DRUG WAR HAD TO FAIL

The war on drugs is a complete failure because it's based on false premises.

A drug-free society is almost certainly not possible or even desirable.
This leads to such incredible spectacles as Bill "Two Pack a Day" Bennett
as drug Czar. (Enforcing ideological purity is easier if you're not too
sensitive to hypocrisy.)

Corporate America spends $70,000 for each positive drug test. Since only
about 1 in 20 drug users actually have a problem likely to affect their job
performance, it's costing $1,400,000 to identify each problem drug user. Of
course, they're easy to spot without the test. They're the ones screwing up
on the job.

Drug paranoia is a very expensive habit.

Our Constitution is based on the philosophy of inalienable individual
rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our
government exists to serve a sovereign people.

Since the war on drugs is predicated on the exact opposite philosophy, that
the people exist to serve government, which has absolute authority to
dictate our life styles, whether we're happy or not, it's impossible to
enforce drug laws without trashing the Constitution, particularly the Bill
of Rights.

First Amendment: No priest has ever been arrested for consuming wine in any
"dry" state or county, or during prohibition. Rastafarians and Native
Americans should be so privileged.

Second Amendment: Given how testy some peasants get when their betters kick
down the doors to their filthy hovels, slam their faces against the wall,
and force them at gun point to "make the correct choices in life," it would
be better all around if only noblemen were allowed to possess weapons. Not
that the gentry don't do drugs, they do. They just don't inhale and nobody
kicks their doors down.

Forth Amendment: This doesn't exist anymore. If a cop wants to search you
or your car he will. He can always swear later he saw you drop a suspicious
packet of paper. If he wants to search your house he can just fill out a
perjured affidavit and find a friendly judge to rubber stamp the warrant.
There need not be any citizen complaint or witness. The whole thing is
internally generated.

Fifth Amendment: Civil forfeiture now allows the government to steal
without so much as a nod to due process. It also makes law enforcement a
profit-sharing partner in the drug trade.

Police now spend a much smaller percentage of their time responding to
criminal complaints filed by victims. Setting up drug deals is more
lucrative. Besides, if the police arrest the burglar right away, they have
to return your property. If they don't take any action till he sells your
property and buys drugs they get to keep the cash. So what do you think
they're doing? At least you know if your house is burglarized, whether it's
a cop looking for drugs (or guns) or an addict looking for money to buy
drugs, he works for the government, and the proceeds are ending up in the
police department's budget one way or another. We now define a crooked cop
as one who doesn't share what he steals with the entire department.

Like everyone else in the drug trade, your government's in it for the
money.

Sixth Amendment: It's tough to hire a lawyer after the government
confiscates all your assets.

Eighth Amendment: If you don't think 10 years for smoking marijuana rather
than drinking beer isn't "cruel and unusual", whatever you're taking is a
lot worse for the brain than whatever you're condemning.

Fourteenth Amendment: Ah, equal protection under the law.

That's where six guys can be involved in a drug deal, five are cops and one
goes to jail. Our new social philosophy forces us to argue that the
Constitution doesn't really apply to the government. Of course, this
ridiculous premise leaves us with the little problem of trying to figure
out what in the world it does apply to.

Doesn't it?