Legalize drugs.
2009-05-19 · Guest: — · 54:02
libertarian case for drug legalization
In this episode, Bob Zadek explores the libertarian case for drug legalization, arguing that individuals should have the autonomy to make their own health and lifestyle choices. He critiques government paternalism, citing examples like New York’s trans fat ban, and discusses California’s potential to lead the nation in reversing drug prohibition.
Topics: Drug legalization, libertarianism, government overreach, Tom Ammiano, Michael Bloomberg, individual liberty Speakers: Bob Zadek
The Intoxicating Drug of Power [00:00]
Bob Zadek: It is noon on Sunday at Talk 910 KNEW. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek. Today’s topic: the legalization of drugs. This is an interesting topic, a topic in which the world has a view. Half the world or three quarters of the world has the wrong view, but they have a view nonetheless. If you have a view, I’d love to hear it: 800-345-5639 or rzadek@gmail.com. I’d love to receive your emails or your calls if you’re in the Bay Area on today’s topic, the legalization of drugs.
It’s an interesting topic, this legalization of drugs. It’s interesting because it seems to transcend traditional party lines. It’s not a Democratic or Republican issue. It is a libertarian issue, as we will see. People are smart, politicians crave power, and individuals matter. Now, who can disagree with those three principles? People are smart; they know what they’re doing, they know how to run their lives, they know how to raise their children, they know how to make decisions about themselves without any interference. And politicians crave power. If they have a bit of power, they want more. If you want to know what the drug to be avoided is, it’s the intoxicating drug of power, not the drug people may take into their body; it’s the drug of power. This show is about doing away with the intoxicating drug of power and replacing it with the far more benign drugs that alter one’s mood.
California’s Role in Prohibition [05:30]
Bob Zadek: California may be on the forefront of this issue. Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco politician now in state government, introduced a bill in February that would legalize marijuana, and along with legalization, he—being a politician—he wants to tax it and regulate it. Well, legalization is on the right track. Taxing it and regulating it, perhaps. If California enacted this legislation—and frankly, it’s not clear if they will or not; they just might, because California is so desperate for money they would legalize almost anything if they can get a few bucks in the till, even, perish forbid, the legalization of drugs. It would be interesting if California became the first state to legalize marijuana, because California, always leading the nation, was the first state to prohibit marijuana back in 1913. So California can undo the damage which it started way back almost a hundred years ago.
Should drugs be legalized? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your views. You may have had some—perish forbid—firsthand experience. When you call, you don’t have to use your right name; no one’s going to turn you in. Should drugs be legalized? What are the advantages? And if you can find one, disadvantages of the legalization of drugs. In the Bay Area, 1-800-345-5639, 1-800-345-KNEW. Outside of the Bay Area, rzadek@gmail.com. I’d love to hear your views on the legalization of drugs.
The Nanny State and Individual Liberty [11:15]
Bob Zadek: The first question, a really basic question, is: why should drugs be illegal? If you take one step back and ask yourself, why should drugs be illegal? Well, the answer may be that they’re bad for you. Duh. So is sugar, trans fat, running in the heat, alcohol, cigarettes, driving when you’re tired, saying nasty words in public. There are lots of things that are bad, or bad for you, or disturb other people. What’s special about mood-altering drugs? Why should they be selected as being bad for you?
Now the danger is that some of you out there, aka Democrats, might very well say, “Well, you’re on the right track. Let’s make them all illegal. Let’s really get into people’s lives and regulate what they can eat, how they run their lives, because people are wholly incapable of running their lives.” Mayor Bloomberg in New York is now making trans fats illegal to sell in restaurants in New York City. Trans fats are bad for you. So Mayor Bloomberg, ever the nanny, the male nanny, is seeking to make trans fats illegal to serve in restaurants. Now, without getting into whether trans fats are bad or not bad for you—that’s absolutely besides the point. Who cares if they’re bad for you? The question is whether or not government has to butt into your lives, become intrusive, and not only educate you that something is bad for you, but prohibit you from doing things that are bad for you. How can that be the standard?
