THE WAR ON CONSERVATIVE IDEAS

The issue of illegal drugs was being debated before the U.S. Supreme Court
again last week. This latest case involved medical marijuana use in
California. A few weeks before that, the justices heard arguments on the
question of whether police can use thermal sensors to detect whether a
private homeowner is growing marijuana.

The drug debate brings up some tough questions for conservatives, as is
shown in the following quotations from two political theorists.

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will
be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in
the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right."

So says John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century English philosopher and author
of "On Liberty." Now here's 20th-century American philosopher Bill Bennett:

"The reason the American people don't like drugs, whatever the critics
might think, is not simply because they can hurt you physically, but
because they hurt you and destroy your capacity as a human being. They make
you a jerk. They make you stupid. Marijuana makes you stupid. The only
reason to take these drugs, unlike alcohol, wine and beer, is to get
blotto, to get stoned, to alter your consciousness."

Compare the two quotes. The quote from Mill nicely captures the major flaw
of the drug war from a conservative perspective. It is not the business of
government to protect people from themselves. That type of social meddling
is best left to the left.

Now look at the quote from Bennett. It nicely captures the major flaw of
the war on drugs: It is being run by people from Washington. And people
from Washington can't be trusted with power.

In the case of Bennett, you have to wonder if he can even be trusted with
car keys. That quote is from an interview Bennett gave while he was drug
czar under the first President Bush. Which brings up a crucial
question: Shouldn't the drug czar know something about drugs?

"Blotto" is a term that describes what happens when you drink too much.
Drinking too much can also make you stupid, a jerk and even, in rare cases,
a stupid jerk.

Marijuana does nothing of the sort. It is the preferred drug of the artsy
types, the characters who do macrame while listening to Joan Baez. You
could make a decent conservative argument against any drug that leads to
the purchase of Joan Baez CDs, but that is not what Bennett is arguing.

What he is arguing is that bureaucrats inside the Beltway should be
empowered to structure the lives and thoughts of the citizens of America.
There is nothing remotely conservative about this argument.

And there is nothing remotely conservative about the government's case
against that marijuana collective in California. In that case, the Clinton
administration sued a group of distributors of marijuana in California to
make them conform to federal law on marijuana even though California
permits its distribution. If conservatism means anything, it means that the
federal government is a creature of the states, not the other way around.
No conservative could support the federal government in this case.

It's hard to see how a conservative could support the government in that
prior case either, the one that involved police using infrared sensors to
determine how much heat was escaping from a house in which pot was being
grown. Conservatives are fond of quoting the original intent of the
founding fathers. If the founding fathers knew they were creating a country
in which the government could look through your walls with a device so
sensitive that they can tell whether you're having sex, their original
intent would have been to stick with King George III. Even he wasn't that
perverted.

The serious thinkers in the conservative movement - those who reside
outside the Beltway - long ago turned against the big-government approach
to drug control. Perhaps the best example is Milton Friedman, the
free-market economist whose ideas did more to promote freedom in the last
quarter-century than any other thinker. Friedman argues that all drugs
should be legalized and subject to market forces.

That may be politically impossible. But it's not asking too much for the
alleged conservatives in Washington to at least follow conservative
principles, such as non-interference with the political processes of the
states.

Or of other countries, for that matter. The United States was humiliated in
1998 when Bennett's successor as drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, went to
Holland and started lecturing the Dutch for letting people smoke pot in
cafes. "The murder rate in Holland is double that in the United States.
The per capita crime rates are much higher than the United States -- that's
drugs."

No, that's ignorance. The murder rate in the United States is four and a
half times that of Holland.

Marijuana may not turn you into a stupid jerk, but becoming drug czar seems
to accomplish the task wonderfully.