From: lhughes@b11.b11.ingr.com (Lawrence Hughes)
Subject: Libertarian View of Drug Problem
Organization: Intergraph Corp. Huntsville, AL
Distribution: hsv
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 18:41:16 GMT

			PROHIBITION REVISITED

		From: Libertarianism in One Lesson

	By: David Bergland, former LP Presidential Candidate

   The use of alcoholic beverages is as old as recorded history. At some times 
and places some people have sought to prevent others from producing, buying,
selling or consuming alcoholic beverages. One such experiment was the period
referred to as "Prohibition" in America from 1920 to 1933. The prohibition
experiment is instructive because it shows so clearly the disastrous results
of attempting to supress peaceful activity with criminal law.

   Possession of an alcoholic beverage does not violate the rights of any other
person. To grow the grapes or grain from which liquor is made does not violate
anyone's rights. To produce alcoholic beverages in a peaceful and honest
manner violates no one's rights. Nor does drinking, buying or selling the
liquor, violate the rights of any other person.

   Libertarians say there is no justification for imposing crimial penalties
on anyone who produces, buys, sells, possesses, or uses any intoxicating 
liquor. This conclusion naturally follows from basic libertarian analysis which
recognizes that people own themselves and have the right to control their own
lives, bodies, and honestly acquired property. People have the right to deal
with each other in a peaceful and honest manner, including the production, use,
and trade of alcoholic liquor. (This does not imply that libertarians say
people should do any of these things. It means only that individual rights
must be respected, and that to impose criminal penalties on people for
exercising their rights in this way is not justified.)

NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES

   What happens when criminal laws penalize people for peaceful activities? The
experiences during Prohibition are a classic example and a lesson for today.

1. *The law does not work.* If people want to engage in a peaceful and honest
activity, they will do it regardless of the law. Prohibition did not effectively
prevent anyone from drinking alcoholic beverages. Today's drug laws do not
prevent people from purchasing whatever drugs they want. Gun control laws do
not prevent anyone who wants one from having a gun. Immigration laws are not
stopping illegal immigrants from coming to the United States.  Laws against
homosexuality do not prevent homosexuals from having the relationships they
desire.

2. *Lives are ruined by making criminals out of peaceful people.* Prohibition
made Americans a nation of criminals. The current laws against drugs,
prostitution, gambling, pornography, etc. have made criminals out of millions
of peaceful Americans who are no threat to anyone. One effect is that people
already labeled as criminal may be willing to engage in other criminal
activity. [Also, passing laws like the Marijuana Prohibition or 55 MPH speed
limits that are obviously arbitrary undermines "reasonable" laws, since it
lowers the confidence of the average citizen in the integrity and fairness
of our legal system. If they passed laws against wearing blue clothing, and
enforced it strictly, how would that make you feel about other laws? - LEH]

3. *The price of the illegal commodity is much higher than it would be in a
competitive market.* The law of supply and demand works in illegal as well as
legal markets. By making a substance illegal, supply is reduced and the 
shortage [not to mention the increased risk - LEH] causes higher prices.
Consider the example from today's illegal drug market. Morphine and heroin are
both opium derivatives, basically the same substance. An amount of morphine
which costs $1.50 in the legal pharmaceutical market is equal to an amount of
heroin that costs $100.00 in the illegal drug market. The difference in price
is due solely to the difference in the law relating to the two opium
derivatives.

4. *Huge profits encourage criminal profiteers.* Because of the high profits
to be made in illegal markets, people willing to engage in crime are attracted
to these illegal markets. Prohibition spawned organized crime. Organized crime
continues to exist supported by illegal markets in drugs, prostitution,
gambling, and pornography.

5. *The existence of illegal markets corrupts the criminal justice system.* To
protect their huge profits, the criminal suppliers buy off police, courts and
jailers in order to escape the effects of the law. Some police become drug
dealers themselves or use their position to steal money and contraband from
the illegal dealers [a practice now made official policy by RICO laws - LEH]
or the evidence lockers. A sick, symbiotic relationship develops between
lawmen and drug dealers. Evidence in a current criminal prosecution against
several Los Angeles County Sheriff Deputies shows a pattern of beatings, filing
false police reports, lying in search warrant affidavits, plating evidence on
suspects and stealing money. Ironically, drug users inside prisons seem to have
no problem getting illegal drugs so long as they have the money to pay for them.
[shouldn't the folks in the legal system stick to their traditional ways of
fleecing the populace for enormous personal gain in probate courts? - LEH]

6. *Law enforcement is more expensive for taxpayer and misdirected as well.*
About one-half of the tax dollars spent for law enforcement and the criminal
justice system is spent on the supression of peaceful activities, i.e. on
"victimless crimes". The courts and prisons are so clogged with drug dealing
or possession cases that judges allow many perpertrators of real crimes such
as assault, robbery and burglary to go free. Police busy harassing drug users
are not available to work on preventing real crime, the kind with victims.

