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Overnight, the federal government has yanked yet another
right away from the states, which can no longer enforce
their own age requirements on smoking. The Food and Drug
Administration has ordered store clerks to card everyone
under the age of 27 who wants to buy cigarettes, and not to
sell to anyone under the age of 18.

When the announcement was made, some Virginia officials
suggested they wouldn't enforce it. Good instincts. But
it was only a matter of hours before the feds clarified
their position. If the states don't enforce the new regs,
the stores selling the cigarettes will be massively fined,
and the federal government itself will take over
enforcement.

What does this mean? An agent of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) hanging around every
stopandgo to make sure kids don't get a smoke? It was
precisely this sort of usurpation of states' rights the
Constitution was structured to prevent.

Further, just to show how silly this regulation is, it
doesn't apply to cigars and pipe tobacco. Washington seems
to have missed the sudden popularity of cigars among all
ages. Moreover, why is it evil for a 17yearold to puff a
tiny menthol extra light that lasts three minutes but OK to
suck on a thick stogie that lasts 30 minutes? No word yet
on whether the regs apply to cigarette tobacco in its
unrolled form.

Of course, no one really believes this will cut youth
smoking. In fact, the law seems calculated to make
cigarettes even more glamorous. Every puff is a teenage
declaration of independence.

No, the purpose is power, which also provides further
proof (as if we needed any) that the feds no longer trust
the people to govern themselves. That means the federal
government no longer rests on consent. No wonder more and
more people regard the regime as morally illegitimate.

Perhaps this is one reason federal drug education
programs have flopped. As the New Republic documents in
its March 3, 1997, issue, kids subjected to the feds' DARE
program are no more likely to avoid drugs than those who
have escaped it. One study even showed that DARE kids have
a higher rate of drinking for the purpose of getting drunk.
But DARE remains a billion dollar industry your tax
dollars at work. To protect its public image, however,
DARE is good at harassing its critics, attempting to get
academics fired, bombarding skeptical journalists with hate
mail and latenight phone calls, and suppressing studies
that tell the truth.

And what does DARE teach in the public schools? Drugs
are bad, so kids should call the federal government if they
suspect their parents are using illegal drugs. Unbeknownst
to the kids, this means the parents go to jail while the
kids go to foster care (a reallife case). That's
"education," governmentstyle.

The ironies multiply. Mexico's drug czar, long praised
by U.S. officials, was just arrested as a tool of the drug
cartels. We also learn that the father of disgraced former
President Carlos Salinas was a dope dealer. The U.S.
response was swift: to recertify Mexico as a reliable ally
in the war against drugs.

A bit premature perhaps? Mexican commentators have
suggested that we've seen only the tip of the corruption
iceberg. The taint of drug money spreads far and wide
among Mexico's ruling elites just as it does in the
lawenforcement apparatus of some major American cities.
The corruption of prosecutors and police is just one of
many sad results of the drug war.

So let's get this straight. The Clinton administration
doesn't trust the 50 states to keep tobacco out of the
hands of minors, but it does trust foreign politicos with
known drug ties to help us keep lethal, mindaltering
substances out of this country.

There's much handwringing about cynicism toward
government these days. Well, it's going to get worse. The
word on the streets is that the Mexicans have the goods on
the occupant of the White House, or at least enough to have
forced the decision to recertify Mexico.

Call this wild speculation. But bestselling books by
respectable authors have detailed drug links to the
Clintons dating back to their days in Arkansas. If people
believe that may be true, they won't find it hard to
believe that the U.S. government is subject to blackmail
at the highest levels.

Even if these claims are untrue, their very existence
tends to undermine the credibility of the Clinton
administration. That's to the good. The federal
government is not our family. It's not our church. It's
not our community. It's not even our defender. When the
BATF trolls the 7Eleven, it's protecting the regime's
interest, not ours.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. is president of the Ludwig
von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala.