Libertarian v. Conservative

In Sunday's Opinion Journal column, Musings About the Drug War, George Melloan leaned a bit libertarian with his contemplation of a conservative taboo. The legalization of drugs.

Economist Milton Friedman predicted in Newsweek nearly 34 years ago that Richard Nixon's ambitious "global war against drugs" would be a failure. Much evidence today suggests that he was right. But the war rages on with little mainstream challenge of its basic weapon, prohibition.

We've come to view alcoholism as a disease, but still seem to consider drug addiction a moral failing.  The real failing is the war on drugs, itself.  The sad part is we've been through all this before.  Prohibition was a failure of disastrous proportions, as it provided the business of crime with optimum conditions to grow and prosper.  It was Prohibition that turned organized crime into very big business.  Huge business.  The war on drugs is a failure of even greater proportions because it has lifted the business of crime from merely big business into the arena of national policy in some countries.

As the Journal's Mary O'Grady has written, a good case can be made that U.S.-sponsored efforts to eradicate coca crops in Latin America are winning converts among Latin peasants to the anti-American causes of Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Their friend Evo Morales was just elected president of Bolivia mainly by the peasant following he won by opposing a U.S.-backed coca-eradication program. Colombia's huge cocaine business still thrives despite U.S. combative efforts, supporting, among others, leftist guerrillas.

As the criminal business of drugs enjoys growth and prosperity, so also grows the power of the drug enforcement, both at the expense of personal liberty.  There is strong incentive for continued growth.

The drug war has become costly, with some $50 billion in direct outlays by all levels of government, and much higher indirect costs, such as the expanded prison system to house half a million drug-law offenders and the burdens on the court system.

With a budget of $50 billion you can bet there are a lot of folks who want to keep that gravy train running.  Add to that the immense power vested in drug enforcement through the arbitrary confiscation of property to be used in their fight, and we find we've created a business of fighting the drug war that's nearly as profitable as the drug business itself.

So what's the alternative? An army of government employees now makes a living from the drug laws and has a rather conflictive interest in claiming both that the drug laws are working and that more money is needed. The challenge is issued: Do you favor legalization? In fact, most drugs are legal, including alcohol, tobacco and coffee and the great array of modern, life-saving drugs administered by doctors. To be precise, the question should be do you favor legalization or decriminalization of the sale and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines?

The answer is yes, and not just for the sake of personal liberty.  There is a pragmatic case to be made.  By legalizing drugs and making them available to users on something like a prescription basis we could begin to force the criminal participants out of the business.  It may be that the best we can hope for is to reduce their market share, but that would be an improvement over our current predicament.  By using a prescription-like system, we would also be better able to track drug users and improve the chances that some form of treatment would be applied and that the treatment would be effective. 

With so much evidence before us, proving that free countries are prosperous countries, I should think it would be more widely recognized that people are our most precious resource.  Turning only some people into criminals for the disease of addiction is not only unjust, it's an unwise use of resources.

Comments

[Jack Diederich]

National Review has been anti drug war since forever. It would be fair to say conservatives are split on the drug war and libertarians aren't but it isn't fair to call it a simple conservative vs libertarian issue.

[Tom Bowler]

I don't claim the drug war is a simple issue, but it is one that illustrates the differences between libertarians and conservatives.