Frontpage FeedLessons learned from a drug warrior
Tonight at my university Drug Warrior Extraordinaire Robert Stutman gave a talk called "Ecstasy: It's Not a State of Mind" to a mostly unsympathetic audience. We heard many of the same bits of advice, mixed in with new warnings about how ecstacy is "probably the most dangerous drug that an adolescent could use" because of newly documented long-term effects on the brain.(†)
News flash: libertarians are not impressed by these arguments.
Yes, drugs can have negative effects. I personally recommend against drug use, even when it doesn't have negative long-term effects. When he said one of the great dangers of raves was that you have no idea what the drug you think is X really is, I had to agree. True--but this could be fixed very quickly by legalization. They can even have very bad short- and long-term effects, up to and including death. Still not impressed. I am only Big Brother to my younger siblings. People have the right to make bad, even fatally bad choices. It's each person's own responsibility to know the relevant facts and to take the relevant precautions (and it still amazes me how people can think otherwise). No reasonable person could think that it's entirely safe to buy drugs on the street to pop at a rave.
When pressed with these logical and powerful libertarian arguments, Stutman turned tail and ran!
No, not really. Instead he steadfastly maintained his position. After he's been a DEA agent for 25 years, and a pro-Drug War lecturer after that, he's probably not going to change his mind. What he did was a very frustrating tactic: he fell back on a very illibertarian argument. The American voters have not changed the laws, nor have the courts responded positively to the few who challenged them through civil disobedience and the appeals process. These are both true.
I learned a few facts about ecstasy, but the big lesson of the night is one we've learned many times over by now: democracy does not guarantee liberty, and more often than not leads in the opposite direction. Most people do not support legalizing X, nor do the courts support the disobedient, and in Our Glorious Democracy?, that means it's not going to happen.
Another lesson is that sometimes people know the libertarian argument and still don't believe it. Either we need better arguments or we just need to pick our battles better. Either we need to appeal to the non-libertarian argument, which supports the same conclusion (about reducing crime and expense), or we need to create a more libertarian culture in which more of our ethical premises will be accepted, or both.
The best answer is both. Strictly consequentialist arguments have the strength of fact behind them, which is pretty powerful. But strictly ethical arguments have appeal also. How many Marxists, faced with facts about economic history, failed to realize their error based on a philosophical, rather than "scientific" commitment to Marxism? How many people acknowledge the inefficiency of command economies or command institutions in free economies but still think "we ought to do something for _______ anyway"? A good way of thinking should have both.
There is good news: drug legalization movements the world over are getting stronger, more organized, and realizing more successes, such as the decriminalization of possessing small amounts or pushes for rehabilitation rather than incarceration (which is itself not a complete answer, but a better one). Safer streets, less totalitarianism, and more personal responsibility? The consequentialist and the ethical arguments are both on our side.
(†) Also, interestingly, almost all the world's X supply comes from the Netherlands, and about 80% of that is controlled by...that's right! the Jooz! Israeli organized crime controls that 80%. Not to imply that Stutman is an anti-semite. He actually appears to be a fairly reasonable and even likeable guy.