7. *The products and services in illegal markets are of a lower quality than
in legal markets.* During Prohibition, people sometimes became quite ill or
even died from impurities or defects in the liquors they purchased. "Bathtub
gin" was the name for this inferior quality liquor. Today consumers of illegal
drugs, illegal sexual services, or participants in illegal gambling are
jeopardized in a similar manner. In illegal markets, the quality of products
is unknown to the consumer. In legal markets, businesses provide information
about products and services, such as Consumer Reports and other magazines which
rate consumer products. In illegal markets, consumers have no legal protection
against fraud or shoddy products. You cannot complain to the authorities about
being ripped off if what you bought was illegal in the first place.

8. *Competition in illegal markets is based on violence as opposed to offering
the consumer better quality products in honest trade.* Prohibition was known
for its violent gang wars over territories. It is the same today, especially
in the illegal drug markets. Frequently, innocent victims are caught in the
crossfire. Another example is the prostitution market where women are 
victimized by violence and must seek the protection of violent men to stay in
business. Those victimized by violence while engaged in any illegal market
activity cannot seek protection from law enforcement.

9. *Civil liberties suffer as frustrated enforcers tighten the screws.* 
Enforcers turn to entrapment, tax laws and violation of the citizen's
constitutional protection against unlawful and unreasonable search and seizure.
The current "war on drugs" hysteria demostrates this. Peaceful citizens are
harassed on the highways, the high seas and at the border. Everyone's financial
privacy is being destroyed in the search for drug profits. We all face the
prospect of having to submit to periodic urine tests and roadblocks. The police
can seize property without due process of law merely on the claim that it was
purchased with "drug money". The police can stop and search you if you appear
to match a "profile" of drug couriers. Recent court decisions, particularly
those of the Supreme Court, have in effect created a "drug exception" to your
constitutional rights. The armed services are now being used against American
cititzens, putting Americans [quite literally -LEH] at war against themselves.

10. *Relations with foreign countries suffer.* If the demand for contraband
exists in the U.S., foreigners will find ways to supply it. The U.S. government
then puts pressure on foreign governments to crack down on their citizens.
Ultimately, the U.S. military begins operations in those countries to smash
illegal drug suppliers, some of whom invariably turn out to be government
officials, as was the case with Manuel Noriega in Panama. The people in those
countries are given one more reason to despise the U.S. and its people.

DRUG USE AND DRUG LAW HISTORY

   Let us now turn our attention to today's drug laws. For purposes of this
discussion, let us define 'drug' as any substance which, when ingested, has a
short term or long term effect on a person's body or mind. There are thousands
of such substances. Some are legal and available to anyone without government
permission such as caffeine, aspirin, nose drops, etc. Other substances are
legal but available only through regulated pharmacies, usually as medicines
prescribed by licensed physicians to deal with ailments both mental and
physical. Many of these substances escape legal channels and become part of the
illegal drug market. Then there are substances which are completely illegal,
such as marijuana, heroin, cocaine, LSD, PCP, and a variety of other 
manufactured substances.

   Those who advocate strong drug laws typically argue that such laws are
needed to suppress crime associated with drug use. But such arguments have 
cause and effect exactly reversed. The crime associated with drugs is a 
*result* of the criminal law that makes them illegal and generates all of the
results discussed above. Before 1914, there was virtually no limitation or
regulation of drug use. Opium and its derivatives were freely available in a
variety of forms. There were no significant criminal problems or social
problems associated with these substances. Many people used a variety of drugs,
including alcohol, regularly and lived normal productive lives.

   One group of such people, Chinese immigrants in the western part of the 
country, played a role in the passage of drug laws. Many Chinese immigrated in
the latter 19th and early 20th century to the western part of the U.S. where
they worked building railroads and on other jobs. They used opium as their
recreational drug.

   The hard working Chinese were viewed as a threat by the organized labor
movement in America, led at that time by Samuel Gompers. In an effort to
discredit the Chinese and limit their immigration, Gompers and other labor
leaders attacked the use of opium by the Chinese, referring to the hard working
immigrants as the "yellow peril". These racist attacks were a major contributing
factor to the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 which outlawed 
opium and its derivatives.

   In the late 1930s, Congress passed a law against marijuana use and
possession. During Prohibition, a large force of federal law enforcement
officials had developed to deal with the illegal alcoholic beverage industry.
With the end of Prohibition, these law enforcement bureaucrats were looking for
jobs [and of course they were not skilled at anything useful or productive -
LEH]. Some of them chose marijuana (which had never been viewed as a social
problem before) as a potential target. Their propaganda described marijuana as
a great scourge of mankind and they finally succeeded in having it criminalized.
The people seeking to outlaw marijuana were quite willing to engage in the most
outrageous false propaganda to achieve their ends, as anyone who has seen the
film *Reefer Madness* can attest. [I have a copy and will be glad to make a
copy of it for anyone interested - you have to see this one to believe it! LEH]

   Today marijuana is acknowledged as the number one cash crop in several
states in the country. Thousands of ordinary people supplement their earnings
by growing and selling marijuana. Estimates are that between 25 million and 40
million Americans use marijuana from time to time. Of course, the street price
of marijauana would drop dramatically if the market were legal, and the variety
and quality of marijuana would surely increase in response to legal consumer
demand. The marijuana plant, also known as hemp, has been recognized in the
past as of great value for other reasons. It was a primary material used to 
produce rope, it can be used to make a variety of fabrics, and it is a better
raw material for the production of paper than wood. Before marijuana was
criminalized, the U.S. government encouraged farmers to grow it.

