The Bush administration may be in the process of revolutionising America’s foreign policy but, on the domestic front, it seems like business as usual:
The Bush administration, pressing its campaign against state medical marijuana laws, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let federal authorities punish California doctors who recommend pot to their patients.
The administration would revoke the federal prescription licenses of doctors who tell their patients marijuana would help them, a prerequisite for obtaining the drug under the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law.
And, of course, his predecessor was no better:
Contending that the drug has no medical value, the Clinton administration announced in January 1997 that doctors who recommended marijuana would lose their licenses to prescribe federally regulated narcotics. Doctors in many fields need federal licenses to remain in practice.
Proof that, regardless of who is sitting in the hot-seat, the absurd and insane ‘war on drugs’ just has to go on and on and on.
[My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame who posted this article to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
Outside View: Drug war double standards
By Paul Armentano
A UPI Outside view commentary
WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) — Allegations in Rolling Stone magazine that Jenna and Barbara Bush enjoy an occasional toke should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the proclivities of 21-year-olds, especially those as notoriously predisposed to partying as the “first twins”….
I think the most shameful thing about the US Government’s war on drugs was the way it cut the number of illicit drug users from 24.3 million in 1979 to 11.4 million in 1992. Absolutely evil!
Peter,
Well, where do I begin with that Daily Mail-esque rubbish?
Who qualifies as an ‘illicit drug user’? Those figures were produced by who, precisely?
Seems like the lefties are not the only ones who massage statistics for political ends.
Surely Peter meant to write “dealers” not “users”…
Still dunno how they’d count them. And the drop sounds implausible.
The US Department of Justice reckons daily marijuana use among college students up from 29% to 34% between 1990 and 2000. That’s an awful lot of permanently stoned graduates to release into the general population. Maybe it accounts for the dot-com bubble.
Peter,
use of “hard” drugs declined because less young people wanted them, not because of some policy. Making a big noise about some issue and then taking credit if it gets better by itself is one of the oldest political tricks in the book.
BTW, the Bush Administration has cancelled military aid to Colombia because it supports thr ICC. It’s ceartainly too much to hope that it’ll stay cancelled, but it would be a good thing.
Peter Cuthbertson:
“US Government’s war on drugs…cut the number of illicit drug users from 24.3 million in 1979 to 11.4 million in 1992.”
From libbo Xtian Joel Miller’s drug war/culture column on WorldNetDaily:
“According to a national drug survey, between 1979 and 1992, the most intense period of antidrug efforts, the rate of illegal drug use dropped by more than half,” writes [drug tzar] Bennett, then questioning, “Why is this record described as a failure?”
Easy. Those numbers are bunk.
Every year, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration conducts the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse to estimate the use of illegal drugs and monitor trends in their use over time.
The survey, in which randomly selected households are asked to answer a questionnaire about whether or not they’ve recently used any illicit drugs, has one obvious flaw — one which amazingly few people have bothered to highlight and one which anyone with a college data-analysis or stat class should know: You can’t ask people honest questions about their illicit behavior and expect honest answers.” Read the rest
If there’s any truth in those statistics, how curious it is that they should coincide with a changing social climate that saw the rise of the religious right, weariness at the excesses of the 70s and increasing popularity of a wonderful new drug called money.
They’ll be saying society is governed by culture rather than politicians next!
Me:
They’ll be saying society is governed by culture rather than politicians next!
For the record I think legalising all drugs in the present social climate would be a disaster.
Certainly, Big Government’s Big Drug War hoovers up money, centralises power and chews up civil liberties. For the moral health of the nation, this needs to stop. The problem is that preciminalisation drugs were legal in the context of a culture of quite greater self restraint and personal responsibility.
The social drug war appears to have collapsed as the political one has gone into overdrive. The bulk of healthy, sustainable morality and order comes from culture not law. Law is only there to mop the dregs.
This is not how the system is working at the moment, and however well intentioned changes in drugs law are futile within this cultural status quo. Of course, how likely is this tochange when politicians persist in considering every new and revised law to be “sending a message to society”?
Aldous Huxley had a good quote:
“Unless there is a mass movement towards self help and decentralisation, I fear the rise of statism is inevitable.”
Kit says:
“well intentioned changes in drugs law are futile within this cultural status quo.”
Meaning presumably: since the cultural status quo isn’t what I would like it to be, we must use coercion via the law to correct it.
That’s unacceptable. You change the culture by using persuation, not coercion – unless you are a socialist.
So Dubya’s not a libertarian. Is anyone here really surprised at that?
I will remind you all that an overwhelming majority of the country — in the neighborhood of 85% by the surveys I’ve seen — strongly supports the War on Drugs and wants to see it intensified. You simply cannot expect any politician in a democracy to go against that strong a tide of sentiment. At least, not until he’s the lamest of lame ducks.
The problem is stiff. People are justifiably horrified at the effects of intoxicants on people who use them without discipline. You must convince them, not their elected representatives and executives, that the Drug War is a mistake — and you must do it without flicking their horror of drugs on the raw.
The relentless concentration on the issue of drug prohibition is a big part of what’s marginalized the Libertarian Party in the United States, and has deeded it over to a band of fringies who can’t even run a decent newsletter.
Francis:
Of course you are right – the question of how to persuade the masses that the War on Drugs is a stupid cruel wasteful nonsense is a hard question of strategy for libertarians in the same way that trying to persuade the masses that “free” State Education is a disaster is a hard question.
