LET'S
RETIRE THE DRUG WAR
Jacob G. Hornberger
Retired
army general Barry McAfree has announced that he is now retiring from
his position as America's drug czar. If only he would take the war on
drugs with him.
Of all
the domestic wars that the U.S. government has waged in the last several
decades, the war on drugs has got to be among the most immoral and destructive
of them all.
The drug
war has constituted a frontal attack on individual liberty. It has provided
an excuse for government officials to trample the Constitution, especially
the provisions of the Fourth Amendment. It has caused death and destruction
of innocent people, not only here in America but overseas as well. It
has provided a means by which racism has been able to raise its ugly
face in an innocent guise. And by everyone's standards, the war on drugs
has failed to accomplish its own purported goals despite at least 30
years of warfare.
What does
it mean to be free? At the very least, freedom entails the right of
every adult to sit in the privacy of his own home and do whatever he
wants, as long as his conduct is peaceful and nonabusive. Drink beer.
Smoke cigarettes. Snort cocaine. Watch dirty movies. Listen to music
with obscene and violent lyrics. Read smutty books. Have sex. Eat fatty
foods. Cuss. Even criticize government officials.
If a grown-up
is subject to being punished by the state for engaging in any of this
conduct, then no one in society is free. And it doesn't matter whether
you yourself never engage in any of it. If the state has the power to
punish anyone for doing it, then that's a society in which tyranny is
reigning for everyone.
The drug
war enables and encourages the police to peer into your windows, examine
your trash, monitor your bank accounts, turn your children into stool
pigeons and haul you into court and send you to jail for engaging in
what public officials consider to be personal, immoral conduct within
the privacy of your very own home.
Is this
the kind of country you want for yourself and your family?
Look what
they've done to our Constitution, which our ancestors intended to be
an impenetrable barrier against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Whether you're in your car, at the airport, walking down the street,
or even in your own home, you're subject to being accosted and searched
by the drug police and their drug dogs, especially if your skin happens
to be dark.
What better
way to wage bigoted wars against racial minorities than the drug war?
Does anyone really believe that it's only a coincidence that federal
and state penitentiaries are filled with blacks and Hispanics who have
violated drug laws? That racial profiling takes place because cops have
a good-hearted concern that blacks and Hispanics are ingesting harmful
substances?
Ever since
President Nixon declared war on drugs (and antiwar protestors), U.S.
officials have invaded foreign countries; had drug lords extradited
to the United States; killed innocent people in drug raids; barged through
doors all across America; executed countless search warrants, many of
them based on perjured testimony; arrested, indicted, and incarcerated
tens of thousands of nonviolent people; confiscated millions of dollars
in private assets, much of it from innocent people; invaded the privacy
of thousands of financial institutions; expanded the ranks of law-enforcement;
and spent hundreds of millions of dollars.
What do
they have to show for it after 30 years of warfare? Good intentions?
Through
it all, they've never answered two fundamentally important questions
with respect to the issue of individual liberty. Why should the state
have the power to punish adults for ingesting harmful substances? Doesn't
the very essence of human liberty entail the unfettered right to engage
in self-destructive behavior?
For more
than three decades, the drug war has assaulted our liberty, invaded
our privacy, trashed our Constitution, increased our taxes, and provided
an innocent cover for government bigotry. It's time to put the war on
drugs out to pasture.
Copyright©2000
Jacob Hornberger
Jacob
Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va.
