[Peace-discuss] vance, on that other war

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Why Don't Conservatives Oppose the War on Drugs?
by Laurence M. Vance, November 24, 2010

The war on drugs is a failure.

According to the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted 
by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: "Drug 
use in the United States increased in 2009, reversing downward trends 
since 2002. " There was a spike in the number of Americans admitting to 
using marijuana, ecstasy, and methamphetamine.

Yet, no matter how much it costs to wage the federal drug war (more than 
$41 billion according to a just-released Cato Institute study), 
conservatives generally support it. I know of no prominent conservative 
who publicly calls for drug legalization. I know of no Republican 
candidate in the recent election (outside of Ron Paul) who has ever 
publicly voiced his support for the decriminalization of drug 
possession. Republicans in Congress --- by an overwhelming majority --- 
have even criminalized the purchase of over-the-counter allergy-relief 
products like Sudafed because they contain pseudoephedrine.

Negative arguments about how the war on drugs ruins lives, erodes civil 
liberties, and destroys financial privacy are unpersuasive to most 
conservatives. None of these things matter to the typical conservative 
because they, like most Americans of any political persuasion, see using 
drugs for recreational use as immoral.

The hypocrisy of conservatives who support the war on drugs but not the 
prohibition of alcohol should be readily apparent. But aside from a 
small minority of conservative religious people that long for the days 
of Prohibition, conservatives generally don't support making the 
drinking of alcohol a crime even though alcohol is a factor in many 
accidents, crimes, and premature deaths. So why is getting high on drugs 
treated differently from getting high on alcohol?

The reason conservatives should oppose the war on drugs is a simple one 
that has nothing to do with positive, negative, or financial arguments. 
Drug prohibition by the federal government is simply unconstitutional. 
Conservatives claim to revere the Constitution. They regularly lambaste 
judges for being activists and not strict constitutionalists. In the 
"Pledge to America" they released a few weeks before the recent 
election, House Republicans promised to "honor the Constitution as 
constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those 
precepts that have been consistently ignored --- particularly the Tenth 
Amendment. "

In article I, section 8, of the Constitution, there are eighteen 
specific powers granted to Congress. We call these the enumerated 
powers. Everything else is reserved to the states --- with or without 
the Tenth Amendment. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the federal 
government to concern itself with the nature and quantity of any 
substance Americans inhale or otherwise take into their body. Nowhere 
does the Constitution authorize the federal government to prohibit drug 
manufacture, sale, or use. Nowhere does the Constitution authorize the 
federal government to ban anything. When the Progressives wanted the 
United States government to ban alcohol, they realized that an amendment 
to the Constitution was needed.

Drug prohibition is likewise incompatible with private property, 
individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and limited 
government --- things that conservatives claim to believe in. What 
happened to the conservative emphasis on families, churches, private 
charities, and faith-based organizations solving problems instead of 
looking to the federal government to solve them?

But if conservatives want a war on drugs or any other personal freedom, 
then from a constitutional standpoint it is at the state level that they 
must wage their war. From a libertarian standpoint, state (or local) 
attempts to prohibit or to tax and/or regulate drugs are likewise 
attacks on property and freedom. But from a constitutional perspective, 
conservatives should be just as against a federal war on drugs as 
libertarians are.

So, if conservatives want to be both constitutional and consistent, they 
would have to say that there should be no National Drug Control 
Strategy, no National Survey on Drug Use and Health, and no Domestic 
Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program. They would have to say that 
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the 
Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Drug Enforcement 
Administration should all be abolished. And they would have to say that 
the Controlled Substances Act, Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and 
Control Act, and Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act should all be 
repealed.

Although I would vehemently oppose their war on drugs at the state and 
local level, conservatives could do abolish all those federal agencies 
while at the same time waging a relentless war on drugs --- and all vice 
--- at the state and local levels.

Who do conservatives, who profess to revere individual liberty, free 
markets, private property, limited government, and the Constitution 
continue to support the war on drugs?

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