The Moral Case for Drugs

0:00Those of you that know me know that I'm a conservative evangelical Christian. However, that's not the perspective that I'm going to argue my paper today. The title of my paper is not the Christian case for drugs, it's the moral case for drugs. Now, I've put a radical title on my talk today. Notice I didn't say the moral case for drug legalization, or the moral case for drug decriminalization, or the moral case for drug regulation, or the moral case for medical marijuana, or the moral case for relaxing drug laws, or the moral case for ending the drug war. I've also put a positive title on my talk today.

0:48If I were going to give it a negative title, I might have said something like the moral case against religious restrictionists, the moral case against pious prohibitionists, the moral case against Christian crusaders, the moral case against fundamentalist fascists, the moral case against puritanical prudes, the moral case against non-denominational Nazis, The moral case against Protestant popes, or perhaps the moral case against Baptist bigots, or the moral case against Evangelical extremists, or the moral case against Bible-believing busybodies, or even the moral case against meddling moralists.

1:42I want to present the moral case for drugs. In the fifteen or so years that I've been writing as a conservative Christian libertarian, and certainly not before that, I had never, until last October for Mises Daily, written anything exclusively about the subject of drugs. My hesitation in doing so was not because I only recently came to the conclusion that the war on drugs was a monstrous evil. To the contrary, I can remember questioning the whole idea of drug prohibition and victimless My hesitation in writing anything negative about the subject of drug prohibition is because of the pathetically predictable negative reaction I knew I would receive outside of libertarian circles and especially the hysterical reaction I knew I would receive from some of my Christian brethren.

2:46I can just hear the defenders of drug prohibition now. You are a supporter of drug use. You are crazy. You are a libertine. You are a liberal. You are a pragmatist. You are a hippie. And your beard proves it. You are not considering what would happen if drugs were legalized. You are promoting the breakdown of society. You are ignorant of the harmful effects of drugs. You are indifferent to the bad consequences of drug abuse. You are ignoring the plight of drug addicts. You are sending the wrong message to young people. You are denying established cultural norms.

3:31You are against keeping our schools safe. You are lowering your standards of morality. You are undermining the family. You are focusing on money instead of morality. You are on drugs yourself. Now, drug prohibitionists who consider themselves religious would argue likewise and add, you are an antinomian. You are abdicating situation ethics. You are giving up on family and Money Values. You are accommodating today's permissive society. You're not taking a stand against sin. You are advocating sin. You are accepting alternative lifestyles. You are compromising with the world. You are undermining Christian morality. You are rejecting Judeo-Christian Ethics. Now I've been a pariah for long enough now because of my loathing for George W. Bush and my contempt for Christian support for his wars, that it really doesn't matter anymore what I say about drug prohibition or anything else.

4:45I would like to begin by making two statements, two statements that might not seem radical to anyone attending a conference at the Mises and the Mises Institute, but two statements that would get me censured or ridiculed in some political or religious circles. Statement number one, it is neither the job of government nor the business of any individual to prohibit, regulate, restrict, or otherwise control what a man desires to eat, drink, 2. There is no ethical precept in any religion or moral code that should lead anyone to believe that it is the job of government or the business of any individual to prohibit, regulate, restrict, or otherwise control what a man desires to eat, drink, smoke, inject, absorb, snort, sniff, inhale, swallow or otherwise ingest into his body.

5:56Now, in making these statements, I want to make some things clear that I am not saying. I am not saying that parents have no right to dictate to their children what is and is is not acceptable when it comes to drug use. I just believe that father knows best instead of government knows best. Right now it is a crime in my state of Florida for parents to serve a glass, to serve a beer or a glass of wine to their children under age 21. Even if their children are married, have their own children and serve in the military. This is absurd and I don't even drink alcohol. I am not saying that employers have no right to mandate that employees abstain from using a particular drug, all drugs, smoking, having a beard, or wearing a pink shirt.

6:50Since I believe in freedom and property rights, I believe in the freedom of employers and employees to make employment contracts without government interference. If the owner of a restaurant insists that his waiters wear white tuxedos, they can either visit the local tuxedo shop or look for work elsewhere. I am not saying that organizations, whether secular or religious, should not be able to require that their members abstain from drug use, legal or otherwise. Some organizations may mandate the total abstinence of their members from alcohol, drugs and tobacco. Others might prescribe just alcohol, just drugs, or just tobacco. Still others might merely disdain drunkenness or getting high.

