{"id":184494,"date":"2010-01-15T04:35:37","date_gmt":"2010-01-15T09:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nw0.eu\/2010\/01\/15\/the-drug-war-vs-the-bill-of-rights.html"},"modified":"2010-01-15T04:35:37","modified_gmt":"2010-01-15T09:35:37","slug":"the-drug-war-vs-the-bill-of-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/184494","title":{"rendered":"The Drug War vs. the Bill of Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

Anthony Gregory
\nCampaign For Liberty<\/a>
\nThursday, January 14th, 2010<\/p>\n

This is from Ludwig von Mises\u2019s economic masterpiece, Human Action, written sixty years ago in 1949:<\/p>\n

\n

The problems involved in direct government interference
\nwith consumption. . . concern the fundamental issues of human life and
\nsocial organization. If it is true that government derives its
\nauthority from God and is entrusted by Providence to act as the
\nguardian of the ignorant and stupid populace, then it is certainly its
\ntask to regiment every aspect of the subject\u2019s conduct. The
\nGod-sent ruler knows better what is good for his wards than they do
\nthemselves. It is his duty to guard them against the harm they would
\ninflict upon themselves if left alone.<\/p>\n

Self-styled \u201crealistic\u201d people fail to recognize the
\nimmense importance of the principles implied. They contend that they do
\nnot want to deal with the matter from what, they say, is a philosophic
\nand academic point of view. Their approach is, they argue, exclusively
\nguided by practical considerations. . . .<\/p>\n

However, the case is not so simple as that. Opium and morphine are
\ncertainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is
\nadmitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual
\nagainst his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced
\nagainst further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor
\nof the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the
\ngovernment\u2019s benevolent providence to the protection of the
\nindividual\u2019s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his
\nmind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not
\nprevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking
\nat bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief
\ndone by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the
\nindividual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.<\/p>\n

These fears are not merely imaginary specters terrifying secluded
\ndoctrinaires. It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient
\nor modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects\u2019 minds,
\nbeliefs, and opinions. If one abolishes man\u2019s freedom to
\ndetermine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away. The
\nna\u00efve advocates of government interference with consumption delude
\nthemselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the
\nphilosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support the case
\nof censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the persecution
\nof dissenters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Radicalism on the drug issue is often seen in terms of the politics
\nof the 1960s and since, but twenty years before Woodstock, one of the
\nmost serious and significant thinkers ever to ponder the importance of
\nhuman liberty said all this, going far beyond what most critics of drug
\npolicy would say today.<\/p>\n

But is Mises correct? Does he overstate his case? Is the abolition
\nof the right to consume whatever someone wants really taking all his
\nfreedom away? And does drug prohibition really send us on the path to
\ncensorship and religious persecution?<\/p>\n

In America, our liberties our ostensibly protected by the U.S.
\nConstitution and particularly the Bill of Rights. How much has the drug
\nwar compromised our Constitutional rights? Let us consider a countdown,
\nstarting with the Tenth Amendment and moving to First.<\/p>\n

The Tenth Amendment<\/strong> says \u201cThe powers not
\ndelegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
\nit to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
\npeople.\u201d This effectively means that if the Constitution does not
\ngrant the power to the federal government over something, then it is
\nfor the states and people to decide. Some people here would say this is
\nthe most important amendment. If the federal government obeyed it, the
\nentire drug war as we know it would be impossible.<\/p>\n

In 1909, Hamilton Wright, U.S. official to the Shanghai Opium
\nCommission, complained that the Constitution was \u201cconstantly
\ngetting in the way\u201d of his drug war ambitions. Indeed, in
\ndomestic politics, there is no Constitutional authorization for a
\nfederal drug war whatever. Without a grant of power, the U.S.
\ngovernment is supposed to butt out.<\/p>\n

In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed the Harrison Narcotic Act into law.
\nThere was no constitutional basis for this, but at least by the time
\nalcohol prohibition came around, it was recognized that the federal
\ngovernment would need constitutional authority to ban liquor. They
\npassed the 18th Amendment and repealed the disaster of alcohol
\nprohibition with the 21st amendment.<\/p>\n

