Is the Drug War Over?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

The federal government’s new drug czar, R. Gil Kerlikowski, recently told the Wall Street Journal that it’s time to retire the phrase “war on drugs.” He said, “Regardless of how you try to explain to people that it’s a ‘war on drugs’ … people see a war as on them. We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Kerlikowski’s statement motivated the Los Angeles Times to declare in an editorial that “The ‘war on drugs’ is over.”

This hullabaloo brings to mind President Clinton’s famous declaration in 1996 that “the era of big government is over.” It’s been 13 years since that declaration was issued. Did big government in America ever disappear? Of course not. It’s bigger than ever and getting bigger, more powerful, more expensive, and more abusive every day.

The same principle applies to the drug war. Despite any revised non-warrior-like rhetoric, as long as federal and state laws exist that criminalize the possession or distribution of drugs, the effect will be the same regardless of the rhetoric. Federal, state, and local officials will continue to use the drug laws to control, abuse, and harass people.

Law-enforcement agents at the local level love drug laws for the power they give them over other people. Just watch any episode of the television series “Cops” for great examples. Drug laws provide the police with the perfect excuse for harassing and abusing people. Such laws have proven especially useful to racist cops, who long ago learned that they could use drug laws as a legal way to harass and abuse racial minorities.

And it’s not just the local cops who use drug laws to lord it over people. Highway patrolmen often use routine traffic stops as the excuse for drug searches of people’s vehicles, either personally or through the use of drug-sniffing dogs. It’s the same with the federal Border Patrol, whose job was supposed to be looking for illegal aliens but who are notorious for looking for drugs in people’s cars in the hopes of bagging a drug possessor.

And today, one sees drug-sniffing dogs in airports and train stations, whose handlers are hoping to catch somebody in possession of drugs.

And all for what? They’ve been harassing, abusing, controlling, and punishing people for some 40 years with drug enforcement. And they’re no closer to “victory” than they were when President Nixon declared “the war on drugs” in 1969. After all, “victory” would mean that the war would be over, and that would mean no more justification for harassing, abusing, controlling, and ruining people.

Think about what’s happening here. Whether someone is traveling with drugs in his possession or simply sitting in the privacy of his own home with drugs, as long as he isn’t driving under the influence of such drugs or initiating force against another person, why isn’t that entirely his personal business? Why should anyone have to answer to some cop, state trooper, or federal agent for possessing some substance that the politicians don’t approve of?

The drug warriors (or, if you prefer, the advocates of drug laws) would respond, “But drugs are harmful to people.”

Okay, but that begs the question: What business is that of the state? Cigarettes are harmful. So are fried foods. Most everyone would agree that that’s just no business of a cop or a state trooper or a federal agent. People have the moral right to do bad things to themselves, even if everyone else thinks they shouldn’t be doing such things. That’s part of what being free is all about.

When the cops have the power to harass, abuse, arrest, prosecute, and punish people for possessing or ingesting the “wrong” substances, there is no way that people in that society can be considered free. And it makes no difference whether you call such power a “war on drugs” or just “enforcing the drug laws.”

The only way to restore individual liberty to American society is by repealing the drug laws, not by changing the rhetoric of their enforcement.

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