CATO.ORG

In 1988, I wrote to Vice President George Bush, then head of the South Florida Drug Task Force; to Education Secretary William Bennett; to Assistant Secretary of State for Drug Policy Ann Wrobleski; to White House drug policy adviser Dr. Donald I. McDonald; and to the public information directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, General Accounting Office, National Institute of Justice, and National Institute on Drug Abuse. None of these officials was able to cite any study that demonstrated the beneficial effects of drug prohibition when weighed against its costs.[5] The leaders of the war on drugs are apparently unable to defend on rational cost-benefit grounds their 70-year-old policy, which costs nearly $10 billion per year out of pocket, imprisons 75,000 Americans, and fills our cities with violent crime. It would seem that Vernia Brown and many others like her have died for nothing.

Canada has essentially legalized drug use with the gram minimums for criminal prosecution. Isn’t it interesting how all Canadians suddenly went out and became junkies — oh, wait…

Just maybe, now is the right time when our Governments are going to figure out what Scripture always taught — being forced to be good usually makes people want to be bad — while freedom always drives them to seek the longings of their new and good hearts. Addiction is a problem with a broken heart in need of numbing — not a violation of anything but that heart which, yes, clearly was created for so much more.

Perhaps then we could turn the police services loose on the task of dealing with white collar criminals who bilk us out of untold billions every year — you know, the R. Allen Stanfords, the Bernie Madoffs and the CEOs of big residential lending firms that created the financial mess the world is in. Oh, ya, right — I GET IT now.

Ya, let’s push to lock up all the junkies…