By 1937, however, there was no more such deference to Constitutional
\nprocedure. That year, Franklin Roosevelt signed the Marijuana Tax Act
\ninto law, effectively banning marijuana at the federal level. All the
\nmajor federal drug laws since then had no Constitutional basis, and all
\nof them seemed to come with general expansions of federal power. Just
\nas Wilson\u2019s ban on heroin and regulation of cocaine came during
\nthe activist Progressive Era and marijuana prohibition was part of
\nFDR\u2019s New Deal, the next major wave of federal drug law came in
\nthe 1960s, during the Great Society, and culminated in the 1970
\nControlled Substances Act just as Nixon was continuing LBJ\u2019s
\npolicies of guns and butter.<\/p>\n

This relates to the medical marijuana debates since the 1990s. When
\nstates began allowing medicinal pot, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
\nboth cracked down on their dispensaries, and many advocates of
\nstates\u2019 rights decried this violation of federalism. A case went
\nto the Supreme Court on 10th Amendment grounds and all the liberals on
\nthe court, all favoring a federal government with few limits on its
\npower, upheld Bush\u2019s raids. Three conservatives dissented,
\nincluding Clarence Thomas, arguing that the federal government had no
\nauthority through the commerce clause to interfere with
\nCalifornia\u2019s medical marijuana policy.<\/p>\n

If Obama indeed stops the medical marijuana raids, it will probably
\nnot be because, as his spokesman says, he believes \u201cthat federal
\nresources should not be used to circumvent state laws.\u201d On
\ngeneral questions of policy, including the drug war, Obama and most
\nliberals favor federal supremacy. If California goes through with
\nlegalizing marijuana outright, will Obama really do nothing about it?
\nWill the administration actually find ways to crack down on medical
\nmarijuana while claiming the operations it\u2019s targeting are not
\nfor medical use \u2014 as it has done before? Is it possible that
\nObama, not believing in the constitutional principles at stake, will
\naccelerate other aspects of the drug war?<\/p>\n

The Tenth Amendment alone invalidates the federal drug war, and so too does the next one down.<\/p>\n

The Ninth Amendment<\/strong> says \u201cThe enumeration in
\nthe Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
\ndisparage others retained by the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

This means that just because a personal right is not specifically
\nmentioned does not mean the federal government can infringe upon it.
\nCertainly the rights to use and sell drugs are being attacked in this
\nvery way.<\/p>\n

And in moral terms, this is what the drug war means. It is the
\ndenial of self-ownership. Someone who can\u2019t decide what to put in
\nhimself does not own himself. The logic of the drug war is that the
\ngovernment owns you.<\/p>\n

We look at all the rights trampled in the name of the drug war and
\nwe see how all rights are connected. People are denied the right to
\nself-medicate and take the treatment they desire. Not just in regard to
\nillegal drugs either, but those that are regulated.<\/p>\n

The Food and Drug Administration is tied at the hip to the Drug
\nEnforcement Administration. The pharmaceutical interests who control
\nfederal prescription drug policy have a stake in maintaining a control
\non what drugs people can do. The FDA, by keeping life-saving drugs off
\nthe market, has forced tens and tens of thousand Americans to die
\nprematurely. Mary Ruwart puts the number in the millions.<\/p>\n

What would amuse me if it were not tragic is that so many liberals
\ndefend the FDA even as they question the drug war. But if you have a
\nright to do drugs to get high, you surely also have a right to do any
\ndrug that you think might save your life. Medical freedom in its true
\nsense is totally impossible without drug freedom.<\/p>\n

Because of the drug war, the right to travel is impeded, and the
\nright to have and transfer money. Laws against money laundering \u2014
\nitself a victimless crime \u2014 have sprung up almost entirely
\nbecause of the drug war. And anyone who believes that the right to
\npractice free enterprise is important and guaranteed by the Ninth
\nAmendment must necessarily oppose the drug war, which violates free
\nmarket principles in a million ways.<\/p>\n

