Pubdate: Mon, 01 Apr 2013
Source: Kansas State Collegian (KS Edu)
Copyright: 2013 Ian Huyett
Contact:  http://kstatecollegian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2850
Author: Ian Huyett
Note: Ian Huyett is a senior in political science and anthropology

DRUG PROHIBITION LAWS AIMLESS, DEFY COMMON SENSE

I've enjoyed debating about public policy for nearly half as long as
I've been alive. During that time, I've had impassioned and engaging
arguments about almost every conceivable political issue. The War on
Drugs, however, is an exception. Frankly, the topic is kind of boring.

Nearly everyone in America learned about the prohibition of alcohol
during their middle school history class and/or from watching mob
films. We all know it was a calamitous failure that made the problem
enormously worse at everyone's expense. As John D. Rockefeller Jr.
wrote in 1932, "a vast army of lawbreakers has been recruited and
financed on a colossal scale."

Consequently, after a few minutes of conversation, I find that most
people reluctantly admit they can see no reason to treat drugs
differently. When someone does persist in defending drug prohibition,
they often say something like, "I see what you're saying, but it just
feels wrong."

Moreover, supporters of drug prohibition will rarely say they want to
ban tobacco, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
calls "the single most preventable cause of disease, disability, and
death in the United States." When your only real opponents don't even
pretend to be consistent in their non-argument, the subject gets
pretty dull.

On any other major topic, I can name a public figure with whom I
strongly disagree yet nonetheless consider clever and eloquent. I
don't imagine that anyone, however, has ever heard a clever or
eloquent defense of drug prohibition.

Even if the column opposite mine makes an extraordinary case for drug
laws, the reason these laws persist is not that we've all been
consciously persuaded of their efficacy. Rather, our trusting
character assumes that there is rhyme and reason where none actually
exists. Drug prohibition is, to borrow a phrase from the cult film
"Cube," "a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master
plan."

Earlier this month, New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in the
national spotlight after a judge struck down his proposed ban on
super-sized sugary drinks. According to a March 2012 CBS New York
article, the judge said the regulation was both "capricious" and
"arbitrary." Although Americans likely tend to agree, we're every bit
as capricious and arbitrary concerning our drug policy.

We all know that super-sized sugary drinks are bad for us, but the
notion that politicians should be babysitting us by taking them away
is transparently absurd. This doesn't stop us, however, from spending
copious amounts of money locking up adults to protect them from their
own mistakes.

Likewise, though most people are appalled at the notion of cigarettes
falling into the hands of small children, we do not think this is
grounds for a federal ban on cigarettes. It's only when we talk about
illegal drugs, which kill fewer people, that this argument magically
begins to apply.

When I argue in favor of decreasing the role of the government, I
often find that my opponents imagine that I'm idealistically espousing
a set of principles and ignoring practical results. In my view, the
opposite is true. My desire for personal liberty is grounded in a
recognition that man is imperfectible.

There will always be drug abusers. It's not possible for politicians
to change that and I wouldn't trust them with the power to do so if it
were. Those who imagine that a benevolent government will one day
preside over 300 million drug-free Americans have a ludicrous utopian
vision. Like the temperance movement of the 1920s, their goals are so
impossible that they are dangerous.

There is, however, one important difference between 1920s alcohol
prohibition and drug laws today: we cannot accuse those who banned
alcohol of ignoring history.

Ian Huyett is a senior in political science and anthropology.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D