XPost: alt.politics.republicans, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns XPost: alt.politics.marijuana
alm.
What are rightist druggies going to do without free crackpipes?
For decades, the U.S. debate over drug legalization has pitted
conservatives on one side against libertarians and some liberals on the
other. A few conservatives have publicly opposed the drug war (e.g.,
National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.), but most conservatives
either endorse it or sidestep the issue.
Yet vigorous opposition to the drug war should be a no-?brainer for conservatives. Legalization would not only promote specific policy
objectives that are near and dear to conservative hearts, it is also
consistent with core principles that conservatives endorse in other
contexts.
Legalization would be beneficial in key aspects of the war on terror. Afghanistan is the world leader in opium production, and this trade is
highly lucrative because U.S.-led prohibition drives the market
underground. The Taliban then earns substantial income by protecting opium farmers and traffickers from law enforcement in exchange for a share of
the profits. U.S. eradication of opium fields also drives the hearts and
minds of Afghan farmers away from the U.S. and toward the Taliban.
[V]igorous opposition to the drug war should be a no-?brainer for conservatives.
Legalization could also aid the war on terror by freeing immigration and
other border control resources to target terrorists and WMD rather than
the illegal drug trade. Under prohibition, moreover, terrorists piggyback
on the smuggling networks established by drug lords and more easily hide
in a sea of underground, cross-?border trafficking.
Legalizing drugs would support conservative opposition to gun control.
High violence rates in the U.S., and especially in Mexico, are due in part
to prohibition, which drives markets underground and leads to violent resolution of disputes. With the reduced violence that would result from legalization, advocates of gun control would find it harder to scare the electorate into restrictive gun laws.
Legalization could ease conservative concerns over illegal immigration.
The wage differences between the United States and Latin America are a
major cause of the flow of illegal immigrants to the U.S., but an
exacerbating factor is the violence created by drug prohibition in Mexico
and other Latin American countries. With lower violence rates under legalization, fewer residents of these countries would seek to immigrate
in the first place.
Beyond these specific issues, legalization is consistent with broad conservative principles.
Prohibition is fiscally irresponsible. Its key goal is reduced drug use,
yet repeated studies find minimal impact on drug use. My just-?released
Cato Institute study shows that prohibition entails government expenditure
of more than $41 billion a year. At the same time, the government misses
out on about $47 billion in tax revenues that could be collected from
legalized drugs. The budgetary windfall from legalization would hardly
solve the country’s fiscal woes. Nevertheless, losing $88 billion in a
program that fails to attain its stated goal should be anathema to conservatives.
Drug prohibition is hard to reconcile with constitutionally limited
government. The Constitution gives the federal government a few expressly enumerated powers, with all others reserved to the states (or to the
people) under the 10th Amendment. None of the enumerated powers authorizes Congress to outlaw specific products, only to regulate interstate
commerce. Thus, laws regulating interstate trade in drugs might pass constitutional muster, but outright bans cannot. Indeed, when the United
States wanted to outlaw alcohol, it passed the 18th Amendment. The country
has never adopted such constitutional authorization for drug prohibition.
Drug prohibition is hopelessly inconsistent with allegiance to free
markets, which should mean that businesses can sell whatever products they wish, even if the products could be dangerous. Prohibition is similarly inconsistent with individual responsibility, which holds that individuals
can consume what they want — even if such behavior seems unwise — so long
as these actions do not harm others.
Yes, drugs can harm innocent third parties, but so can — and do — alcohol,
cars and many other legal products. Consistency demands treating drugs
like these other goods, which means keeping them legal while punishing irresponsible use, such as driving under the influence.
Legalization would take drug control out government’s incompetent hands
and place it with churches, medical professionals, coaches, friends and families. These are precisely the private institutions whose virtues conservatives extol in other areas.
By supporting the legalization of drugs, conservatives might even help themselves at the ballot box. Many voters find the conservative
combination of policies confusing at best, inconsistent and hypocritical
at worst. Because drug prohibition is utterly out of step with the rest of
the conservative agenda, abandoning it is a natural way to win the hearts
and minds of these voters.
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