Government On the War On Drugs

Okay, last time...

This is drugs

This is your government on the War On Drugs

Any questions?

“It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.”

The Honorable Robert H. Jackson

SCotUS

American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 442-43 (1950)

To-From Honorable Bob Barr

The Honorable Bob Barr

4 March 2018

Dear Sir:

You should notice in your inbox that I cc'ed you my message to the campaign office of West Virginia Republican, Patrick Morrisey, for U.S. Senate. I am alarmed that one of his top issues is to "press for tougher sentences for drug kingpins" -- AS IF THEY'RE NOT TOUGH ENOUGH ALREADY!?! As you and I well know, the "drug kingpins" RARELY receive the toughest sentences because they are able to cooperate with prosecutors to increase their conviction stats and therefore receive lighter sentences (some even suspended) while those with the least culpability and information to "cooperate" with end up with decades-long and, many, even LIFE, sentences. To his credit, Barack Obama did do the right thing by granting as many clemencies to such convicts as he did. The many thousands still languishing in the system --at great expense to the U.S. taxpayers-- have lost all hope for any justice under Donald Trump.

And now, we are with a president who approves of Philippine president Duterte's extra-judicial killings of (even suspected) drug USERS, and considering his remarks that the United States should consider imposing death sentences on drug-dealers, I fear the GOP's possible return to the Bill Bennettesque dark ages of the Reagan-Bush era. The fact that Donald Trump has not called out Jeff Sessions for his wanting to go against the will of the people in the states that have repealed marihuana prohibition is not a good sign and could cost him dearly in 2020. I do not relish the prospect of the Democrats recapturing the White House any more than you do.

The rock-solid, hard-line position against drugs, I believe, presents a tremendous liability to the GOP. It doesn't have to be that way. I recall Gary Johnson (R-NM), while he was still governor, saying that after he made national headlines by being the highest government official in office to have ever come out against drug prohibition that, in private, just about every one of his colleagues agreed with him but were terrified to agree with him publicly -- lest they be accused of being "soft on drugs."

You may find this story interesting. Years ago --November 1994 to be exact-- on the eve of my attending a drug policy reform conference for the first time, I attended the Heritage Foundation's semi-annual President's Club meeting at which Edwin Meese, III was moderating a panel of their policy experts discussing the implementation of the "Contract With America." It was a most festive occasion -- as your colleague and fellow Georgian, Newt Gingrich, had just delivered the keynote address, the excitement of him having just become Speaker-Elect of the House was overwhelming.

As you well know, Ed was "Counselor to the President for Policy" (with cabinet rank) during the first Reagan Administration and U.S. Attorney General in the second. Therefore, it's safe to say that he was the president's right-hand-man who personally orchestrated the dramatic escalation of Richard Nixon's War On Drugs. So, during the Q & A, one gentleman called out Ed on the failures of drug prohibition and how the prisons were filling up with low-level, victimless offenders. Ed was aghast and was totally unprepared for a question like that from such a group. All he could do was fumble through his answer as best he could until the next question. This was surprising since the Federal Judicial Center had issued a report entitled The Consequences of Mandatory Minimum Prison Terms: A Summary of Recent Findings earlier that year and, had Ed been on top of his game, he would have been ready. I kinda felt a little embarrassed for him.

Afterward, during the cocktail reception, I saw Ed mingling with one of my fellow President's Club members and thought I would tell him how much I had loved the address he gave a few months earlier at a banquet hosted by the National Rifle Association. No sooner had I caught up with Ed than I realized the man with whom he was speaking was the one who called him out on the drug war and was being grilled for more/better answers. The words that came out of Ed's mouth are forever etched in my memory. He essentially conceded that the drug war is a hopelessly lost cause but, because of the fact that the government has committed so many resources over so many years prosecuting it, if it was to reverse course, "What would we ever tell young people?"

Well, after mulling over that question and years of following and studying the history of drug policy, I finally reached the conclusion that the best answer is the simplest answer: TELL YOUNG PEOPLE THE TRUTH! They are not stupid. They know when they are being lied to. Government is not perfect -- IT MAKES MISTAKES. Why are so many incumbent and aspiring politicians so terrified of publicly admitting this truth, correct it, move on, and work on restoring the freedoms that were once enshrined in our Bill of Rights? We usually only hear revelations of truth and condemnations against Drug Prohibition after they have left the public sector and are not worried about political correctness.

How far has our society degenerated that is has become politically correct and acceptable to permit the absolute decimation of our constitutional liberties and alarmingly widespread use of militarized police platoons to execute routine drug-search warrants on suspects that are NOT known to be armed and dangerous? Florida's Chief Justice Gerald Kogan really saw the handwriting on the wall when he issued this opinion, LIBERTY FINALLY HAS FALLEN.

