Back in the 1980s-early 1990s, during the peak of War On Drugs hysteria under Reagan-Bush, there were a few voices of reason and conscience. Very few. One exceptionally notable voice was that of the Honorable Gerald Kogan, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the State of Florida. In his dissenting opinion in Cresswell vs State 524 So.2d 685, 686 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), His Honor presciently wrote:

“... a society is foolhardy when it tries to cure one evil by replacing it with a greater one. If the zeal to eliminate drugs leads this state and nation to forsake its ancient heritage of constitutional liberty, then we will have suffered a far graver injury than drugs can ever inflict upon us. Drugs injure some of us. The loss of liberty injures all. And when liberty finally has fallen, there will be nothing to protect us from a threat of a different kind -- people who, as history teaches, sometimes abuse positions of authority in government and its agencies.”

With the passage of time, the evidence is overwhelming **and ever-mounting** that “LIBERTY FINALLY HAS FALLEN” and the long train of abuses and usurpations by those in positions of authority in government and its agencies are far too numerous to list here but can readily be found by searching using key-phrases POLICING FOR PROFIT, DRUG EXCEPTION TO FOURTH AMENDMENT, POLICE MILITARIZATION, and MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING -- the latter of which has resulted in the flushing of the 8th Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment into the sewer. These egregious atrocities have become normalized and acceptable because spineless, grandstanding politicians decided it was more important to “send the ‘right message’ to young people” about “drugs” than to diligently safeguard our “ancient heritage of constitutional liberty” as they supposedly swore to do in their oaths of office. In other words;

Hard on “drugs” = SOFT on The United States Constitution -- and I'm talking soft-as-a-marshmallow-roasted-over-a-campfire kinda soft!

see: George Washington's Farewell Address

The Father of Our Country went on to say:

“If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”

Keep in mind that the alcohol prohibitionists, in order to ban that substance, lawfully amended the Constitution to achieve their ends whereas the drug war hawks have absolutely NO regard for what was ONCE considered the Supreme Law of the Land -- as they have found USURPATION to be far more convenient. Hence, as President Washington warned us, the American people, our so-called “free government” HAS BEEN DESTROYED!