The Drug War: The 40 year war on Liberty

June 17, 2011 marked the 40 year anniversary of another failed government war. This war happens to be the Drug War, which was declared by President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971. It seems that almost every government war on an abstract or material "thing" makes the problem worse. The government declares a war on poverty, and poverty gets worse. The government declares war on obesity, and obesity increases. The government declares war on terrorism, and terrorism increases or escapes being destroyed. The same can be said about the Drug War. President Nixon describes this war as follows: "This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply, as well as Americans who may be stationed abroad, wherever they are in the world. It will be government wide, pulling together the nine different fragmented areas within the government in which this problem is now being handled, and it will be nationwide in terms of a new educational program that we trust will result from the discussions that we have had."

But this is certainly not the first time the Federal Government has waged a war on freedom via the drug war. The first instance came with the passage of first federal anti-narcotics law in 1905. The law was aimed at ending the opium trade in the Philippines, which had been taken as a protectorate country after the Spanish-American War of 1898. Laurence M. Vance explains the drug war timeline as follows: "This [the 1905 anti-narcotics law] was followed by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the Opium Exclusion Act of 1909, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, the Narcotic Control Act of 1956, and the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. And since the beginning of Nixon’s war, we have had the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, the Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act of 1988, the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003, and the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. And who can forget the D.A.R.E. school-lecture program, 'Just Say No' clubs, and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America’s television ad featuring a hot skillet, an egg, and the phrase, 'This is your brain on drugs.'"

As Art Caden has noted, one of the unintended consequences of the Drug War has been that drugs have increased in potency. Art Caden elaborates: "Which would be easier to smuggle: $1,000,000 worth of marijuana, or $1,000,000 worth of cocaine? $1,000,000 worth of cocaine can be packed into a much smaller space than $1,000,000 of marijuana. If we decide to fight drugs, what is likely to disappear from the market and what is likely to end up all over the market? Low-potency drugs are likely to disappear. High-potency drugs—like higher-potency marijuana—are likely to stay. According to Milton Friedman, 'crack would never have existed...if you had not had drug prohibition.'” Caden also points out that another consequence of the Drug as been that "The 'land of the free' has a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the world. Economist and drug policy expert Jeffrey Miron points out, we would have a lot less violence if we ended drug prohibition."

The costs of the Drug War are also high and a waste of resources. If the Drug War was ended at the Federal level, the Federal Government would save $15.6 billion per year. Local governments would save $25.7 billion per year if the Drug War was ended. These statisics show us that State and Local governments have to commit a huge sum of tax-payer dollars to keep Drug Prohibition instituted, while the Federal Government does not have to pay as much for the Drug War. But more importantly, liberty is at stake in the Drug War. Says Caden on the fate of liberty in the Drug War: "The kinds of encroachments on liberty being rationalized in the name of the drug war are unworthy of a country that calls itself the “land of the free.” For examples, look no further than the military-style “no-knock raids” that are becoming far too common (70,000-80,000 per year, according to criminologist Peter Kraska via USA Today)."

Laurence Vance provides a ten point case against the Drug War as follows:

The war on drugs costs American taxpayers over $40 billion a year.

For the first half of our nation’s history there were no prohibitions against any drug.  

The war on drugs is not authorized by the Constitution.

Tobacco kills more people every year than all of the people killed by all illegal drugs in the twentieth century.

The war on drugs has done nothing to reduce the demand for illicit drugs.

Numerous studies have shown that smoking marijuana is less dangerous than drinking alcohol.

The war on drugs is the cause of our unnecessarily swelled prison populations.

Alcohol abuse, not drug abuse, is one of the leading causes of premature deaths in the United States.

The war on drugs has ruined more lives than drugs themselves.

More people in America die every year from drugs prescribed and administered by physicians than from illegal drugs.

Let us be clear on this. Neither Laurence nor I endorse using narcotics and we both recogize that they can be very dangerous to one's health. "But drugs are dangerous!" one might say. Well, I don' think alot of people would despute that. What can be desputed is whether or not the government needs to be prohibiting the use of drugs in a free society. Vance elaborates: "What matters is personal freedom, private property, personal responsibility, individual liberty, personal and financial privacy, free markets, limited government, and the natural right to be left alone if one is not aggressing against his someone and is doing 'anything that’s peaceful.' Ending the war on drugs is not an esoteric issue of libertarians or a pet issue of those who want to get high. Once the government claims control over what a man smokes, snorts, sniffs, inhales, or otherwise ingests into his body, there is no limit to its power. As the economist Ludwig von Mises so eloquently said: 'As soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual’s mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail.' The war on drugs is incompatible with a free society. "

As human beings created in God's image, we have been endowed with the natural right of freedom of choice (with the exception of choosing to kill the unborn, but that is for another time). That freedom of choice includes the ability to make stupid and bad choices like using drugs. But an important matter here is that under this principle, everybody has to have personal responsibility, meaning that even if people make dumb choices, they are the only ones responsibly and must learn from their mistakes and make the proper corrections. Social pressure and aid from institutions of a free society, like the church for example, are better ways at combating drug usage in America while still retaining our natural rights. Jacob Hornberger elaborates: "the true test of a free society is not whether people are free to do what is popularly accepted but rather whether they are free to do what is not popularly accepted, especially conduct that is considered by others to be irresponsible, immoral, dangerous, or self-destructive, but with one important condition: the conduct must be peaceful. That is, no murder, rape, theft, fraud, etc. "

It is time that the War on Drugs comes to an end. It has been an expensive and failing enterprise that has assaulted our liberties. Laurence Vance was right: "The war on drugs is incompatible with a free society."