are much easier to hide and smuggle in. If consumers had options I suspect a similar effect on consumption would take place.

People will ruin their lives regardless of the law, our decision is to how we as a society wish to approach that. I will once again go with Jefferson, without a victim there’s no crime. Get drunk every day in your house there’s no issue, drive drunk or steal my shit to finance your drinking and now you’ve crossed a line. If my property and my person are untouched by your personal behavior the government and everyone else should stay the hell out of your affairs in a truly free society.

I expect little agreement as we’ve been so conditioned to accept that the government should have total control over our lives we believe the world as we know it will end if adults are allowed to abuse themselves however they like on their own property.

Thanks for reading,
VoV

Thank you, VoV. I have my own opinion on the matter, but this is for our readers to comment on.

Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Guest Post, Politics, Society