Next on our list is the Eighth Amendment, which guarantees that
\n\u201cExcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
\nimposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well surely any punishment is cruel for a victimless crime.
\nConservatives might say this is a liberal reading of the Amendment. But
\nat the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, prisons as we know them
\nhardly existed, and the notion of imprisoning someone for ten years for
\ngrowing hemp, on which the Constitution was drafted, would have been
\nseen as quite cruel and quite unusual. In the 1970s and 1980s, Congress
\npassed mandatory minimum laws which reduce the discretion of judges in
\nhanding out sentences \u2014 almost all such federally determined
\nsentences are for drugs or guns.<\/p>\n

The average sentence in federal prison for drug trafficking is
\nlonger than for sexual abuse. The burgeoning prison state is one of the
\nmost horrifying features of modern American history, with the drug war
\nplaying a huge part. About one in four or five Americans prisoners are
\nthere for non-violent drug offenses \u2014 acts that were totally
\nlegal in the nineteenth century. Before Reagan stepped up the drug war,
\nthere were half a million Americans in prison or jail, and another 1.5
\nmillion on parole or probation. There are now more than two million
\nbehind bars and seven million total in the correctional system. Prisons
\ngrew by 500 percent from 1982 to 2000 in my state of California.<\/p>\n

One out of four or five prisoners are there for drugs alone. And for
\ntheir non-crime, they are sentenced to a personal totalitarianism: Gang
\nviolence, an alarming frequency of prison rape, beatings and sometimes
\ndeath. Americans by the hundreds of thousands who have never raised a
\nfinger against anyone are in constant fear of being abused and turned
\ninto slaves by their cellmates. How any American can think this is in
\nany way consistent with civilized society boggles the mind.<\/p>\n

Bail is often ridiculously high for drug war victims \u2014 $1
\nmillion or more. The advent of asset forfeiture \u2014 whereby the
\ngovernment confiscates your property and essentially accuses it of
\nbeing guilty of a civil offense \u2014 has become an effective way to
\ncircumvent the \u201cexcessive fines\u201d clause.<\/p>\n

What about the Seventh Amendment? It reads: \u201cIn suits at
\ncommon law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
\nthe right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a
\njury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States,
\nthan according to the rules of the common law.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mentioned civil asset forfeiture. It is important to recognize
\nthat there is no criminal hearing for the vast majority of forfeiture
\nvictims. The property is seized through civil litigation. But since the
\nproperty itself, and not the owner, is on trial, the Bill of Rights
\noffers no protection. There\u2019s no right to a trial. If a person
\nwants to reclaim his confiscated property, he must ask for a trial. If
\nthe court rules that the property be returned, the government can ask
\nfor another one, or merely make return of the property contingent upon
\nthe victim paying tens of thousands of dollars in fines.<\/p>\n

You might be a charter pilot who has his plane taken as part of a
\ndrug investigation, and be unable to pay the six grand to get your
\nplane back after being bankrupted by the legal system. This happened to
\nBilly Munnerlyn in the early 1990s. You could be the wrong color or
\nhave the wrong amount of cash on you and lose it all to confiscators
\nwho get to keep a cut of what they steal.<\/p>\n

One point of the Seventh Amendment was to protect the rights of
\nAmericans to sue government officials for wrongdoing, and have a fair
\ntrial \u2014 not the type of mock trial the Founders saw used by the
\nBritish Crown to let their officials off easy. The drug war has turned
\nthis entire idea on its head. Now the government can just take your
\nproperty without charging you and all you can do is hope that it lets
\nyou make your case in a fixed sham proceeding that you are innocent.<\/p>\n

The Sixth Amendment reads, \u201cIn all criminal prosecutions, the
\naccused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an
\nimpartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have
\nbeen committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained
\nby law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation;
\nto be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
\nprocess for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
\nAssistance of Counsel for his defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