7:37Membership in an organization is voluntary, and one man's paradise is another man's prison. In a genuinely free society, restaurants, stores, churches, private clubs, and fraternal would be free to set their own standards and discriminate based on race, gender, sexual orientation, age, political ideology, religious piety, and drug use. I am not saying that there is nothing harmful that can result from something being eaten, drank, Smoke injected, absorbed, snorted, sniffed, inhaled, swallowed, or otherwise ingested into one's body. I am well aware of the fact that people die all the time from drug overdoses.

8:23However, although people also die from drinking too much alcohol and smoking too many cigarettes, not too many drug prohibitionists ever call for absolute bans on alcohol and tobacco. I am not saying that anyone should eat, drink, smoke, inject, absorb, snort, sniff, inhale, swallow or otherwise ingest into his body any drug, legal or illegal. I'm not abdicating that anyone take any drug, legal or otherwise. The more I read the wonderful health-related articles on lewrockwell.com, the more I'm leery of ingesting any drugs, and Drugs, including over-the-counter medications and FDA-approved physician-prescribed drugs.

9:09I'm not saying that I think it is acceptable for anyone to take drugs for any reason other than for medicinal or therapeutic purposes. I consider any other use to be a vice. But as the 19th century political philosopher Lysander Spooner reminded us, vices are not crimes. I am not saying that I approve of school bus drivers smoking a joint while they drive their buses, or mechanics getting buzzed while they repair your car, or people walking around stoned in public. Why is it that drug prohibitionists think that all Americans would be on a perpetual high if drugs were legalized? And why is it that they accuse freedom lovers of desiring or being indifferent to such a society?

9:58I am not saying that individuals and organizations should not be concerned about drug abuse. Most of the negative externalities that result from people taking drugs are due to the government's war on drugs. In the absence of drug prohibition, drug abuse could be handled the same way as alcohol abuse – by families, friends, churches, rescue missions, alcoholics anonymous type programs, Physicians, Psychologists and Treatment Centers All I am saying is that I want the government out of my body. I want the state out of my home, my car, my job, my boat, my church, my family, my club, my doctor's office, my insurance company, my bedroom and my life.

10:45Now, I also want the government's troops out of every foreign country, but that's another lecture for another day. All I'm saying is that it should be none of anyone's business, as far as the law is concerned, if someone wants to get drunk, high or stoned in a hotel bar, at a social event or in his own home. All I'm saying is that it is unjust to lock someone up in a cage for smoking a plant. All I'm saying is that I want the government to take its hands off not only my drugs, but my bong, my crack pipe and my rolling papers. Now, I don't own any drug paraphernalia, and would buy neither drugs nor drug paraphernalia, even if they were legal, but just the same.

11:32I want the government to keep its hands off my property, your property, and your property, and your property. In the end, it all comes down to property and freedom, as I will argue throughout this paper. Although evangelical fundamentalists, independent and other conservative Christians are some of the first groups that come to mind that zealously back drug prohibition, this is far from a religious issue. The myriad of drug laws in this country, and around the world for that matter, cannot be laid at the feet of conservative Christians. Support for drug prohibition can be found across the political and religious spectrum, encompassing liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, atheists and theists, the religious and the irreligious.

12:25I have heard it said by some libertarians that deep down inside of every man there beats the heart of a libertarian. I disagree. I think rather, and not just on this issue, that there beats the heart of a statist and authoritarian and a busybody who wants to remake society in his own image and compel others to live in ways that he approves of. There is no shortage of Americans willing to kill for the military, torture for the CIA, wiretap for the FBI, destroy property for the DEA, and grope for the TSA. I say, speaking as a libertarian believer in moral absolutes in general and the ethical principles of the New Testament in particular, I reject federal, state and local drug prohibition of any kind.

13:19I am against drug criminalization, drug regulation, drug restrictions, drug licensing, drug taxing, drug oversight, drug testing and drugs limited to just medical use. People in a free society should challenge all laws on drug trafficking, drug manufacturing, drug sales and drug use. They should object to the 750,000 arrests of Americans every year for marijuana possession. They should protest the incarceration of tens of thousands of Americans for drug-related offenses. They should contest the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, the Chemical Diversion and Trafficking Act of 1988, the Illicit Drug Antiproliferation Act of 2003, and the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005.