I appreciate that you are a very busy man with much on your plate but I just want you to know how much I appreciate your work and that you are a tremendous inspiration. I just signed on to your Liberty Guard project and hope to learn and share. I have prominently featured you in this blog, PINNACLE OF REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY: DRUG PROHIBITION, that I have posted in hopes that it might help those Republicans who are still stuck in the box to find their way out of as you did. If it helps Democrats and Libertarians call out Republicans for being bold-faced hypocrites and liars, so be it!

I really do hope that my message makes it to Mr. Morrisey and that the wisdom of Mssrs. Friedman, Buckley, Will, Reese, and yourself might enable him to abandon the GOP's traditional drug war paradigm, follow your example, and reach out to you for possible assistance in his campaign. West Virginians --and Americans in general-- are ready for wholesale reform. The marihuana issue is a given. As far as the hard drugs go, harm-reduction seems to be working well in the countries that have adopted such policies. I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience.

For the cause of Liberty, I am,

William P. Perry

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His response was immediate and handwritten, no less!

March 5, 2018

Mr. Perry -- Thank you for your very thoughtful e-mail which arrived in my electronic inbox today. Your conclusion that the best manner in which to educate our nation's young people about the sad state of our “war” on drugs (esp. marijuana) is to level with them. I agree completely; which is the reason for my recent article critical of the manner in which the current administration is pursuing its marijuana policy. I will continue to do my small part of the fight for freedom, as I'm sure you will, too. Best regards, Bob Barr

PINNACLE OF REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY: DRUG PROHIBITION

As most conservative Republicans should be aware, their hero Ronald Reagan was a GREAT admirer of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, Ph.D. (as the president expounded his praise, note key-phrase in video, “FREE TO CHOOSE”). As a champion for liberty and the freedom to choose, the late Dr. Friedman was an outspoken critic of drug prohibition. He even went so far as to say that “The role of the government is to protect the drug cartels.” He was unequivocalbly correct. The history of the CIA and other federal agencies working hand in hand with them is well documented

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“Every friend of freedom … must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the U.S. into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.”

Milton Friedman

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Tragically, President Reagan and his advisers were too obtuse to grasp the full extent of wisdom and foresight of that exceedingly brilliant scholar.
And then there was the distinguished pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. who has long been regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century and is considered the founding father of modern conservative political thought. He founded the National Review magazine which, in their words, is the “keeper of the conservative tablets to analyze public problems and to recommend intelligent thought.” Put simply, Mr. Buckley wasn't merely a conservative standard-bearer -- he SET THE STANDARD. In this piece, The War on Drugs Is Lost, he laid it all out on the line.

Another well-respected conservative commentator, opinion-writer, and former employee of Mr. Buckley, George F. Will (who, by the way, had a close and friendly relationship with Ronald Reagan before and during his presidency), made his position known when he answered the questions; Would drug legalization do more harm than good? and Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

The popular conservative syndicated columnist, the late Charley Reese, a perennial favorite of this writer, was another voice of reason and conscience amidst the dearth of common sense. He hammered his point home in these pieces entitled Drug-War Hogwash and Too Many in Jail.

And then there is the dramatic conversion of the ultra-conservative former congressman, the Honorable Bob Barr (R-GA), to consider. He was such an ardent proponent of the War On Drugs that he personally led the crusade to nullify the people's vote for medical marijuana in 1996 in our nation's capital after the measure passed by a landslide. It was known as the Barr Amendment.
Think about it a moment: literally BARR-ING THE PEOPLE'S VOTE FROM BEING COUNTED AFTER A LAWFUL ELECTION because the federal government didn't like the result. Nothing can more UN-AMERICAN than THAT now can it?! That is EXACTLY what would be expected in a fascist dictatorship or Islamic theocracy -- NEVER in the land that purports to be the World's #1 Champion for Freedom and Democracy, right? At least not before then!
Of course, there may be some instances of Negro votes in the Deep South having been suppressed that are not too widely known. Actually, come to think of it, most of the voters in the District of Columbia are black and Bob Barr was a white man from a former Confederate state. However. in these modern times. it is more likely than not his motive was more about “sending the right message to young people about drugs” than denying blacks of the right that their votes be counted. In fact, it's PRECISELY the type of scenario that the Father of Our Country warned the American people about for posterity when he said that; “cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men (would) be enabled to subvert the Power of the People.”

Honorable Bob eventually saw the error of his ways after his shenanigans apparently caught up with him a few years later and cost him his seat in Congress. Doing the HONORABLE thing, he went to work as a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project and was successful in righting his wrong after it had been on the books for 10 years. Taking it to another level, he went on to become the Libertarian candidate for U.S. President in 2008. Never in a billion years would this writer have ever imagined that the man he once considered America's #1 Enemy of Freedom and republicanism would end up getting his vote for President of the United States! He remains to this day a staunch advocate for drug policy reform -- marijuana in particular.