DRUG LAWS ENCOURAGE DRUG USE AND EXPERIMENTATION

   Why is it that people who sell alcoholic beverages do not hang around high
schools or junior high schools tyring to interest the youngsters in liquor?
Why is it that we hear so much about illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine,
and heroin on high school campuses?

   What we find is this pattern. A person who is a regular drug user has an
expensive habit. One easy way for him to finance his habit is to develop a
group of customers who buy from him. Such a person thus is motivated to give
free samples to his young friends in order to make regular customers of them.
Further, because under our criminal justice system juveniles are not subject to
the same heavy penalties as adults, drug dealers protect themselves by having
juveniles in their distribution system. Therefore, we can see that because of
the high price of illegal drugs, caused by the fact that the use and possession
of these drugs is a crime, there are natural incentives to increase use of
these drugs throughout society.

   Law enforcement officials admit that they intercept only a small portion of
the illegal drugs. Their activities only increase the price of the substances
and encourage the development of alternative drugs. Some professional athletes
have stated that the increased use of cocain by professional athletes is 
largely attributable to the crack down on amphetamines.

   Experts in the drug area have also said that drugs developed in laboratories
from chemicals, such as LSD, have increased dramatically because of law
enforcement's focus on the better known street drugs. The great risk to users
should be obvious. As law enforcement drives consumers away from well-known
drugs with predictable effects, venturesome drug consumers take greater risks
with their minds and bodies by trying untested and unpredictable substances.

WHAT IF THE DRUG LAWS WERE REPEALED?

   If the drug laws were removed, would Americans all become drug addicts and
our society go down the drain? There is no reason to think so. This frequently
asked question is based on a fallacy; it assumes that people can't currently
get illegal drugs. But remember, the current laws do not work. Anyone willing
to look at the facts realizes that anyone who wants illegal drugs can get them.

   Millions of Americans use alcohol regularly but relatively few are socially
impaired by it. After Prohibition was repealed, alcohol consumption did 
increase, but not significantly, and was not associated with any noticeable
increase in alcoholism or other social problems. Eleven states have essentially
legalized marijuana for personal use. No one has noticed any significant
increase in marijuana use or other social problems in those states as a result.
In fact, marijuana use in America has been declining since 1979, before the
recent "drug war" hysteria. Americans are also using less legal alcohol, as a
result of education and social pressure.

   What positive consequences might we see from repeal of the drug laws?

1. Organized crime would be deprived of about $80 billion per year in illegal
   drug profits.

2. The streets and our homes would be far safer because the drug dealers would
   be gone and their violent turf wars ended.

3. Burglaries, muggings, shoplifting and car theft would plummet as addicts
   would no longer be paying astronomical prices for their drugs and could
   support their low cost habits by working at normal jobs.

4. Good kids will be safe from the hotshot street corner drug dealers as role
   model because he'll be unemployed.

5. Police, courts and jailers could turn their attention to ridding our 
   communities of violent career criminals and billions of law enforcement
   tax dollars would be saved by leaving peaceful drug users alone. Courts
   and prisons would no longer be clogged. There would be plenty of room for
   the real "bad guys".

6. Thousands of peaceful people convicted of illegal drug possession could have
   their names cleared of the stigma of having been labeled criminals and
   return to productive lives in society.

7. Illness and death from use of adulterated drugs would plummet as would the
   transmission of AIDS by intravenous drug users sharing needles.

8. Your right to privacy and your constitutional protection against unreasonable
   search and seizure by overzealous drug warriors could be restored.

9. People with drug abuse problems would be more willing to ask for help and
   those who want to help them would have more resources to do so.

10. More harmonious relationships between Americans and people in other
   countries could develop as U.S. drug warriors end their interventions in
   drug supplying countries.

CONCLUSION

   A libertarian analysis of drug law issues begins with concern for the rights
of the people involved. We must recognize that people have the right to control
their own bodies, which means that they have the right ot decide for themselves
what to eat, drink, breathe, smoke or otherwise ingest [so long as doing these
things do not conflict with other people's real rights - LEH]. And they have
the obligation to take responsibility for the consequences of those decisions.

   The second part of the analysis is to examine the practical effects of
attempting to suppress peaceful and honest activities. Such laws never work.
They do not prevent people from getting what they want. They do cause many
unintended, and disastrous, consequences.

   If we consider all the negative results of attempting to supress peaceful
activities with criminal laws, and if we compare those results to the positive
results to be expected from the repeal of such laws, any reasonable person must
come to the same conclusion: Just as Prohibition was a disaster, so are
criminal laws against drugs, gambling, prostitution, pornography, gun owner-
ship, immigration, or any other kind of peaceful and honest economic activity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Larry "the voice of liberty" Hughes


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