This was the primary reason for the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act. The law served to protect our citizens from military operations ever being directed specifically toward them. With this infrastructure in place, local police were able to act as peace officers, and soldiers had the task of defending national security. But when police were forced to become a kind of occupying military unit in the anti-drug effort, the relationship with the local citizenry suffered immeasurably. It seems that our nation has now become a living example of good intentions gone horribly awry.
People are ready to reexamine previously unassailable subjects.
Caution is, of course, wholly advisable because the consequences of missteps are dire for all of society. But even more compelling is the fact that the public innately senses that the country is standing on the precipice of potential defeat in the drug war, and we could never abide such a loss. Prominent conservatives, including Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, Jr., have proposed legalization. Others, such as Governors George Pataki and Gary Johnson, have advocated reform. During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush expressed a willingness to consider substantial changes.