For standard crimes like murder, theft, rape and the like, it is
\nperhaps possible to have trials reasonably available to every suspect.
\nBut there are simply too many drug offenders for this and no victims to
\nserve as reliable witnesses. So the standard of evidence has been
\nlowered to the point where the mere existence of enough cash and a
\ncop\u2019s say-so is enough to convict.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, defense attorneys are often burdened with a
\nhundred clients at once, so they must prioritize and leave those who
\nare fated to only a year in prison to lesser hearings. Some judges have
\neven refused to assign public defenders in drug cases.<\/p>\n

A dangerous alternative to the trial system is the \u201cdrug
\ncourt,\u201d wrongly touted by some reformers, including the Obama
\nadministration. In Obama and Biden\u2019s \u201cBlueprint for
\nChange\u201d they propose to \u201cExpand Use of Drug Courts\u201d
\nto \u201cgive first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve
\ntheir sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation
\nprograms that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing
\nbad behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Morris Hoffman, a state trial judge in Denver and an adjunct
\nprofessor of law at the University of Colorado, warned at the USA Today
\nblog in October last year:<\/p>\n

\n

[It’s] not just that drug courts don\u2019t work, or
\ndon\u2019t work well. They have the perverse effect of sending more
\ndrug defendants to prison, because their poor treatment results get
\nswamped by an increase in the number of drug arrests. By virtue of a
\nphenomenon social scientists call \u201cnet-widening,\u201d the very
\nexistence of drug courts stimulates drug arrests.<\/p>\n

Police are no longer arresting criminals, they are trolling for
\npatients. Denver\u2019s drug arrests almost tripled in the two years
\nafter we began our drug court. At the end of those two years, we were
\nsending almost twice the number of drug defendants to prison than we
\ndid before drug court.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Attempting to win the drug war, even in a more progressive sense, is
\nthus no substitute for abandoning it altogether. The only change I can
\nbelieve we\u2019ll see under Obama is more erosion of the Sixth
\nAmendment.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re just getting started. The Fifth Amendment states:
\n\u201cNo person shall be. . . subject for the same offense to be twice
\nput in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal
\ncase to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty,
\nor property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be
\ntaken for public use, without just compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mandatory drug testing can be seen as self-incrimination, as soon as
\nthe results are used in criminal prosecution. Civil asset forfeiture
\nhas allowed for the deprivation of life and liberty without due
\nprocess, and also for the effective phenomenon of double jeopardy, as
\npeople are punished both in the civil and criminal systems.<\/p>\n

The Psychotropic Substances Act of 1978 expanded the use of
\nforfeiture to include any property connected to the drug crime in any
\nmanner. An early 1990s study estimated that 80% of people who lost
\ntheir property to civil asset forfeiture were never charged with a
\ncrime.<\/p>\n

We often hear of money being confiscated for drug residue, which can
\nbe found on over 90% of the cash in circulation. We hear of people
\nlosing their homes, cars, boats and businesses because of the presence
\nof marijuana seeds. The drive to get loot, some of which police get to
\npersonally keep, has even led to some deaths, as was the case with
\nDonald Scott, a California rancher gunned down because bureaucrats
\nwanted to seize his land on which they claimed they found some seeds.
\nMichael Bradbury, the Ventura County DA, said that the police raid was
\n\u201cmotivated at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the
\nranch for the government\u2026 [The] search warrant became Donald
\nScott\u2019s death warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shouldn\u2019t even have to discuss how the Fourth Amendment has been compromised.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right of the people to be secure in their persons,
\nhouses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
\nseizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
\nprobable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
\ndescribing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be
\nseized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where to begin? Warrants have become a mere bureaucratic
\ntechnicality, rubberstamped or often neglected altogether in the
\npursuit of drug offenders. No-knock raids have become a commonplace in
\nmodern American life. 92-year-old women are murdered and have drugs
\nplanted on them. Men who shoot no-knock invaders are sentenced to
\ndeath, and if they\u2019re lucky, have their sentences reduced to life
\n\u2014 this happened to Cory Maye in Mississippi. Children are shot in
\nthe back. Family pets are killed by laughing officers as they break
\ninto homes searching for drugs.<\/p>\n

