MOVING TOWARD ANOTHER POLICE STATE

Since President Nixon declared war on drugs 37 years ago, there has
been a steady slaughter of innocent citizens due to mistaken drug
raids conducted by heavily armed gangs of police amped up on adrenaline.

The latest is the case of a 26-year-old ex-Marine, Jose Guerena, who
had served two tours of duty in Iraq. He was shot to death in his
Tucson home last month during a drug raid by a police SWAT team.

Guerena reacted to the home invasion as many would -- to protect his
family, he reached for his gun. The police shot him multiple times as
his wife and 2-year-old son hid in a closet.

He was left to bleed to death, as police refused to call paramedics
until an hour after the shooting. His gun was found to be set on
safety. He had not fired a round. No illegal drugs were found in his
house.

As of this writing, Pima County law enforcement has have yet to
provide an explanation for this legal homicide.

And, now thanks to a recent Supreme Court ruling, police can conduct
such home invasions without the need of a search warrant. Yes, now if
the drug Gestapo smells or believes it smells marijuana emanating from
your home, it can bust down your door and ransack your house looking
for banned drugs.

Don't resist. Not only might police pump you full of lead, but also
many states have now made it a crime for citizens to resist police
home invasions, even when the police have the wrong address.

In a twisted irony, the same Supreme Court that supports the erosion
of civil rights to conduct the war on drugs, now rules it
unconstitutionally cruel to overcrowd prisons, even though the
overcrowding is due to the war on drugs.

So much real crime is a product of the prohibition on drugs. Limited
law enforcement resources should be focused on protecting the public
from real crime, rather than generating it by criminalizing victimless
personal choices like drug use.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, led by an array of eminent world
leaders, recently condemned the global war on drugs as a costly
failure, and called upon the U.S. and other nations to end it.

If all drugs were legal, what would happen? Would our nation incur
more harm and expense than it does now by foolishly pursuing the
failed policy of prohibition? Would millions of people rush out and
become addicts?

Those who want to use these drugs can get them easily enough already.
Many more who need or want analgesics get the legal variety through
their doctors.

As a society, we might be better off having those who self-medicate
with alcohol switch to THC. I've never seen a belligerent stoner, but
I have seen plenty of belligerent drunks.

Have more of us been hurt by people who sell drugs, or by people who
wrecked our economy by selling bogus mortgages? Why aren't SWAT teams
busting down the doors of Wall Street bankers and ransacking their
homes to find evidence of wrongdoing? If the law, no matter how
questionable, must be honored, why don't we honor our immigration laws
with the same enthusiastic dedication that we enforce our drug laws?

The war on drugs continues because of two reasons -- power and money.
The drug warriors on both sides have a vested interest in keeping
drugs illegal. As with any war, civilians are caught in the crossfire.

But what is most depressing about the war on drugs, and now the war on
terror, is that we are turning our police into thugs and becoming just
another police state. America has always been the fortress of freedom
and now it is effectively a police state.

There is nowhere left to go to escape authoritarian
oppression.