Obamacare has become the perfect storm for conservatives – the issue that drives home, as never before, the right’s consistent drumbeat against the inevitable incompetence, corruption and regulatory tyranny of big government. It is hard to imagine any program that could better make the case against the power of the state and in favor of small government.
Indeed, standing against the power of big government has been the trademark of the conservative movement. Why, then, do Republicans/conservatives refuse to recognize and stand against another failed federal program that has over four decades been a model for – you guessed it – incompetence, corruption and tyranny. One that has gone well beyond threatening people’s health care, in fact ruining countless lives.
Why do Republicans/conservatives continue their explicit or tacit support for the war on drugs?
Perhaps the answer is simply politics. Republicans are loathe to be seen as “soft on crime” or in favor of drug use. But with the GOP now possessing stunningly low approval ratings and desperate to forge an identity appealing to the majority of Americans, it would be not only safe but politically shrewd to finally stand consistent with their principles in light of last week’s Gallup Poll revealing that 58% of Americans favor the legalization of marijuana.
Legalization would lead the government to do exactly what they do to alcohol – regulate and tax it, thus creating a fresh and sizable source of federal, state and/or local revenues, and ultimately allowing for the stabilization or reduction of existing tax rates. There is a separate and legitimate argument on the viability of such regulation and taxation, but one senses that “legalize it, regulate it and tax it” would be met with high levels of public approval. Especially when compared with the current drug prohibition schemes, which result in wasteful government spending, little success, a criminal underworld and the deprivation of liberty for victimless crimes.
But lest we be simply poll-driven, consider the positions of a trio of conservative giants – Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley and Thomas Sowell. All made unambiguous, compelling and complementary cases against drug prohibition.
One of the great ironies of my quixotic campaign for for the 2012 Republican US Senate nomination was reaction to my support for ending the criminal prohibition on marijuana.
Thinking this was perhaps my boldest (or “politically courageous”) policy position, reaction was exactly opposite to what I expected. My friend Shaun Kenney poked fun, and accusations were made of pandering to the Ron Paul wing of the party. Campaign advisors had argued for addressing only medical marijuana, because the party was too old fashioned to support outright decriminalization. Now that would have been pandering.
And then, there was this comment on Shaun’s post from another friend on this site, Brian Schoeneman, which well reflects the traditional Republican position: alcohol has been a socially acceptable intoxicant for centuries. We have two major ones – alcohol and tobacco. We don’t need any more.
Is that the issue? Whether an intoxicant – including one that has wrecked countless lives, families and even communities, alcohol – is “socially acceptable,” while one that has inflicted exponentially less harm is not. Ipso facto, we should deny people the ability to decide for themselves? Freedom, not tradition or social acceptability or personal biases, is the issue.
Fact is, any law which is not widely obeyed is a bad law. We all know that prohibition was an abject failure, and that was a ban on something that really did and still does ruin millions of lives. A simple corollary is that stoplights represent good law because people obey them.
The truth is that marijuana decriminalization or legalization is the true conservative position. Supporting a failed government program with enormous and ever growing costs, with little accountability, and which actively reduce liberty is antithetical to the most fundamental conservative principles.
There were two recent stories which confirm afresh that the costs of criminalizing this plant are far greater than any benefit to society.
Michael Saffioti died while in jail last week. He was 22, and serving time for missing a court date for misdemeanor marijuana possession. Jail officials ignored his pleas for help after he ate something he was allergic to – after they told him it was safe. By the time they stopped ignoring him, it was too late. He is a casualty of the drug war. Even if he did not die at the hands of his jailers, even if he just served his sentence, where is the justice in that? We should demand an awfully good rationale for allowing the government to imprison our neighbors, and possessing marijuana does not constitute a good reason.
Then there is the case of David Eckert. He rolled through a stop sign and was pulled over by a drug warrior cop who evidently hoped he had drugs. It turns out a dog was alerted to his car, and the police found a judge to issue a warrant for Eckert. What followed was a horrifying, unspeakably intrusive search of Eckert’s person that might by itself be enough evidence for almost anyone to oppose the drug war.
William F. Buckley said it is a “necessity to free ourselves from the superstition that that which is legal is something we approve of.” This argument isn’t about approving marijuana use. The prohibition of a drug which is responsible for a relatively small amount of societal harm should not be enforced at any and all costs. Right now the costs are stratospheric and the benefits are negligible at best.
“It’s a moral problem that the government is making into criminals people, who may be doing something you and I don’t approve of, but who are doing something that hurts nobody else.” Milton Friedman’s words reflect a true conservative outlook. Prohibitionists will argue the treatment of Michael Saffioti and David Eckert are outlying cases that don’t reflect reality. But as writer Radley Balko stated, “Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable.”
Former federal prosecutor Ken White may have most effectively placed the threat to liberty in perspective when he said, “I’m not afraid because police officers violated David Eckert’s constitutional rights by raping and torturing him because they thought he might have a trivial amount of drugs. I’m afraid that they might not have violated his rights as defined by the courts, because we have allowed those rights to wither away out of fear and indifference.”
The good news is that people are obviously becoming more conservative on this issue. As we watch the results of this drug war armistice in Washington and Colorado, we will see more resources for police to investigate crimes that hurt others, and fewer incarcerations of people who have not harmed anyone. And if the numbers track those of Amsterdam, Holland, we will also experience a reduction in teenage drug use.
As the war on drugs continues to produce a reality where the prohibited drugs are ever cheaper, more potent, and more available, where every passing year erodes our hard-won liberties by steady measure, what is the conservative answer? Surely no one can argue with a straight face that we just need to fight harder or direct more resources towards this war. We already lock up more people per capita than any country on earth.
In 2014, four states will vote on measures to make pot legal for medicinal purposes, and four others will vote on whether to treat the drug as they do alcohol. If you support wild government spending which exacerbates the problem, combined with decreasing respect for law enforcement and the state, by all means oppose these measures. But please – don’t call it conservative.
