We often hear about wars and conflicts abroad but regrettably pay little attention to a real detrimental war here in the States: the war on drugs. It has been an abysmal failure.
Let’s list a few failures so eloquently written by Laurence Vance: It has failed to prevent drug abuse. It has failed to keep drugs out of the hands of addicts. It has failed to keep drugs away from teenagers. It has failed to reduce the demand for drugs. It has failed to stop the violence associated with drug trafficking. It has failed to help drug addicts get treatment. It has failed to have an impact on the use or availability of most drugs in the United States.
All of these failures are true and well-documented. And over the next few weeks, I’m going to bring the issue close to home, right here in our very own Lafayette County and our narcotics unit. Before I get there, though, I just want to briefly preface this topic with a broader view so you know where I’m coming from.
You know, there isn’t much good that comes from drug usage. Even Ludwig Von Mises correctly noted, “it is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work and enjoyment.” Apply that statement to most any drug.
Yet, we have this tendency to overlook logic for the principle that it is the duty of government to protect the individual from his own foolishness and shenanigans. Once this principle is believed, it certainly makes it difficult to raise serious objections against further intrusions.
I don’t mind the good intentions, but we have shown very little success by giving billions of dollars to a cause whose benefits are far outweighed by its harm. Not to mention worse outcomes of a clogged judicial system, corrupted law enforcement, overpopulated prisons and the disintegration of civil liberties.
Here in Mississippi, our enforcement of drug laws ruins people’s lives — usually over simple nonviolent “offenses.” Our drug enforcement overwhelming negatively affects blacks, and I think the NAACP should be up in arms about the rate at which blacks are incarcerated due to these federal policies.
There are stories of tragedy due to drug usage. I understand lives have and will be ruined over it. But far more families and lives are ruined by drug prohibition.
When it comes to our bad habits and vices, the state only can use compulsion and force in attempting to eradicate them. Instead we should enable the principles of tolerance and persuasion. For if we are truly free, we must be able to endure our neighbors’ acts and behaviors that are contrary to what we pronounce proper, without yelling for police intervention and compulsion. If you fail to convince someone to change their ways by the soundness of your ideas, you should not look to the state to do it for you; instead, you should question your own capabilities. While you attempt to question those, I’ll continue to write my next articles on drug policies and their negative effects. I just hope you’ll find them persuasive.
Cory Ferraez is a third-year law student from Columbus.
