[THS] Conservatism and Opposition to the Drug War Should Go Hand in Hand

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

Pubdate: Wed, 29 Sep 2010
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Page: A23, the OP-ED page
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Jeffrey A. Miron
Note: Jeffrey A. Miron is a senior lecturer and director of 
undergraduate studies at Harvard University and a senior fellow at 
the Cato Institute. Miron is the author of "Libertarianism, from A to 
Z" and blogs at jeffreymiron.com.
Referenced: Professor Miron's Cato Institute study 
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/DrugProhibitionWP.pdf

COMMON CAUSE

Conservatism and Opposition to the Drug War Should Go Hand in Hand.

For decades, the U.S. debate over drug legalization has pitted 
conservatives on one side against libertarians and some liberals on 
the other. A few conservatives have publicly opposed the drug war 
(e.g., National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr.), but most 
conservatives either endorse it or sidestep the issue.

Yet vigorous opposition to the drug war should be a no-brainer for 
conservatives. Legalization would not only promote specific policy 
objectives that are near and dear to conservative hearts, it is also 
consistent with core principles that conservatives endorse in other contexts.

Legalization would be beneficial in key aspects of the war on terror. 
Afghanistan is the world leader in opium production, and this trade 
is highly lucrative because U.S.-led prohibition drives the market 
underground. The Taliban then earns substantial income by protecting 
opium farmers and traffickers from law enforcement in exchange for a 
share of the profits. U.S. eradication of opium fields also drives 
the hearts and minds of Afghan farmers away from the U.S. and toward 
the Taliban.

Legalization could also aid the war on terror by freeing immigration 
and other border control resources to target terrorists and WMD 
rather than the illegal drug trade. Under prohibition, moreover, 
terrorists piggyback on the smuggling networks established by drug 
lords and more easily hide in a sea of underground, cross-border trafficking.

Legalizing drugs would support conservative opposition to gun 
control. High violence rates in the U.S., and especially in Mexico, 
are due in part to prohibition, which drives markets underground and 
leads to violent resolution of disputes. With the reduced violence 
that would result from legalization, advocates of gun control would 
find it harder to scare the electorate into restrictive gun laws.

Legalization could ease conservative concerns over illegal 
immigration. The wage differences between the United States and Latin 
America are a major cause of the flow of illegal immigrants to the 
U.S., but an exacerbating factor is the violence created by drug 
prohibition in Mexico and other Latin American countries. With lower 
violence rates under legalization, fewer residents of these countries 
would seek to immigrate in the first place.

Beyond these specific issues, legalization is consistent with broad 
conservative principles.

Prohibition is fiscally irresponsible. Its key goal is reduced drug 
use, yet repeated studies find minimal impact on drug use. My 
just-released Cato Institute study shows that prohibition entails 
government expenditure of more than $41 billion a year. At the same 
time, the government misses out on about $47 billion in tax revenues 
that could be collected from legalized drugs. The budgetary windfall 
from legalization would hardly solve the country's fiscal woes. 
Nevertheless, losing $88 billion in a program that fails to attain 
its stated goal should be anathema to conservatives.

Drug prohibition is hard to reconcile with constitutionally limited 
government. The Constitution gives the federal government a few 
expressly enumerated powers, with all others reserved to the states 
(or to the people) under the 10th Amendment. None of the enumerated 
powers authorizes Congress to outlaw specific products, only to 
regulate interstate commerce. Thus, laws regulating interstate trade 
in drugs might pass constitutional muster, but outright bans cannot. 
Indeed, when the United States wanted to outlaw alcohol, it passed 
the 18th Amendment. The country has never adopted such constitutional 
authorization for drug prohibition.

Drug prohibition is hopelessly inconsistent with allegiance to free 
markets, which should mean that businesses can sell whatever products 
they wish, even if the products could be dangerous. Prohibition is 
similarly inconsistent with individual responsibility, which holds 
that individuals can consume what they want - even if such behavior 
seems unwise - so long as these actions do not harm others.

Yes, drugs can harm innocent third parties, but so can - and do - 
alcohol, cars and many other legal products. Consistency demands 
treating drugs like these other goods, which means keeping them legal 
while punishing irresponsible use, such as driving under the influence.

Legalization would take drug control out government's incompetent 
hands and place it with churches, medical professionals, coaches, 
friends and families. These are precisely the private institutions 
whose virtues conservatives extol in other areas.

By supporting the legalization of drugs, conservatives might even 
help themselves at the ballot box. Many voters find the conservative 
combination of policies confusing at best, inconsistent and 
hypocritical at worst. Because drug prohibition is utterly out of 
step with the rest of the conservative agenda, abandoning it is a 
natural way to win the hearts and minds of these voters.
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