14:23Doctors of Liberty should be against the offices of National Drug Czar, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Narcotics Rewards Program, and the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. All freedom-loving Americans should oppose the DEA and its headquarters in Arlington, It's 21 domestic field divisions. It's 227 field offices. It's 86 foreign offices in 62 countries. It's Academy at the Quantico Marine Base. It's Administrator. It's Deputy Administrator. It's Chief of Operations. It's Chief Inspector. It's Chief Financial Officer.

15:09It's Chief Counsel. It's Assistant Administrators. It's 10,000 employees. It's 5,500 agents. Its foreign deployed advisory and support teams, its mobile enforcement teams, its website, its $2.5 billion budget, its Get Smart About Drugs resource for parents, and its Office of Aviation Operations with 106 aircraft and 124 pilots. I reject the government's war on drugs, just as I reject the government's war on poverty, War on cancer, war on terrorism, and war on liquids on airline flights. I say these things as someone who doesn't use illegal drugs, wouldn't use illicit drugs if they were legalized, and would prefer that no one else use them either.

16:00And to those who say I'm being too extreme, I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. I guess I could just say that I oppose root and branch every facet of the government's war on drugs. But I want to not only make myself perfectly clear, but also to get you to realize just how broad in scope is the state's war on personal freedom. I'm choosing my words carefully and deliberately. Liberty and freedom. Individual liberty and personal Freedom. These ideals, along with the sanctity of private property, are fundamental in combating the drug war. This does not mean that there aren't a multitude of other reasons to oppose drug prohibition laws. I'm going to give you seven of them, and because of the time, I'm not going to fully develop these, but let me just list them for you. One, the state's This war on drugs, like its war on poverty and its war on terrorism, is a failure.

17:04Two, drug prohibition is unconstitutional. Three, it is not the purpose of government to protect people from bad habits, harmful substances and vice. Four, just like when it comes to central planning, the government has a calculation problem. Five, there is no government ban on alcohol and tobacco. Six, vices are not crimes, and seven, it is a grave mistake to look to the state to enforce morality. So hopefully the paper will be published soon and you can read what I say about each one of those. Practical and utilitarian arguments against the drug war are important, but not as important as the freedom to use drugs The moral case for drugs is simply the case for freedom.

18:04Freedom to use one's property as one sees fit. Freedom to enjoy the fruits of one's labor in whatever way one deems appropriate. Freedom to use one's body in the manner of one's choosing. Freedom to follow one's own moral code. Freedom from being taxed to fund government tyranny. Even from government intrusion into one's personal life and freedom to be left alone. It is those of us who abdicate the liberty to take drugs and a free market in drugs that are taking the high moral ground. How can anyone with any sense of morality support seizing someone's property, destroying his family and locking him up in a cage to be raped and humiliated for smoking a plant The Government Doesn't Approve Of What kind of a moral code contains stipulations like this?

18:58The case for drugs is a moral case because the war on drugs is a war on natural, civil, personal and constitutional rights. Two wrongs don't make a right. It is not right to act immoral to prevent someone from doing something immoral. In presenting the moral case for drugs, I am not distinguishing between legal and illegal drugs, or between Drugs for Medical Use and Drugs for Recreational Use. Drugs in and of themselves are not necessarily bad. It depends on how and why they are used. The question is, who is going to determine those things? Will it be the individual in consultation with his family, friends, church and physician? Or will it be the state in consultation with its legislators, regulators, agents and bureaucrats. In a free society, it is the individual. In an authoritarian society, it is the state. Some libertarians have the idea that absolute drug legalization is a philosophical concept that is fine to intellectually assent to, but should never be publicly proclaimed. They consider it an embarrassing, non-essential

20:17issue that is best not mentioned outside of libertarian circles. In this regard, I like what Mises said, quote, as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual's mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest details. I should add, however, that although I am an advocate of a free society in which individuals have the liberty to choose a particular lifestyle, I am not a cosmopolitan libertarian who champions a lifestyle choice that considers drug use one of the three pillars of libertarianism, while at the same time championing non-libertarian issues like privatizing social security, securing I am not arguing for the benefits of drugs. I am arguing for the benefits of freedom.

21:20Mises again makes a good point. A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, Just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police. I am not optimistic about the drug war ever coming to an end. I am optimistic, however, about the message of freedom, reaching people who are willing to receive it, thanks to the efforts of organizations like the Mises Institute.