David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

war on drugs

This news just in: Aging drug warrior Bill Bennett is still an idiot

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If you want to argue that people don’t have the right to do something, at least have the guts to be honest about it. Don’t pull a page out of “1984” and redefine words to mean whatever you want them to mean.

After U.S. Reps. Ron Paul and Barney Frank introduced legislation that would end the federal ban on marijuana (but allow states to decide for themselves on the issue), drug warriors have been apoplectic. The latest example is from former “drug czar” Bill Bennett, who argues in a piece he wrote for CNN that giving people the freedom to make their own decisions about drug use isn’t freedom, because people who are addicted to something aren’t free.

Even many conservatives agree that the war on (some) drugs is a failure. National Review, for instance, editorialized last week in favor of the proposal from Paul and Frank. But old drug warriors such as Bennett aren’t going to let facts get in the way of what they’ve devoted their careers to fighting for.

Personally, I’m strongly opposed to the use of recreational drugs. I think it’s a poor decision that leads to lousy outcomes for a substantial number of people. My own decisions about this are so conservative that I don’t even drink alcohol, which is a drug far more dangerous than weed. But freedom is about deciding that for yourself, not letting Bill Bennett decide what freedom means.

Once again, this is why the state needs to go away. People should be free to choose among competing systems of governance that are most likely to make them happy. Let Bennett and his friends go live in the police state they’ve built and are so in love with.

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When politicians insist the ‘war on drugs’ is working, they’re just following majoritarian incentives

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I frequently tell people not to blame politicians for the problems they see in democratic governments. Instead, I suggest that they blame the voters, because the voters are the ones who insist that politicians lie to them — if they want to be elected.

There’s a new report from a group of “former world leaders” that admits that the “war on drugs” doesn’t work. (Download the full report here if you care.) Most people among my friends will look at this and think that it means these former world leaders are just being hypocritical to notice the truth now that they’re not in power, but that would be missing the bigger point entirely.

The real point is that human beings follow incentives. If a person has political ambitions, he can’t allow himself to notice the truth about the “war on (some) drugs.” If he understands the truth, he might accidentally say the truth — and telling the truth about something this emotional with the voters will result in his defeat. When you’re part of a majoritarian system, you have an incentive to agree with the voters, not seek truth.

It’s true that politicians carry out the will of the majority — at least a form of it that’s filtered through a bizarre and unseemly process. But it’s majoritarian ignorance and emotion that is to blame for the things that get carried out. Don’t just blame the politicians. Blame the statist system that gives the majority the power to force its will on the rest of us. Just changing the names and faces of the people operating the machinery of the state isn’t going to change anything.

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