GUNS AND GROW-OPS: CONSERVATIVES SHOULD BE CONSISTENT

It's time to re-examine their views about the prohibition on
mind-altering drugs

Tom Flanagan From Monday's Globe and Mail

Why are people so intense about the long-gun registry, a reporter
asked me not long ago. There's no real evidence that it has diminished
the incidence of violent crime, and Stephen Harper's government has
passed orders-in-council to take away coercive enforcement, so why do
Canadians care so much about the debate if the practical result is
inconsequential? The answer, I think, is that the debate reveals a
fundamental difference between liberal and conservative world views.
Liberals tend to be progressives who believe in the malleability of
human nature. In their view, human behaviour is shaped by
environmental circumstances, which, in turn, can be controlled, or at
least affected, by government policy. Conservatives, in contrast, tend
to think of human nature as relatively stable, either created by God
or resulting from evolution, and therefore not easily subject to
environmental manipulation or government control.

These different starting points lead to different conclusions about
gun crime. A liberal's reaction is to reduce crime by taking away
guns, while a conservative's response is to deter potential offenders
by punishing criminal gun users. The two sides talk past each other,
choosing evidence to support their entrenched views. With fundamental
commitments at stake, the temperature of the debate rises as the
talking continues.

While I believe the conservative view on gun crime is closer to the
truth than the liberal view, I also think conservatives should be more
consistent, and re-examine their views about an issue that is more
important than the long-gun registry - prohibition of mind-altering
drugs.

Curiously, prohibition of drugs, at least in Canada, began as an
initiative of Liberal politicians. Opium was criminalized in 1908,
when Mackenzie King was deputy minister of labour, serving Wilfrid
Laurier's government. Marijuana was added to the list in 1923, when
King was prime minister. The logic was the same as that of gun control
- - if people misuse something (guns, drugs), change the environment by
taking away the object.

Prohibition of drugs was part of the broader progressive agenda of the
early 20th century, including prohibition of alcohol, political rights
for women, eugenics, nationalization of utilities, and proportional
representation. It represented the triumph of the new "positive"
state, at a time when conservatives were still enamoured of Victorian
gentlemen such as Sherlock Holmes, who carried a pistol when he needed
it and injected cocaine when he wanted to.

Over time, conservatives have become enthusiastic champions of drug
prohibition, while liberals and other leftists are starting to move
on. The critics have done us all a favour by pointing out the enormous
damage caused by prohibition: corruption, criminality and even civil
war in drug-producing countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan; an
increase in property crime, as the high price of illegal drugs leads
users to pay for their habit by stealing; the growth of organized
crime and outlaw gangs running the illegal drug industry along with
associated sidelines such as smuggling and money-laundering. The
prohibition of drugs doesn't work any better than the prohibition of
alcohol; drugs are now just as widely available as was alcohol before
the repeal of that prohibition; and, like the prohibition of alcohol,
prohibition of drugs is doomed to repeal in the long run.

Some prominent Canadian conservatives, such as former Fraser Institute
president Michael Walker, Conservative MP Scott Reid, legal writer
Karen Selick and financial journalist Terence Corcoran, have led the
way in decrying drug prohibition, but their position has to become
more appreciated within the conservative movement. Conservatives need
to see that the war on drugs, like the gun registry, is profoundly
incompatible with their basic values. Prohibition leads to
hypertrophic growth of the state's security and surveillance
apparatus, arbitrary searches and seizure of property, pointless
criminalization of innocent activities, and growth of genuine
criminality as a spinoff from the trade in forbidden drugs.

Unfortunately, Canada cannot act alone on this front. As long as the
United States pursues its war on drugs, our policy cannot drift too
far toward legalization lest it disrupt travel and trade across the
border. Imagine American border guards searching Canadian travellers
as diligently for legalized B.C. bud as they now search for Israeli
oranges. But U.S. criminal law is mainly a matter of state
jurisdiction, and some states are starting to relax their prohibition
of marijuana. Instead of intensifying our own war on drugs, Canada
should be prepared to move in that direction, within the limits of
practicality.