XXXXX Drug Prohibition XXXXX
The Constitution gives the federal government the right to punish three crimes: piracy, counterfeiting and treason. Nowhere does it say Congress shall have the power to outlaw drugs. Yet this is what they do. (Alcohol prohibition required an amendment to the Constitution. Drug prohibition did not.) Who gains from this? The power-hungry politicians and the drug lords. Who loses? The taxpayers spending billions of dollars to stop victimless crime, innocent people who can't feel secure because the price of drugs has been pushed so high that a drug-user will turn to crime to pay for their habit, children in schools who are easy targets of gangs to get involved in crime, and victims of unconstitutional asset forfeiture laws whose property is taken without due process of the law or just compensation.
Rapists and child molesters get released from prison because of overcrowding. But don't worry! The guy who was found guilty of possessing pot will spend 15 years in jail! Don't you feel safe now!
Of course not. With police resources free from fighting the failing war on drugs, police can focus on more important crime.
Question for Republicans:
Should George W. Bush have been thrown in jail for 15 or 20 years for experimenting
with cocaine in the days of his youth?
Question for Democrats:
Al Gore and Bill Clinton both tried marijuana. Should they both have gotten
a good 15 years of hard time for it?
Libertarians say of course not. There are better reasons to throw them in jail.