LEGALIZING DRUGS NOT THE ANSWER

New Mexico's Gov. Gary Johnson has just spent six days in Washington,
trying to win support for his controversial views on the decriminalization
of first, marijuana and, ultimately, all drugs. He leaves, apparently, a
frustrated man. The Bush administration shows every indication of
continuing a vigorous prosecution of the so-called war on drugs.

Oddly, Johnson, like Bush, is a Republican. Perhaps it is not so odd. The
decriminalization of drugs is one of the great fault lines in the
conservative movement.

Bush is characteristic of those who favour fiscal responsibility but
require the state to preserve the rule of law and give some moral
leadership to society. The libertarian wing, however, while favouring a
conservative approach to public policy, would permit citizens greater
latitude in their private behaviour, if it does not infringe upon the
rights of others.

This would be the Johnson position. He shares it with the Marijuana Party,
now contesting the election in B.C. The party advocates small government,
has a right-wing take on gun control and has recruited a former Canadian
Alliance worker, Matthew Johnston, erstwhile aide to MP Rahim Jaffer. Like
the Republicans, it likes the big tent.

Conservatives who would legalize drugs, however, must slalom around awkward
contradictions. Drug abuse should be regarded, they argue, as a medical
rather than a criminal problem. Government should not be trying to
legislate morality, and were marijuana and other hard drugs to be
decriminalized, criminals would no longer find them profitable. The
exorbitant costs of fighting the war on drugs -- $50 billion in the U.S
and perhaps as much as $1 billion in Canada -- would be saved; government
regulation would ensure purer product, with consequent diminished costs to
the health and welfare systems.

If only it were so.

First, we assume that not even the most earnest advocates of liberal drug
laws would wish to see them any more readily available to children than
cigarettes. This, of course, would be a moral decision for the government
to administer with both preventive educational programs and enforcement.
Decriminalization does not therefore, unfortunately, relieve government of
an ongoing commitment to policing, or regulation, if indeed it is to
administer purity standards.

Nor are the putative savings in health and welfare assured. Cocaine will be
no less destructive to the human body for being acquired legally. Further,
as free competition reduces prices, drugs will become more affordable and
inevitably more widely used. Where is the health dividend if more people
need care?

Above all though, it is specious to argue that government cannot legislate
morality. Behind government stands a company of citizens and it is they who
define morality: Government is merely their instrument.

Drunk driving, for example, was once considered foolish but not widely
condemned. Since laws were changed to permit vigorous prosecution of
driving under the influence of alcohol (or drugs), offenders are now
considered to have committed a serious wrong.

It is a strange thing which Johnson and his ilk ask of society, that even
while there is so much pressure to take tobacco out of the workplace,
restaurants, public spaces, even the home, they would have drugs eased
legally into the marketplace. Even stranger is their idea that as the drug
war cannot be won, it should be abandoned.

One wonders what taboos could stand if society were to accept that premise.
Should we legalize child molestation, on the grounds that we can't
eradicate it?

If we don't make that kind of case for pedophilia, we have no business
making it for drugs or any other activity we struggle to control. Whatever
argument might be advanced that drug addiction itself is a medical problem,
there can be no question that any person who leads another into dependency
upon something that will destroy their body, has committed a criminal act. .

One needs a few libertarians around to keep interventionist conservatives
honest. On this issue, though, their logic seems obscured by smoke.

Clearer heads should prevail, so to speak.