But the responses in this thread are not directed at “the masses”. They are directed at Peter Cuthbertson’s spurious statistics and his implication that the War is justified on the basis of such statistics.
Also, even if Peter’s statistics were true, how would that justify the War? No doubt the number of drinkers fell during Prohibition. Does that mean that Prohibition was justified?
And to think that I was vaguely contemplating voting Tory in the next election. What was I thinking?!
Cydonia
Kit: well intentioned changes in drugs law are futile within this cultural status quo.”
Jacob: Meaning presumably: since the cultural status quo isn’t what I would like it to be, we must use coercion via the law to correct it. That’s unacceptable. You change the culture by using persuation, not coercion – unless you are a socialist.
Kit: Please don’t misunderstand. My point is that a self governing society requiries a kind of, um, “social fabric” that needs to be generated from within itself. It is society, through the mechanism of culture, that needs to change society. There’s not a lot politicians can do to help this along except get out of the way. Things like phasing out political control over how individual public schools spend money and teach might be a start.
I’m just irked by the tendency amongst some libertarians to be wishy washy about morality and culture just because such issues are not the domian of the state.
I guess this post highlights the eternal problem with political discussion. People don’t/can’t dissassociate one idea from another, and end up seeing something that isn’t there.
The war on drug is useless and is also a big waste of ressources… I think Canada made a good move since now anyone who is found with marijuana just have to pay an amend instead of going to jail and so ruinind the rest of is live(no way to get a respectable job)… We also made it possible to doctor to prescribe marijuana legally and, if the government don’t turn back, to produce the pot that will be prescribed instead of letting people buy it on the black market(it might also be much less dangerous for the users that way).
With a bit of luck, within 2 or 3 years most americans will see that those change didn’t harmed us at all. I also wich the same for the homosexual marriages… but one nice thing on this one is that americans can come to marry themselve here and that marriage contracted here are legally accepted in the U.S.
My grandfather was a bootlegger. After he lost his farm in the depression, he moved back to the city and began running what was euphamistically called a “roadhouse” a little north of town. My mother tells of the trips he used to make in their model A Ford, with the booze under the front seat, and her sitting next to him, because the cops wouldn’t stop and search a car with a family in it.
I mention this because my gf wasn’t a criminal, he just needed to make a living, and that was the way he found he could do it when there weren’t any jobs.
It was when Prohibition was repealed that many of the basic drug laws were passed, and the enforcement officers from the “booze patrol” switched over to drugs. The rationale, and the effects, are very much the same.
There is an interesting commentary piece in the newspaper on 7-11-03 by Bob Herbert, (try http://www.twincities.com). In it, he laments the self-destructive ethos in the black community, fueled by violence, drugs, and AIDS. There is much more to the column, but what caught my attention was the glaring abscence of any mention of the drug gangs that are very much responsible for the problems he refers to.
Just as Prohibition created the financial base for the organized crime network we’ve all come to know and love from the Godfather and the Sopranos, so to has the “drug war” brought about the rise of the wealthy, and violent, drug gangs found across the country. Since there’s always a depression in the minority community, it is not surprizing to find that some turn to an illegal method of making a living.
Whatever the benefit of reducing drug use, and as a parent I have preached against drugs relentlessly to my own children and their friends, I cannot help but believe the net effect of the Drug War is hugely negative. The violence, prison population, political and law enforcement corruption, disease, all of this and more, is directly related to the illegality of certain forms of intoxification.
The law of unintended consequences has proven itself again, with a vengeance.
I agree with Francis. There are many areas in which Libertarians have a message that could in the right circumstances be very influential. Drugs aint one of those areas. Its a hugely complex and deeply divisive issue and concentrating on it guarantees that you will relegated to the fringes of any debate.
Well Phil, some of us are already on the fringes due to the drug war. For selling LSD once many years ago at a Grateful Dead show, after my 3 months were done, I have been disenfranchised, lost the right to defend myself (firearms), lost the ability to practice most licensed professions, can’t do defense work (although much of my work in computer science would be applicable), can’t join the military, and can be denied housing or employment at will by anyone by dint of no more than being a convicted drug felon.
OF COURSE ‘the voters’ are in favor of continuing the Drug War, it’s victims have been disenfranchised and rendered powerless.
Phil, if you think the drugs issue is divisive & complex, try firearms in the UK. I think you’d find far more people in favour of marijuana legalization than free access to firearms. Does this mean we should not discuss (or promote) private ownership of weapons any more on this site, or in public, as it might marginalise us?
As far as I see it, you should certainly think tactically, but I find it hard to think you should tell anything but the truth about issues which are important. If the truth is hard for people to take, well… keep ramming it down their throats until they understand it. Backing down doesn’t seem like a good option, as then you’re pretty much guaranteed nothing will change. Most new social ideas/movements start off with marginalised individuals, who are scorned/mocked by the majority. If you go down the route of “this issue’s popular, so we’ll concentrate on this” when others seem more pressing, how long before you turn into the present-day tory/labour parties?
Phil,
On the fringes is where the debate actually takes place; the rest is just policy.
It looks to me like progress when this particular fringe area has gone in a couple of decades from being a somewhat lonely, loony, corner of Teepee Valley, to a well-equipped condo shared with several former Chiefs Constable, and lots of serious journalists and academics.