".... people's opinions on this issue are so deeply and fervently held that is can be very difficult to persuade them to revisit the evidence dispassionately.
But revisit it we must. We seriously mistake the function of government if we think its job is to regulate bad habits or supplant the role of all those subsidiary bodies in society that have responsibility for forming our moral character. Our misplaced confidence in government has once again had exceedingly unpleasant results.
"A barrage of research and opinion," writes economist Dan Klein, "has pounded [the drug war] for being the cause of increased street crime, gang activity, drug adulteration, police corruption, congested courts and overcrowded jails. Drug prohibition creates a black-market combat zone that society cannot control."
The drug war has wrought particular devastation in minority neighborhoods, as decent parents find themselves consistently undermined when they try to teach good values to their children. When the lucrative profits from black market in drugs make drug dealers the most ostentatiously prosperous sector of society, it is much more difficult for parents to persuade their children to shun those profits and pursue a much less remunerative, if more honorable, line of work. Putting an end to the federal drug war would immediately pull the rug out from under the drug lords who have unleashed a reign of terror over our cities.
...
The conservative economist Thomas Sowell finds the whole thing more utopian than conservative: "What would make still more sense [than the current policy] would be to admit that we are not God, that we cannot live other people's lives or save people who don't want to be saved, and to take the profits out of drugs by decriminalizing them. That is what destroyed the bootleggers' gangs after Prohibition was repealed.
....
What is more, the law cannot make a wicked person virtuous. The law is simply incompetent here. What the law can do is provide the peace and order within which men can conduct their affairs. We ought not to shirk our own responsibility by looking to politicians- who are not exactly known for living beyond more reproach themselves - to carry out so important a function.
When you actually study the beginnings of the federal war on drugs, you uncover a history of lies, bigotry, and ignorance so extensive it will leave you speechless." -Pages 125-127 of The Revolution, A Manifesto
But revisit it we must. We seriously mistake the function of government if we think its job is to regulate bad habits or supplant the role of all those subsidiary bodies in society that have responsibility for forming our moral character. Our misplaced confidence in government has once again had exceedingly unpleasant results.
"A barrage of research and opinion," writes economist Dan Klein, "has pounded [the drug war] for being the cause of increased street crime, gang activity, drug adulteration, police corruption, congested courts and overcrowded jails. Drug prohibition creates a black-market combat zone that society cannot control."
The drug war has wrought particular devastation in minority neighborhoods, as decent parents find themselves consistently undermined when they try to teach good values to their children. When the lucrative profits from black market in drugs make drug dealers the most ostentatiously prosperous sector of society, it is much more difficult for parents to persuade their children to shun those profits and pursue a much less remunerative, if more honorable, line of work. Putting an end to the federal drug war would immediately pull the rug out from under the drug lords who have unleashed a reign of terror over our cities.
...
The conservative economist Thomas Sowell finds the whole thing more utopian than conservative: "What would make still more sense [than the current policy] would be to admit that we are not God, that we cannot live other people's lives or save people who don't want to be saved, and to take the profits out of drugs by decriminalizing them. That is what destroyed the bootleggers' gangs after Prohibition was repealed.
....
What is more, the law cannot make a wicked person virtuous. The law is simply incompetent here. What the law can do is provide the peace and order within which men can conduct their affairs. We ought not to shirk our own responsibility by looking to politicians- who are not exactly known for living beyond more reproach themselves - to carry out so important a function.
When you actually study the beginnings of the federal war on drugs, you uncover a history of lies, bigotry, and ignorance so extensive it will leave you speechless." -Pages 125-127 of The Revolution, A Manifesto
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