No discussion of high-profile conservative Republicans who went on to run for president as Libertarians would be complete without mention of the Honorable Gary Johnson of New Mexico. Governor Johnson made national headlines when he became the first sitting, high-level government official to come out against drug prohibition. Despite the fact that many public figures criticized his questioning the drug war, he said that, in private, practically all those in high positions of government --not to mention the general public-- agreed with him but were stymied to come out and say so for fear of being labeled “soft on drugs.”
If only more Republicans were of the mindset as those cited above as well as this perennial critic of U.S. drug policy, the GOP might have more credibility and popularity.

One way to look at it is like this; the government has painted itself into a corner so deeply and, since no one seems to be able to figure a way out, all they think to do is keep laying down fresh coats of paint year-after-year, appropriations bill-after-appropriations bill... ad infinitum-- consider this:

HOW ABOUT LETTING THE PAINT DRY SO WE CAN SIMPLY WALK OUT OF IT?! Maybe then we can start repairing the damages done to our once-sacred Bill of Rights and restore the public's trust and respect for law-enforcement.

For decades, Republicans have been harping about “getting government off our backs,” the importance of individual responsibility and states' rights but, when it comes to “drugs,” their answer is ALWAYS a mirror of the perennial, progressive-liberal Democrat modus operandi:

MORE GOVERNMENT and LESS FREEDOM because WASHINGTON-KNOWS-BEST!

The drug war has far exceeded the point where, as Florida's Chief Justice, Hon. Gerald Kogan, forewarned; LIBERTY FINALLY HAS FALLEN. Why mainstream conservatives and Republicans “just don't get it” after all these years --despite the wisdom of the prominent figures cited above-- is a confounding mystery indeed.

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Okay, last time...
This is drugs

This is a Republican on the War On Drugs

Any questions?

hypocrisy |həˈpäkrəsē|
noun (pl. hypocrisies) the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

BILL OF RIGHTS LITE

In memoriam: John Perry Barlow (1947-2018), lyricist for the Grateful Dead and co-founder of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group dedicated to protecting First Article rights in the computer age. I consider this to be one of his many masterpieces.

Bill of Rights Lite In compliance with Title 4 U.S. Code § 8(a)

As interpreted by John Perry Barlow  During the past two decades, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution (a.k.a. The Bill of Rights) have been quietly revised by Congress and the state and federal judiciary, sparing us the untidy political melee of a constitutional convention. The new Bill of Rights, based on current case law, might look something like this:

	Article I Congress shall encourage the practice of Judeo-Christian religion by its own public exercise thereof, and shall make no laws abridging the freedom of responsible speech (unless such speech is in a digital form or contains material that is copyrighted, classified, proprietary or offensive to non-Europeans, non-males, differently-abled or alternatively preferenced persons], or the right of the people peaceably to assemble (unless such assembly takes place on corporate or military property or within an electronic environment, or to petition the government for redress of grievances (unless such grievances relate to national security). Article II A well-regulated militia having become irrelevant to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms against one another shall remain un-infringed (excepting such arms as may be afforded by the poor or those preferred by pushers, terrorists and organized criminals, which shall be banned). Article III No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the owner’s consent. unless that house is thought to have been used for the distribution of illegal substances. Article IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures may be suspended to protect public welfare. Upon the unsupported suspicion of law-enforcement officials, any place or conveyance shall be subject to immediate search, and any such places or conveyances, or property within them, may be permanently confiscated without further judicial proceeding. Article V Any person may be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime involving illicit substances, terrorism or upon any suspicion whatever, and may be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb (once by the state courts and again by the federal judiciary); and may be compelled by various means (including the forced submission of breath samples, bodily fluids, or encryption keys) to be a witness against himself, refusal to do so constituting an admission of guilt, and may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without further legal delay, and any private property thereby forfeited shall be dedicated to the discretionary use of law-enforcement agents without just Compensation. Article VI In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and private plea-bargaining before entering a plea of guilty, The accused is entitled to the assistance of under-paid and indifferent counsel to negotiate his sentence, except where such sentence falls under mandatory-sentencing requirements. Article VII In suits all common law, where the contesting parties have clearly unlimited resources to spend on legal fees, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. Article VIII Sufficient bail may be required to ensure that dangerous criminals will remain in custody, where cruel and unusual punishments are usually inflicted. Article IX The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others that may be retained by the government to preserve public order, family values, or national security. Article X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the Departments of Justice and Treasury, except when the states are willing to forsake federal financing. Reprinted in Playboy magazine by permission of the New York Times Company.
	"One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown." George Washington 19th September 1796