Dumbest Thing I've Read Today

John Hawkins writes In Defense of the Drug War at Human Events. To be fair to him, he's facing an uphill battle as not many serious thinkers will try to defend our current drug policy.

Radley Balko: "Hawkins has never been the brightest bulb in the conservative blogosphere. But wow. I think I'll keep the three hours of my life it'd take me to give it the thorough debunking it begs for."

It won't take me nearly three hours. Let's look at some of Hawkins' article -

Libertarians often attack the war on drugs as a waste of tax dollars and an infringement on personal liberties. That is misguided thinking that comes from trying to apply unworkable theoretical concepts in the real world.

Implying that the drug war is not a waste of money nor an infringement on liberties in the real world? What alternate universe does Hawkins inhabit? His little essay is off to a rough start...

[...Y]ou often hear advocates of drug legalization say that we're never going to win the war on drugs and that it would free up space in our prisons if we simply legalized drugs. While it's true that we may not ever win the war against drugs -- i.e. never entirely eradicate the use of illegal drugs -- we're not ever going to win the war against murder, robbery and rape either. But our moral code rejects each of them, so none -- including drugs -- can be legalized if we still adhere to that code.

His moral code [he calls it 'our'!] apparently doesn't recognize the difference between acts which directly violate the rights of others, and those which don't. His moral code looks to be terribly deficient.

If we legalized drugs, we'd be able to tax them and bring in more revenue for the state. But, how is that working out with alcohol and cigarettes? In 2004 and 2005, 39% of all traffic-related deaths was related to alcohol consumption and 36% of convicted offenders "had been drinking alcohol when they committed their conviction offense." When it comes to cigarettes, adult smokers "die 14 years earlier than nonsmokers." But, will we ever get rid of tobacco or alcohol? No, both products are too societally accepted for that and perhaps more importantly, the government makes enormous amounts of revenue from their sale. Do we really want to be sitting around 10 or 15 years from now saying, "Gee, we'd like to get rid of heroin, but how could we replace the revenue we make from taxing it at an exorbitant rate?"

OK, I'll concede here. We shouldn't tax drugs.

[...T]he fact that drugs are illegal is certainly holding down their usage. Just look at what happened during prohibition. Per Ann Coulter in her book, "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)":

"Prohibition resulted in startling reductions in alcohol consumption (over 50 percent), cirrhosis of the liver (63 percent), admissions to mental health clinics for alcohol psychosis (60 percent), and arrests for drunk and disorderly conduct (50 percent)." -- p.311

I'm responding to someone who quotes Ann Coulter? Oh, the shame.

Anyway, the question of prohibition is this; what produces the least negative results? The conclusion is that the problems of legalized intoxicants aren't as bad as the problems of prohibition. Perfect solutions aren't often found in the real world, or as we libertarians are fond of saying, utopia is not an option. Moving right along...

But, some people may say, "so what if drug usage does explode? They're not hurting anyone but themselves." That might be true in a purely capitalistic society, but in the sort of welfare state that we have in this country, the rest of us would end up paying a significant share of the bills of people who don't hold jobs or end up strung out in the hospital without jobs -- and that's even if you forget about the thugs who'd end up robbing our houses to get things to pawn to buy more drugs. Even setting that aside, we make laws that prevent people from harming themselves all the time in our society. In many states there are helmet laws, laws that require us to wear seatbelts, laws against prostitution, and it's even illegal to commit suicide. So banning harmful drugs is just par for the course.

One of the basic arguments in favor of legalization is the reduction of crime associated with drug use, as legal drugs are likely to be much cheaper than illegal, and the criminal organizations selling drugs will be unemployed. That's a clear lesson learned from alcohol prohibition. Hawkins argues as though he's never heard of this.

It's also very disheartening to read a self described conservative using our many dumb nannyist laws as justification for more dumb nannyist laws. Nearly any human activity can be regulated or outlawed using that line of reasoning.

Here's the conclusion to Hawkins' article:

[...W]ay back when William Bennett was the drug czar, he responded like so to a caller on the Larry King show who told him that he should "behead the damn drug dealers."

"I mean what the caller suggests is morally plausible," he said. "Legally, it's difficult. But somebody selling drugs to a kid? Morally, I don't have any problem with that at all."

Bennett was right then, he's right now, and my guess is that most parents, upon finding out that someone was peddling drugs to their kid, would agree with him. Since that's the case, do we really want the federal government to take over the role of a pusher and get our kids hooked on drugs to make a profit? No, we don't.

I would be upset if someone tried to sell many sorts of legal products to my kids without my knowledge. Or how about gambling, Mr. Bennett? Do you want that offered to children? (sorry, I couldn't resist.)

The for-the-children argument is a standard fallback for most any weakly reasoned regulation, and a conservative should know that. And as we've seen with cigarettes, legal sellers tend to stay legal, and avoid selling to minors. Illegal sellers have no such limits, and teenagers report it's easier for them to buy pot than tobacco.

Hawkins also posted this article on his blog, where you can read comments for a herd of like-minded folks, if you can stand it. The thread is several hundred comments long now.