Carte Blanche: Drugs As A Precursor To Liberty
“Our country will someday change to a materially different drug policy. I do not know when, and I do not know to what; but there will definitely be a substantive change.” - Judge James P. Gray, Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs
That very day has come. The recent election resulted in the legalization of marijuana in Montana, South Dakota, Arizona, and New Jersey. Even more impressive, Oregon voted to decriminalize all drugs and D.C. to decriminalize psychedelics.
Power to the people. I salute the majority in these states for voting to expand personal liberty and transfer responsibility to the individual. While some may have voted simply to smoke a joint without the cops on their backs - if so, right on, others had more profound logic behind their decision.
For many, their decision derives from a topic of national conversation: police brutality, racism, and criminal justice reform. Throughout this battle and call for change, people have begun to realize more laws equate to more abuse.
A 2018 Washington Post article explores how marijuana arrests in New York City, despite equal usage between black and white people, disproportionately target African Americans in the community. Another recent article highlights how police use marijuana enforcement as an apparatus for greater oppression.
Paul Sukerberg, a D.C. defense lawyer is quoted in the article. He explains, “They can use the odor of burning marijuana or street sales to pat people down for weapons or check for outstanding warrants… they try to turn people into involuntary informants or state witnesses.” Despite these obvious attacks on civil liberties, cries of “well, it’s illegal!” have shut down any chance of constructive conversation with opponents of marijuana and drug policy reform.
No wonder, despite accounting for just 13.4% of the U.S. population, African Americans made up 27% of those arrested in 2017 for drug law violations. Equally shocking, a 2018 U.S. Sentencing Commission Datafile shows that Hispanics made up 48.2% of drug offenses.
The costs of these numbers are almost immeasurable. Beyond the immoral action of caging a human life for a victimless crime, now hundreds of families have continued on without a father or mother, doomed to perpetuate a cycle of poverty and desperation. Not to mention, the economic costs of continuing drug prohibition. Cato Institute estimates that through large decreases in drug enforcement and increases in tax revenue (taxing the drugs), drug legalization could potentially yield $106.7 billion for the state. Therefore, drug legalization or decriminalization could concomitantly keep government barons out of our pockets (for now at least).
The public has had it. This is not a partisan issue. Republicans, Democrats, third parties, and independents alike can’t ignore the numbers. A June 2020 poll conducted by Public Agenda and USA Today showed that only 7% of Americans want law enforcement to stay the same, 58% agree racial bias by police is an issue in their community, and only 4% favor police officers retaining their positions after using excessive force. Unique to the poll, an embedded question revealed that a slight majority of Americans would trust an independent citizen-led oversight committee over police or other known entities to address the issue of unfair treatment of Black or African Americans by police.
So what’s the solution? Strip officers of the power to act on their arbitrary whims. How? Make more things legal. The less laws police officers have to enforce, the less power they are given to decide who they will or will not target, and the less leverage they have to use victimless crimes as a justification for doing as they please.
This also doesn’t mean that people can or should do whatever they please. I do believe that most people who vote to legalize or decriminalize drugs understand that. Just because it is legal to drink alcohol doesn’t mean it’s legal to drive while intoxicated or to steal while drunk, it just means someone can’t be fined or locked in a cage for the simple act of consuming alcohol.
In drug policy, the government has let us down. It has locked us in cages, created barriers to rehabilitation, and has forced our pasts to forever haunt us. The United States government should have one function: protecting individual liberty and property. Legalizing or decriminalizing drugs forces the government to stay in that lane, and finally, people are on board.
What’s more fascinating about this movement is the number of conservatives and Republicans who support the measure. Republicans have been notorious for halting pro-marijuana legislation, until now. For example, South Dakota, a very Republican state, became the first state to vote to simultaneously legalize medical and recreational marijuana.
Why the sudden change? There’s a number of reasons Republicans voted this way, but among my conservative friends, a sentiment very similar to their thoughts on gun laws is evoked: people are going to get it anyway. Why perpetuate, they ask, a cycle that financially rewards narco-traffickers and excuses them from liability of their product? By opening the drug market, the government can play its original role and protect the individual.
Libertarians have waited for the masses to come to this conclusion. Ron Paul covers most of this in his 1988 campaign speech (skip to 10:25). Clearly, we’ve been onboard with the concept for quite some time. Thus, these ballot initiatives are an obvious win for liberty. But what does it mean for the party? The way I see it, drugs have become a precursor to more liberty. What was once considered an implausible Libertarian fantasy is now a reality, and it’s just the beginning. The logical conclusion of this trend is more Libertarian voters.
Perhaps Democrats and Republicans who voted to reform drug laws can carry their logic over into other areas. For example, many Democrats are in favor of mask mandates enforced by a fine or jail time. Perhaps these voters will reconsider their position after applying their liberty inspired reasoning behind ending drug prohibition. Who is to say mask mandates won’t be abused in the exact same way marijuana enforcement has been? For Republicans, this could open the door to understanding why abortion rights matter. All of these assessments could lead voters to an identity crisis. One group will be waiting with open arms to welcome them to their new identity: Libertarians.
Of all the individual rights that libertarians hold sacred, our right to life is holiest. Government has taken this, over drugs. Breonna Taylor was shot six times in her own home after police were able to secure a no knock warrant for simply having had previously dated someone who may have been connected to drugs. No police officer, including the officer that fired the fatal shot, has been charged for Breonna Taylor’s death. The officers argued self-defense. Yes, Self-defense, for breaking into a private home in the middle of the night, for supposed drugs. A private home that most of us can agree, they shouldn't have even been in. Here and elsewhere, drug prohibition has only served as a dismissal of accountability after trampling our individual rights.
Every member of the Libertarian Party makes a pledge the day they join the party. I remember the day I made it, parked in my car, after I received a call from another member of the party. “Repeat after me,” he said, "I hereby certify that I do not believe in or advocate the initiation of force as a means of achieving political or social goals.” The Gadsden flag perfectly encapsulates this pledge. On it, sits an alert snake. Coiled in confidence, she sits in defense, hissing as fair warning to any boot that may try to trample her, almost as if to say “If you walk on by, I’ll leave you be. But disrupt my life, and I will not submit.” Below are the words “Don’t Tread On Me.” Thus, “Don’t tread on me” and “I can’t breathe” are two sides of the same coin. Government has tread on the people to the point they can not breathe. The people will not longer submit.
If nothing else, these policies have proven and will continue to prove that ideas long held by the Libertarian Party once thought implausible and impractical are actually the contrary, and could set the stage for additional Libertarian ideas to come to the fore. The two party dichotomy has let people down. Liberty makes sense, and voters are ready. They proved this when they weaponized their votes to legalize and decriminalize drugs. Voters sat hissing, ballot in hand. My only hope is they decide to come hiss with the party that has been doing it for years.
