ILLOGICAL DRUG LAWS ARE THE REAL FORM OF ABUSE

Governor Johnson of New Mexico is to be commended for stating publicly
what an increasing number of citizens recognise: the Drug War has been
a miserable failure and new approaches must be considered.

But critics and astute observers of this failure have routinely
pointed to the scandalous level of imprisonment, the continuing high
level of drug use, the ease with which drugs can be bought by school
children, the abuse to the Bill of Rights, the violence on the
streets, etc., to justify their accusation.

True, all these are significant signs of failure, and very
disagreeable and threatening symptoms to be sure.

But the inability or unwillingness of even the astute to see and write
about the greatest and most fundamental failure of drug prohibition is
what worries me.

If this failure had taken another form, concerned with some other
unsafe activity, the Constitutional scholars and conservative thinkers
would be writing devastating OPED pieces in the nation's leading
newspapers every single day.

The fundamental failure of which I speak is that drug prohibition has
criminalized a conscientiously-dissenting minority.

It has not merely restricted that minority to practice their whim only
at certain times, places, and frequencies (which might be justified in
the public interest), but criminalized them outright.

The penalties more severe than for major crimes against complaining
victims such as manslaughter, rape, arson, armed robbery, etc.

What if obese persons were imprisoned for indulging their whim, and
all fattening foods prohibited to everyone because this sizeable
minority of abusers would hurt not only themselves, but their
families, communities, and nation with their addictive behavior?

Reuters News Service in a Sept 16 report, noted that "Obesity costs
the United States $238 billion a year in expenses from its associated
diseases such as diabetes, stroke and heart disease, [and this does
not] include the costs of treating obesity itself, which affects more
than 22 percent of Americans."

This figure is far above what press releases keep telling us illicit
drug use costs the nation.

Wouldn't it be prudent to concentrate our prohibitionist efforts where
they would do the most good?

The answer to this obviously absurd proposal is, of course, that in a
free society people unquestionably have the right to ingest whatever
foods they desire, even to excess and even if it kills them and
disadvantages their families, even if it is immoral, and even if their
abuse is considered detestable by the majority and costs the non-obese
taxpayer a fortune in health care benefits.

Need I extend the analogy further to illustrate the immense absurdity
of drug prohibition?

It would be easy to do so.

In a free society, the rights of autonomy are inevitably dependent on
the principle that members of minorities should be protected from the
tyranny of the majority.

The greatest failing of drug prohibition is not its excesses and
stupidities, but that large numbers of citizens, a sizeable minority,
have been criminalized for activities which they honesty believe are
their own business and within their rights.

This belief is in every sense as valid as that of an obese
"food-abuser" whose right to his chosen vice would raise a wide storm
of protest were it denied.

When any policy goes beyond mere regulation to criminalize a
conscientiously-dissenting minority, that policy is by its very
nature, not merely its application, not only a failure but a
repudiation of the founding principles of liberty and justice common
to all true democracies.

It is in the refusal to recognise the truth of this maxim and
re-orient drug policy accordingly that the most fundamental failure of
prohibitionism lies.

To quote a good conservative:

"The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other
people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do
that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are
things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such
things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own
liberties threatened.

This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of
the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly.

If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints
that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is
being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will
often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which
there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.

- --Hailsham, the former Lord Chief Justice of England from his book,
"The Dilemma of Democracy"