For many of us who already understand the unintended consequences of the “War On Drugs” this video covers most of the main arguments; however, it puts it in a way that I think almost any rational thinking person could understand.
At the very least those who are still for the WODs must acknowledge that it hasn’t come without its fair share of consequences. In fact, it would be hard to prove that the WODs has been working at all. It certainly hasn’t succeeded in deterring others from experimenting with drugs and, if anything, it has only added more dangers to society by creating a black market and an environment susceptible to gangs, violence, and other criminal behavior.
One could of course make an argument for WOD reform, but it isn’t nearly as compelling as the argument to just get rid of prohibition entirely. America’s past history with alcohol prohibition is the best example anyone will ever need that drug prohibition simply doesn’t work: it doesn’t make people safer, and it doesn’t get people to make healthier decisions.
We are going to need to change our approach if we have any desire to build a better society.
This is the third time within the last couple of weeks that Judge Napolitano’s show “Freedom Watch” has covered the War On Drugs, and its utter failure as a government motive to protect its citizens from substance abuse. Even though I already reported on one of these segments at Legalize It? Director of NORML on Marijuana Prohibition, because this is a topic I find very interesting, I decided to report on this latest update as well.
Jacob Hornberger, the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation , a non-profit libertarian educational facility, says Nobel Prize economist Milton Friedman predicted the failure of the War On Drugs back in the 1970s, back when then-President Richard Nixon first defined the movement. Since then, Hornberger argues, the WOD has proved itself to be a failed war. He claims the best way to fix this mess is to do the same thing we did with alcohol prohibition – end it!
Napolitano agrees with Hornberger; he believes the War On Drugs is unconstitutional, a waste of time, and a waste of the American people’s money and resources. As a result of some of these laws, innocent people’s lives have been ruined by the hands of the state.
NAPOLITANO: Is it controversial for people in the public eye to come out in favor of the legalization of the private use of recreational drugs?
HORNBERGER: Well when I was bringing this up 20 years ago on radio talk shows I could light up the phone calls. People were just shocked at the possibility that drugs could be legalized. Twenty years later it is now a legitimate position…What do the drug warriors have left? All they have is their good intentions, and that is not enough. They have made the situation worse.
According to Hornberger it is not uncommon today to see police officers, federal judges, prosecutors, and lawyers against the War On Drugs.
HORNBERGER: We have argued for 30 years now, Judge, that the free market would put these drug dealers and drug cartels out of business instantaneously. And the article to which you are referring, where the private sector is having these marijuana farms, is proving that. These cartels are having a difficult time competing against these legitimate marijuana farms. Which leads us to believe that if you legalize the whole market, [then] these drug gangs and cartels would go out of business overnight.
According to this CNN poll conducted earlier this year 95% were in favor of marijuana legalization.
Is it time politicians start listening to the American people? Can we ever return to a society that respects the individual’s freedom to choose his own pursuit of happiness, as long as it does not undermine the liberties of another? What is stopping legislators from legalizing drugs like marijuana and regulating it similarly to how we regulate alcohol? Over the last decade I have noticed a surge in people speaking up on this issue – hopefully we can come to our senses sooner rather than later. America, let your voice be heard!
Paul Armentano, the Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) (check out their blog here), is an expert on marijuana policy, health, and pharmacology. He has served as a consultant for Health Canada, the Canadian Public Health Association, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
As a guest on yesterdays Freedom Watch, Armentano starts by discussing the potential treatment and prevention of certain cancers through the medical use of marijuana:
ARMENTANO:Things like THC and several other unique properties [of cannabis] actually have the ability to selectively target cancer cells and kill those cells. [This is] sort of the Holy Grail for cancer research; and frustratingly the Federal government has not funded appropriately clinical trials in humans on this sort of work, but we’ve know that marijuana has had these effects on animals now for three decades.
Although President Obama has been more lenient on Federal laws prohibiting marijuana use when compared to the previous administration, the DEA is still raiding certain third-party vendors in states like California, who have authorized doctors to prescribe marijuana to certain patients.
ARMENTANO:What is very interesting with these raids is that no criminal charges are ever filed. The Federal government comes in, they kick down some doors, they seize some merchandise, they seize cash, they seize computers, and then they leave.
According to Armentano, the U.S. government first got involved the “marijuana prohibition business” all the way back in 1937,
ARMENTANO:Now when you look at the actual transcripts of those hearings we laugh at them – even though they were the foundation of marijuana prohibition. The government’s argument at the time was that if you use marijuana you would go insane and be inspired to commit acts of violence and murder.
Nowadays the government doesn’t so much propagate the “Reefer Madness” fad. This is maybe because anyone who has ever been exposed to marijuana, or those who do it, knows simply through their everyday experience alone that it doesn’t cause people to be more violent. Instead the government now tries to perpetuate the myth that marijuana has worse health risks than tobacco or alcohol, which is simply not true.
NAPOLITANO: Which is more harmful statistically: the excessive use of marijuana or the excessive use of alcohol?
ARMENTANO:Well if we are looking at either the harm caused by the drug to the individual or if we are looking at the harm done to society, clearly alcohol is the far more detrimental substance.
According to Armentano, despite all the governments prohibition and propaganda surrounding cannabis 51% of those polled by Rasmussen Reports believed alcohol to be more dangerous than cannabis. Only 19% of those respondents said marijuana was.
