>>> Part 15 of 15...
productive, and reducing the drain on scarce medical resources.  The
incongruity of these positions is mystifying, and so is the willingness
of conservatives, in order to protect people from their own folly, to
impose huge costs in death, disease, crime, corruption, and destruction
of civil liberties upon others who are entirely innocent: people who do
not partake of forbidden drugs.
Newt Gingrich, Charles Murray, and other conservatives are rightly
concerned about the absence of fathers in the homes of so many of
America's youngsters.  Where are those fathers?  At least half a
million are in prison, often for nothing worse than possessing drugs.
- Countless conservatives revere the right to one's property.  Yet
many conservatives support drug forfeiture as gladly as liberals.
Congress has made a criminal prosecution unnecessary for persons with
property who are associated (even if indirectly) with illicit drugs.
An apartment house may be forfeited if a tenant grows a marijuana plant
in his bathroom.  A grandmother's home may be forfeited if a grandson
hides drugs in the basement which he sells to his friends.  The Supreme
Court has said that there are constitutional limits on forfeitures, but
it has yet to find any.  With the notable exception of Congressman
Henry Hyde (see his book, Forfeiting Our Property Rights), most
legislators are unconcerned about drawing a line.
- Many conservatives strongly support schemes to "devolve" matters from
the Federal Government to state and local governments.  Yet there does
not appear to be a single conservative politician in America who
applies this principle to drug prohibition.  The mystery deepens when
we remember that this is precisely the way we handled alcohol
prohibition.  When we repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, we didn't
declare that all forms of alcohol distribution were beyond the reach of
prohibition; in the Twenty-First Amendment, we simply let each state
decide how it wanted to handle alcohol.  Some remained dry.  Many
devolved the issue to cities and counties, some of which have elected
to maintain prohibition to this very day.  Judge Sweet and others make
a powerful case for applying this approach to other drugs in addition
to alcohol.  Why hasn't any conservative in elective office at least
suggested that it be considered?
The only benefit to America in maintaining prohibition is the psychic
comfort we derive from having a permanent scapegoat.  But why did we
have to pick an enemy the warring against which is so self-destructive?
We would be better off blaming our ills on celestial invaders flying
about in saucers.
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