With a real crime, it is often possible to have an \u201cOath or
\naffirmation\u201d backing the warrant, which can actually
\n\u201cdescribe the persons or things to be seized.\u201d In a murder
\ncase, a warrant can describe a bloody knife. Drug war warrants are
\ntypically too vague to pass constitutional muster. Mere suspicion that
\nsome law is being broken is often enough.<\/p>\n

The courts have ruled that if the government tries to arrest you
\nwhen you\u2019re in public, and you escape into your home, they can
\nnow search the home without a warrant. As for automobiles, drug war
\nroadblocks have erased the Fourth Amendment concerning cars, which are
\nnow treated as the property of the state.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court recently ruled that police may prevent people from
\nentering their own homes while the police apply for a warrant. These
\nabuses are often glorified on television as the necessary implements to
\ncatch vicious criminals, but they originated with, and are principally
\nused for, the war on drugs.<\/p>\n

Americans tend to look at the Third Amendment as an anachronism.
\n\u201cNo Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house,
\nwithout the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner
\nto be prescribed by law.\u201d Surely this hasn\u2019t been touched
\nby prohibition, has it?<\/p>\n

Even by a very narrow reading, I believe it has. In one instance, in
\n1997, 40 members of the Army National Guard moved into the Las Palmas
\nHousing Project in Puerto Rico to search for drugs. Years later, there
\nwere hundreds there.<\/p>\n

More broadly, the entire spirit of the Third Amendment has been
\ntrounced. The point of the amendment was to prevent the abuses seen
\nwith the British Quartering Act, to protect Americans from having to
\nquarter soldiers \u2014 to support them, even financially \u2014
\nexcept at wartime when and through legal means. But all around us, we
\nhave seen the police militarized in the name of the drug war.<\/p>\n

Some conservatives objected when Bush modified the insurrection act
\nand amassed more presidential power to call up the National Guard on
\nhis own say-so. But this trend began before 9\/11. In a hearing on the
\ndrug war in 1994, then Congressman Chuck Schumer said, \u201cThe
\nNational Guard is a powerful, ready-made fighting force. Redefining its
\nrole in the post Cold War era presents exciting possibilities in the
\nwar against crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also troubling have been the attempts to weaken Posse Comitatus,
\nwhich since Reconstruction has forbade the use of the military in
\ncivilian law enforcement. But before the war on terrorism, there was
\nthe drug-war loophole. In the 1980s, Posse Comitatus was amended to
\nallow for military-police cooperation in drug interdiction. Whereas the
\nmilitary was understood to be inappropriate for the enforcement of
\nfederal civil rights during Reconstruction, it was supposedly okay for
\nthe drug war. This precedent culminated in the largest massacre of
\nAmerican civilians by their own government since Wounded Knee.<\/p>\n

Why was the military involved in Waco sixteen years ago? Because the
\ngovernment decided to treat their upcoming publicity-stunt raid as a
\ndrug measure. They claimed the Branch Davidians had a meth lab.
\nThat\u2019s how they got the warrant and military involved.
\nThat\u2019s how they got the military weapons. It was only later that
\nthe excuse shifted to child abuse or illegal gun ownership.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the Second Amendment. One of the terrible
\ntragedies of our time is that more people do not understand the
\nconnection between the drug war and gun rights.<\/p>\n

As soon as violating people\u2019s rights to find drugs became
\nexcusable, the crusade against private gun ownership got a big boost.
\nBoth concern the ownership of inanimate objects. As wars on possession
\ncrimes, both government crusades rely on the same kinds of dirty
\ntactics, the punishment of minor offenders with disproportionately long
\nsentences as a deterrent, the erosion of due process, privacy and the
\nrights of the accused.<\/p>\n

The relationship between the drug war and violent crime has been
\ndocumented. The spike in violent crime following prohibition has
\ntraditionally led to more severe enforcement of gun laws. Both gun
\ncontrol and the drug war lead to violent black markets, and thus more
\nstate power in a spiraling vicious cycle of mutual reinforcement.<\/p>\n

It was, after all, the bootlegging gangs that emerged out of alcohol
\nprohibition that served as the inspiration for the first major federal
\ngun law: The National Firearms Act of 1934. A year after the Marijuana
\nTax Act of 1937, the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 passed on a similarly
\nused an abusive interpretation of the Commerce Clause.<\/p>\n

