JUST SAY 'YES' TO DRUG WAR?

Conservatives are a peculiar bunch when it comes to drugs.

While they smoke cigars and quaff jiggers of scotch, they drum their hands
in thunderous applause when a pol says we should get tough on drugs,
prosecute the pill-poppers and jail the junkies.

Why? Because drugs are bad, of course.

To mention otherwise, even for argument's sake, is sure to get you pelted
with insults and possibly given the bum's rush. Besides announcing your
approval for the legalization of pedophilia, there is precious little that
will get you booted out of an Eagle Forum rally quicker than speaking in
favor of decriminalizing PCP. Unless you're talking about pedophiles using
PCP, of course.

Except canonizing Bill Clinton, there is nothing worse in some conservative
circles than recommending that we quit the effort to "undo drugs." It's the
right wing's eternal cause celebre, regardless of one glaring problem: It's
amazingly unconstitutional and harmful to American liberty.

To wit: In enforcing drug laws, police rely on random searches of people
and their property, in complete disregard for the Fourth Amendment's
requirement of probable cause. Further violating the Fourth, cops use broad
and ambiguous character and racial profiling methods that bring scores of
regular citizens under police scrutiny, regardless of actual wrongdoing.
(Conservatives, like San Francisco talk radio host Michael Savage, are
currently, er, savaging President Bush for suggesting these profiling
policies be re-evaluated.)

The Fifth Amendment gets similar disrespect from narcowarriors afflicted by
seizure fever. Sloughing off weighty constitutional concerns, police
regularly nab property without due process and use filched goods to pad
police department accounts.

Pitching lofty aphorisms like "to protect and to serve" to the wind, police
even utilize no-knock raids on people's homes. Famous for their
shoot-first-ask-questions-later tactics, these military-like attacks
endanger the innocent by placing them literally in the line of fire.

Further, the desire to widen the warfront has led federal bureaucrats to
try skirting Congress to gain their objectives -- showing little more than
fanatical ambition and disdain for the constitutional balance of powers by
dodging the legislative process.

And while party loyalists and grass-rooters may push for harsher
prosecution of the drug war on principle, politicians rarely do it out of
any sense of morality or duty. Usually ramming drug-control legislation
through Congress has much more to do with politicking and one-upmanship
than statesmanly concern for the commonwealth -- just tapping into the
public's deep well of fear and the twin constituencies of prohibitionists
and law-and-order types.

Ignoring all of that, however, the conservative crusaders, blistering with
eagerness, demand we press ever-onward -- waging war on dope with Gen.
Patton-like determination and Gen. Sherman-like tactics. Any slack in the
offensive is seen as dangerous to the cause, deleterious in its effect. And
President Bush is beginning to feel the heat of the battle, some of which,
like the fiery darts from San Francisco's Savage, is being directed
straight at him.

As the conservatives scan the scene, it's been nearly seven weeks since
Bush placed his hand on the Bible and swore an oath to defend the U.S.
Constitution against enemies both foreign and domestic, and they worry he's
already broken the vow when it comes to domestic enemies: druggies and
their dealers.

To date, Bush has left the position of drug czar as empty as he left Al
Gore's hopes and dreams some months back. Former Clinton Drug Czar Barry
McCaffrey has bowed out, leaving his assistant to run the show, and rumor
has it that the czar will not even keep a seat in Bush's Cabinet.

Anxious to axe the addicts, the right is restless over W's neglect.
Attorney General John Ashcroft's statement about wanting to "reinvigorate
the drug war" isn't cutting it. Conservatives need action, and Bush is
giving about as much as a joint without a match.

"For a nation in which addiction has become a chronic problem and drugs
take a devastating toll, that does not inspire confidence," says
conservative columnist Don Feder, going on to place a classified ad, of sorts:

Wanted: A drug czar like William J. Bennett -- who will bang the bully
pulpit till the wood splits, confront the drug lobby in the ballot arena,
and not neglect supply reduction and punishment.

This is not a comforting thought. No doubt an upstanding character who
turns out a good book every now and then, Bill Bennett nonetheless falls
right into the "awful" category when it comes to drug-czaring. His
conception of the dope war is rigorous enforcement from the top, regardless
of the federal government lacking any constitutional warrant to do so. Any
other option is out, as far as Bennett is concerned -- especially talk of
scaling back the war or, horror of horrors, legalizing.

Back when he was the nation's drug czar, Bennett gave a very impassioned
address at Harvard University, expressing opposition to legalization,
calling it a "scandalous position, intellectually and morally scandalous,"
likewise dubbing it the "policy of neglect."

Does "intellectually and morally scandalous" adequately describe
conservative heroes like Charles Murray, Bill Buckley, James Bovard, Thomas
Szasz and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, all of whom view the drug war as
bad news?

In a 1997 feature in Intellectual Capital, Buckley (strangely enough)
interviewed himself on the subject of legalization. The question: "If you
could come up with ways to drastically reduce or eliminate drug
consumption, would you endorse them?" His answer: "No. Because the only way
to move beyond where we already have arrived is to imitate the anti-drug
policies of Singapore. You can't do that and have civil liberties at the
same time."

In an open letter to Bennett, published in the Wall Street Journal during
Bennett's stint as drug czar, Friedman wrote,

The path you propose of more police, more jails, use of the military in
foreign countries, harsh penalties for drug users, and a whole panoply of
repressive measures can only make a bad situation worse. The drug war
cannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and
individual freedom that you and I cherish.

Yet, Bennett basically thinks conservatives like Friedman and Buckley are
intellectually dishonest. "They've made up their minds," he said to his
Harvard audience, "and they don't want to be bothered with further
information or analysis, further discussion or debate. ..." In other words,
legalizers are pigheaded. But if anyone is suffering from sow-pate syndrome
it's Bennett and conservatives who share his attitude about drugs. Their
idea of continuing the "debate," is asking repeatedly, "Don't you agree
with us yet?"

Fact is, they don't care at all about debate. And despite protestations to
the contrary, they don't care about the Constitution, either. If they did,
they wouldn't so casually dismiss charges of drug-war abuse and wouldn't
rankle Bush for his reluctance to charge full-speed ahead. Instead, they
are exposed as the people who "don't want to be bothered with further
information or analysis, further discussion or debate."

When a loyal right winger breaks ranks and begins to cast aspersions on the
dope war -- such as Paul Craig Roberts recently has with his 2000 book,
"The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats are
Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice" -- they just ignore him.
Conservative media outlets have been fairly hush-hush about Roberts' book.
Better to turn the other direction when one of your own points the
accusatory finger.

It figures. The enthusiasts want their war on drugs, and don't bother them
with facts and figures about damage inflicted to the Constitution.

Besides, if they keep it up, there won't be much of one left to defend, anyway.

Joel Miller is the commentary editor of WorldNetDaily.