ARMENTANO: The public understands this issue. They have it right. It is the law that has it wrong.
NAPOLITANO:Do you think we will ever get to the point where the government will let us make our own choices? Even if they are bad choices, even if they are stupid choices, but they are our own choices about what we put in our body? As long as whatever we put in doesn’t harm somebody else?
ARMENTANO: Let’s certainly hope so. I mean that is one of the main reasons why this prohibition of marijuana is so detrimental. The federal government has drawn an arbitrary line that says adults can put certain substances in their body and then other substances they cannot. And that line is not based on science – it is not based on potential dangers to the user or potential dangers to society.As I noted, it is an arbitrary line. Yet we have arrested in this country over 20 million Americans since 1965 on marijuana offenses. Almost 90% of those arrested were arrested on simple possession only. Yet if we go back to 1965 we will see that marijuana is more prevalent today then it was then, that young people have easier access to marijuana than they did then, that marijuana is more potent today then it was then, and that there is more violence associated with the illegal drug trafficking of marijuana today then it was then.
We have literally spent tens of billions of dollars and ruined millions of people’s personal and professional lives. But we have not in anyway disrupted the flow of marijuana to this country nor have we dissuaded anyone from using marijuana in this country. It is time to acknowledge this reality and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.
To add just a bit of my own commentary on this issue: I agree with Armentano, but I think the drawbacks of having marijuana prohibition – especially in a supposed free society – can be probed even deeper and even more philosophically.
Even though prohibition has already empirically proven itself to be more harmful to society than helpful, shouldn’t we also be supportive of marijuana legalization simply due to the principles of freedom and self-ownership?
A free society should be obligated to respect the individuals decision on what does and doesn’t go into his or her body, as long as it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights. If this holds true for a persons actions, then it is a victimless crime, and the person should not be punished for pursuing their own sense of happiness. If this individual right is not respected, then we have to ask ourselves as a society what side of freedom do we really stand on?
“ We are losing the war on drugs. Well you know what that implies? There’s a war going on, and people on drugs are winning it! Well, what does that tell you about drugs? Some smart, creative motherfuckers on that side.”
- Bill Hicks
The war on drugs in many ways captures the essence of how the American Progressive movement claims its moral omnipotence and feels the obligation to dominate man’s ways towards nothing but the elite’s conception of a “moral enlightenment” for society.
These same moral soldiers believe they can make man good through the use of force and persuasion by means of a gun. Thus is what governments seek to do. Thus is what evil men desire: to exercise their will over others, judge right and wrong based on their own disposition, and enact there subjective ideas into civil law.
This is not an argument against governments entirely (although the idea should never be too absurd for debate), but simply an argument against the psychology of governments and what most always drives their existence: the desires of men for more power and more control over other men.
Prohibition is one of the greatest examples of government “good intentions” actually hurting society more than benefiting it. The only reason we have stuck with such a bad idea for so long is because the decision to legalize drugs violates most people’s intuition, and even in the face of countless evidence we feel compelled to stick to the same bad idea.
But prohibition has a dangerous history, and even after Marijuana activists and War On Drugs opponents have reminded us time and time again about America’s past with alcohol prohibition, the public still remains largely ignorant.
The fact that products or commodities that would otherwise be sold freely for profit in a free market are now – by law – off the market immediately creates not only the opportunity, but a societal necessity for a black market, especially with drugs as high in demand as marijuana.
A black market creates criminals out of otherwise productive members of society – those who are merely providing a service that is desired by the marketplace. Black markets are a lifeline for gangs; the same gangs that take the lives of innocent people, and turn our children into violent animals. Prohibition and the black market push low-income families towards riskier behaviors just so they are able to provide food for their children and gives money-hungry gang leaders a safe haven to spread violence and hate.
What do we have to worry about if drugs are legalized? The most common complaint we hear on the news is that more of our children will begin to use them. However, this is fallacious thinking. What is going to stop a drug dealer when he is already breaking countless laws from then selling to children? Drug dealers and gangs are already comfortable with carrying out illegal activity in face of profits, what would stop them from spreading their risk onto children?
However, if drugs (and marijuana in particular) are regulated similarly to how alcohol and tobacco are now, then they will begin to be sold in legitimate stores with safe and sensible regulations including not selling to those under a certain age. The people working these stores already have a safe and legal job – why would they dare risk it by attempting to sell to a minor?
This is the same way stores that sell alcohol and tobacco operate. Sure, children and teens will always find ways of cheating the system, but it is much more difficult when the drugs are being sold from those with clean hands and a clean record then when the hands are already covered in filth and continuous illegal behavior.
And just like that we can take a step forward in protecting our children from health hazards, decreasing the amount of criminal and violent activity in communities, providing legitimate jobs for those that didn’t already have them, and spending less money down the black hole known as the “War on Drugs.”
What could be better? And what a marvelous solution – once again man’s freedom proves to be the best ideal for the growth of a prosperous and peaceful society… far surpassing what the corrupted minds of politicians could ever dream up. The empirical evidence is there for anyone willing to see truth, and I firmly believe that within the next decade – if there is but one issue the American public’s opinion will shift – it is that prohibition and the War on Drugs has been nothing but a complete atrocity to our society, causing an incalculable amount of injustices, including a violation of our inalienable right to own our natural bodies. Prohibition needs to be done away with for good!