Moreover, just as with terrorism, the two issues became linked in
\nlaw enforcement. Federal law mandates additional penalties if drug
\ndealers are caught in mere possession of a firearm. Nobody wants to
\nstick up for the rights of drug dealers to keep and bear arms. But so
\nlong as they are violating no one\u2019s rights, they should be left
\nin peace. There are many legitimate reasons, from a moral perspective,
\nthat a dealer would want to defend himself.<\/p>\n

Many non-violent drug convicts are automatically denied the right to
\nbear arms. This is a serious and grave attack on the human rights of
\ndrug convicts who have already paid a debt to society that they
\ndidn\u2019t even owe.<\/p>\n

The lesson is clear: If you want your right to self-defense protected, you must oppose drug prohibition.<\/p>\n

Last but not least is the First Amendment, which states
\n\u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
\nreligion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
\nfreedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
\npeaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
\ngrievances.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, politicians have wanted to censor us, using the drug war
\nas an excuse. Probably the most notable example was Senators Feinstein
\nand Hatch\u2019s proposed Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act,
\nwhich in its original language would have outlawed speech that
\nadvocated drug use or production and cracked down on websites that
\nmerely linked to sites that sold drug paraphernalia. Then there is the
\nmore general chilling effect of students being harassed in public
\nschools for outwardly advocating drug use or legalization.<\/p>\n

Here in New Hampshire, Ian Freeman has been threatened with criminal penalties for the act of advocating drug possession.<\/p>\n

As for religious liberty, American Indians have long used
\nhallucinogens as religious rites, and have risked penalties under
\nfederal law for the peaceful exercise of religion. This brings us to a
\nfundamental incompatibility between the First Amendment and the drug
\nwar.<\/p>\n

Under the American Indian Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1994,
\nAmerican Indians can use peyote because it is part of their religion.
\nBut if something is peaceful, anyone should be allowed to do it,
\nwhether it is recognized by the government as religious or not. For
\npeyote users to be jailed because they do not believe in its spiritual
\ndimension is a de facto official government endorsement and granted
\nprivilege for some religious groups. If it can conceivably be allowed
\nfor the religious, it must constitutionally be allowed to everyone. Yet
\nfor peyote users to be jailed despite their religion is a violation of
\ntheir religious liberty. The only way to reconcile religious liberty
\nwith federal drug law is to abolish it altogether.<\/p>\n

Thus we see that Ludwig von Mises was hardly off the mark. The
\nentire Bill of Rights has been shredded in the drug war. In
\nConstitutional terms, \u201cIf one abolishes man\u2019s freedom to
\ndetermine his own consumption,\u201d one does indeed \u201ctake all
\nfreedoms away.\u201d With even the precious First Amendment battered,
\nMises was right that the drug warriors \u201cunwittingly support the
\ncase of censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the
\npersecution of dissenters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The alternative, say the drug warriors, would be worse. They persist
\nin their claims that we are utopians and unrealistic. But it is their
\nvision of a drug-free America that is unrealistic. America\u2019s
\nprisons are constantly monitored and prisoners have very little of what
\nwe would call civil liberty, yet drugs flow throughout the system.
\nAmerica itself could become one big drug prison and their vision would
\nbe no closer to being obtained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Book Mark it-><\/b> del.icio.us<\/a> | Reddit<\/a> | Slashdot<\/a> | Digg<\/a> | Facebook<\/a> | Technorati<\/a> | Google<\/a> | StumbleUpon<\/a> | Window Live<\/a> | Tailrank<\/a> | Furl<\/a> | Netscape<\/a> | Yahoo<\/a> | BlinkList<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Gregory Campaign For Liberty Thursday, January 14th, 2010 This is from Ludwig von Mises\u2019s economic masterpiece, Human Action, written sixty years ago in 1949: The problems involved in direct government interference with consumption. . . concern the fundamental issues of human life and social organization. If it is true that government derives its authority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2604,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2604"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}