Question 1: To Whom Does the War On Drugs Appeal?

I’ve written a good bit decrying the war against (some) drugs. This is not a rare point-of-view among libertarians. In fact, of the issues that seem to define libertarianism for the mainstream, being pro-drug-legalization is one of them. Still, there remains a relatively vocal group of people who disagree with this view, though I cannot figure out why.

Although it is a relatively rare occurrence, it still galls me when I hear someone lament the (apparently certain) fall of society should recreational drugs be made legal. I would assert that any such suggestion must be based upon equal measures of naïveté and lunacy. First of all, it’s not like drug use is down in the U.S. since the war on drugs began. This is true of both recreational drugs and, more importantly, pharmaceuticals. As I mentioned a while back:

The U.S. market [for OTC pharmaceuticals] in 1998 accounted for 40% of the worldwide market, which was $302 billion. (Certainly the use of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. has not gone down since then.) Americans love drugs! There just happens to be a war against some of the people who use some of the drugs.

Secondly, almost any objective analysis of the drug war shows that fighting it, while debatable in terms of effectiveness, results in a substantial number of casualties even among those who are not involved on either side. Manuel Lora and I noted these effects:

Economically, the drug war causes one commodity, the illegal and supposedly illicit drugs, to be inordinately expensive. This generates disproportionate spending from those who consume this commodity. These people are not “islands” and their spending habits affect those with whom they interact.

In a family where one or the other parent is a drug user, the lifestyle is negatively affected, simply because a vice, a free choice, costs much more than it should. While one could argue that this person could simply change his lifestyle, we are talking here not about the user, but those who do not use whose lives are worse off for no other reason than that the war on (some) drugs skews the market.

Under what logic does it make sense for the state to drive the cost of a high-demand commodity up, while simultaneously increasing the violence surrounding the consumption of that commodity? When the use of that commodity represents what is at worst a victimless crime – wherein one takes part in a personal vice – there is no scenario whereby the moral imperative by which the state supposedly operates can be used to justify violent sanctions against the behavior. Simply put, what you do only to yourself is your business, and can only be so. (Hat tip: Lysander Spooner.) Any attempt to circumvent this moral law can have few outcomes that are not negative. The war on drugs, like alcohol prohibition before it, has had few if any, positive outcomes.

All that said, my contributions to the anti-drug war debate have been minor. Whole books have been dedicated to the fallacies. Paul Armentano profiled one such volume just recently. He pointedly observed, citing Lies, Damned Lies and Drug War Statistics:

Since the [Office of National Drug Control Policy’s] founding in 1989, “trends in drug use, drug treatment, deaths attributed to drug use, emergency-room mentions of drug use, drug availability, drug purity, and drug prices are inconsistent with the goals of [the federal government],” the authors assert. “Yet, during this same time period, funding for the drug war grew tremendously and costs of the drug war expanded as well.”

Money spent on the anti-drug bureaucracy went up while the behavior that bureaucracy supposedly fought – and all that went with it – got worse. Usage: unaffected. Violence: increased. Well, duh. At least 15 years ago, I heard Whoopi Goldberg say it best, “I can go outside right now and yell, ‘I want some drugs!’ and get service in 15 minutes” or words to that effect. The war on drugs ain’t working. It never did. (One might argue that it was never supposed to work, at least not as advertised, but that’s another essay.)

In a bit of irony only possible in a bureaucracy gone tragically off-the-rails, not only is the DEA likely to break into a home and shoot somebody, they are likely to arm a few people (and equip them with PCs) along the way. According to a Forbes.com report, the Drug Enforcement Administration is losing more guns, but fewer laptops, than it did about five years ago. Wait. Does that really say more guns? Apparently DEA agents have always had a tendency to misplace their weapons and “donate” them, but now, it’s worse than it used to be. From the article we find:

The majority of stolen guns had been left in an official’s car, despite a policy prohibiting leaving a weapon unattended in a vehicle. The report cited examples of guns stolen from cars parked outside restaurants, hotels, schools and gyms. Some agents had their guns taken from their cars while they were shopping or getting coffee. One firearm was stolen while the car was at the body shop.

Come on. At the body shop? These front-line drug warriors can’t even safeguard the weapons they are given. Yet they are supposed to stem the flow of drugs? In what alternate universe? The more I read, the more convinced I am of one barely-debatable conclusion: Everyone knows the drug war is a bust. How could they not?

Yet, a SWAT team will probably be breaking down somebody’s door in the inner city this very night, ostensibly protecting the citizenry from the flow of cocaine. (One can only hope they pick the right door, but even that’s a toss up.) After all is said and done, pushers in the very city where these well-armed thugs work won’t even notice a blip in the flow.

Let me begin by saying I’m no fan of Roger Clemens. I’m already on record regarding my thoughts on Barry Bonds and that whole situation. (For the record, I tend to regard Bonds as bit of an insufferable a**hole.) I am no more enamored of Clemens than I was of Bonds. (While we’re on the subject of sports figures, in what parallel reality should Marion Jones be facing jail time for lying to a couple of federal agents about using steroids? Come on people. Give me a hint.)

Sure, Clemens’ over-confidence is partially to blame for his predicament. It was largely his own hubris that led him to this point. I guess he figured he could just rear back and throw high heat at Congress like he had done for most of his baseball career. (Evidently he has lost a few MPH on that fastball, because no one seemed to flinch.)

As far as steroids usage goes, let us be clear on that as well. Major League Baseball spent years not caring about players using steroids. They didn’t care when Jose Canseco and the Bash Brothers were lighting up the scoreboard in Oakland. They didn’t care when McGuire and Sosa were in a homerun race. They didn’t care when Barry Bonds got close to overtaking history. Stevie Wonder could see that and if he missed it, Ray Charles (RIP) could point it out, even now.

All that said, and even as bad as Clemens looked while foaming at the mouth with bluster and hoax at members of Congress, the scenario teaches each of us more about the state than about Roger Clemens.

For instance, this Kabuki Theatre was called a “hearing” but I can’t figure out why. Apparently one can be compelled, via a subpoena, to “testify” before Congress. Before one testifies, he is sworn in, ostensibly to be under oath thereafter. Yet, almost everyone will admit, if asked, that the proceeding is not a court of law. Very few, if any, of the people overseeing the proceedings are practicing lawyers. No jury is empanelled. No judge is present. In the case of the Clemens hearing, no decision was reached, nor was any semblance of one even offered. What was it all for? Please, I need a clue here.

We’re supposed to take the whole scene seriously, yet in the days leading up to the hearing, one of the key witnesses – Clemens himself – actually met with the people tasked with asking the questions, posing for pictures and signing autographs. (No, you can’t make this stuff up.)

The legislature of the United States took up a lot of time, got on TV, and we all might as well have been watching Survivor. Maybe it’s supposed to be consolation that if the Hall of Fame is “the island” Clemens may have been voted off. When did protecting the honor of a private industry like baseball become a key component of government legislation? Never, that’s when. Protecting honor?