United Liberty
How should libertarians handle the drug question?
Wed, 09/07/2011 - 9:00am | posted by Nick Nottleman
Having only three years or so of libertarian experience, I sometimes find myself in the midst of a learning opportunity. This may well be one of those, but if it spurs some discussion, I am willing to be a martyr.
In the 2008 Presidential election, I was amazed at the intelligence of Bob Barr. I was constantly impressed at the depth of each subject he was asked about. How much basic sense each answer made even though some answers contained a level of sophistication that may have been over the heads of some.
Well, all except for one question.
In an interview with Sean Hannity fairly close to Election Day, Mr. Barr was put on his heels and frankly never recovered. Hannity’s style of attack, which one might term as that of an angry pit bull, didn’t help. That question of course was about the legalization of drugs.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have documented my struggle with this concept, and documented the “light bulb moment” I had - finally understanding that it was part of individual liberty, not to mention the amount of futile spending and creation of powerful underworld figures. It makes sense to me. I agree with it.
However, this question seems to take a serious, if not mortal, toll on all candidates running as small “l” libertarians within the Republican Party. In 2008, it halted what I believe might have been a staggering number of Independents and Republicans willing to vote for the Libertarian Party candidate when the best the Republican Party could offer was John McCain.
My theory is not about this question being asked… it’s going to be asked… but about the available answers. It’s about viable candidates explaining this concept in a thirty second sound bite or a timed answer during a debate that took me weeks, many hours of research and discussion with libertarians, to understand.
Ron Paul and Gary Johnson (especially Governor Johnson) in my opinion offer the only viable solutions to the problems that are plaguing our country. While Paul has gained minimal traction, Johnson is often not even mentioned in the conversation. Its mind boggling that a candidate with the record of Johnson is NOT EVEN in the conversation. Jobs – best. Controlling spending – best. Why is he ignored?
Because of that damn question.
Is there a solution? Honestly, I’m not qualified to answer. My thoughts tend to lean toward “practicality vs. principality.” Or to package it in 30 seconds or less, just to say “It is absolutely time that we as a country review the policy of drug prohibition honestly and fairly. We have to evaluate the monies spent, the successes and the failures equally, and evaluate the incredible level of violence surrounding prohibition.”
If libertarian views continue to be boxed in as “pro-dope” without any opportunity to explain (if not educate) the principle, libertarians will continue to struggle at the polls. The challenge that lies ahead is simple – education on the subject without “slamming it down” anyone’s throat.
If anything, the level minded among us have to come up with a viable plan. One that allows for sensible decisions to be made by a majority at the polls.
I became a member of the LP in ‘91 and finally was able to give (what I consider to be) a cogent answer to the ‘drug question’ in ‘95 and have promoted it in each venue it was discussed.
Pasting it is lazy, but efficient:
Thoughts on the impotency of the “War on Drugs”
Abolishing the prohibition of recreational drug use could be accomplished by Congress.
This could be done with provisions to examine the effects at a five-year point and again after a decade.
If the expected scenario did not develop, the whole morass of drug laws could be automatically reinstalled.
There is little doubt that drug use would initially surge, as did the imbibing of alcohol after the 18th Amendment was repealed, but this surge would fall back once legal drugs became available.
The alcohol prohibition did not work and created a new class of crime and criminals; the suppliers, and the users.
The ‘War on Drugs’ has been equally ineffective and far more damaging than the previously failed attempt to try to legislate some desired behavioral goal.
With the removal of federal laws, the states would have the chance to try their own fruitless ‘war.’
Unfortunately, government typically fails to learn from history.
Decriminalizing alcohol allowed the free market to work and resulted in somewhat effective controls to reduce the accessibility of it to those too young to make informed decisions.
Doing the same with other mind-altering substances would likely bring about similar controls and greatly reduce the horrendous profits in supplying a product that many will buy and use despite the potential for punishment.
Allowing the free market to work, the most prepared of all potential drug sources, the pharmaceutical industry, would introduce products that would have either a reduced tendency to create addicts or possibly even be counter-addictive as are some natural substances such as peyote, which when used to excess, produces a decreasing ‘high’ and eventually, even with increased usage, finally only nausea.
It seems certain that synthetic substances could be endowed with similar characteristics.
Even if one of this new class of drugs caused undesirable side-effects, the manufacturers of these, have street addresses and the courts are always available to punish those who cause damage.
Try that with the current producers of drugs.
This new class of recreational drugs could be licensed and sold through outlets for alcoholic beverages and would, after a period of only a few years, become as inexpensive and harmless as most alcohol usage is today.
It would become a matter of choice whether buyers would choose a case of beer or a card with a few pills on it.
Taking the obscene profits out of the drug trade would rob the cartels, and others currently engaged in illegal trade, of their huge margins and they would be forced to invest their profits in legal, visible industries or get a job.
The temptation to sell (or give ‘samples’) to our youth would no longer be present and the sale of the really damaging natural stuff in our schools would fade with time; when has anyone heard of an arrest for pushing vodka?
With the broad availability of relatively benign, potentially NON-addictive drugs, the current crop of severely dangerous drugs would diminish and eventually disappear completely as they would not be able to compete with the production capacity and the safety of the legally available substances.
The crimes associated with addictions, the burglary of our homes, the robbing of convenience stores, the sale of dangerous drugs to our youth on our streets, the gang wars and accidental murders, would become noise-level events.
We will never get back the wasted billions of dollars spent on this stupid ‘war,’ and the 70,000+ who are employed in it might have to find productive work, but the benefits of abandoning the futile effort to control the behavior of millions far outweigh the negatives of allowing freedom and personal responsibility to flower.
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