The fact that something is bad for you is not grounds to make it illegal. People should be allowed to engage in any behavior they wish, so long as that behavior does not materially harm somebody else. I know, I know, I know. You’re going to tell me, “Well, people smoke marijuana or they do drugs and then they drive and they’re a danger on the highway.” Well, people drive when they’re tired, and that’s a danger on the highway. Why not make being tired a felony? If that’s going to harm people when they’re driving, people have to exercise good judgment, and if they cross over the line and do something which is harmful to somebody else, well, we have laws to take care of them. The fact that some behavior, if done in extreme or if done irresponsibly, will harm somebody else, is not—absolutely not—a basis to make that conduct illegal.
Swinging one’s fist is perfectly legal. The swinging of one’s fist—the right to swing one’s fist stops where somebody else’s nose starts. So the swinging of the fist is legal. Hitting somebody in the nose is illegal. Humans know how to distinguish behavior that’s harmful to somebody else as compared with behavior that only either harms nobody or harms themselves. People are allowed to harm themselves. Harming oneself, doing self-destructive things, eating two desserts, eating bacon cheeseburgers is allowed. It’s not a great idea, perhaps, but it’s allowed. People are allowed to do that. The fact that something is bad for you doesn’t make it grounds—it’s not grounds to make it illegal.
So what am I missing? Why do not I have the freedom to make decisions about my life that may be damaging or maybe fabulous? What am I missing? 1-800-345-5639, 1-800-345-KNEW. This is Talk 910, KNEW. The Bob Zadek Show; today’s topic is the legalization of drugs. Drugs should be illegal? I see no reason to continue to make them illegal. The history of the criminalization of drugs is very interesting. Drugs—for most of the history of our country, drugs were—mood-altering drugs were illegal. Well, how did they get to be illegal? Is it the same history as the criminalization of the sale of alcohol? Are we living through Prohibition 2? Prohibition 1 was a failure. We repealed that, the Volstead Act. Are we going through the same process with drugs, marijuana, and mood-altering drugs? I’d love to hear your views. This is Bob Zadek, host of the Bob Zadek Show.
Would you like a summary of the next segment of this episode?
The Accidental History of Prohibition [00:00]
Bob Zadek: I’m your host, Bob Zadek. This week’s topic: the legalization of drugs. Should drugs be legal, or should we continue to live as we now are living, spending about $1,500 per second—$1,500 per second—on this unwinnable, quote, “war on drugs”? Is that sensible policy? We’ll review that topic from a purely libertarian perspective today. Libertarian talk radio, where people matter, governments don’t. People matter.
Drugs were not always illegal. The history of the criminalization of drug use is quite interesting and almost, if you can believe it, accidental. Before 1906, everything was legal. Heroin, opium, marijuana, cocaine—it all was legal. And nobody seemed to care that much about the legality of it all. In 1906, there was a bit of a furor. People were complaining that drugs were mislabeled. You couldn’t tell what was in a drug. Well, fair enough. People are entitled to be informed. The role is to inform people.
So in 1906, the government passed—Congress passed—the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, a pretty innocuous piece of legislation, which basically provided that drugs couldn’t be mislabeled. It was assumed in 1906 that mood-altering drugs were perfectly legal and were fine, and they weren’t in any way prohibited. Well, about eight years later, in 1914, we passed something called the Harrison Act—whoever Harrison was, God only knows. We passed the Harrison Act, which was originally a record-keeping statute to provide that people who sold drugs should keep records. And that quickly morphed—quickly morphed without much public discussion—into a prohibition statute.
So what we had is the start of the war on drugs started almost by accident in 1920, with not much public discussion. Then in 1920, the Supreme Court was asked to look at the Harrison Act, and the Supreme Court found, quite surprisingly, that “the right to exercise the power of prohibition is so manifest in the interest of public health and welfare that it is unnecessary to enter upon a discussion of it beyond saying that it is too freely established to be successfully called into question.”
So now we have the Supreme Court just saying, somewhat with a shrug, “Well, sure they can regulate drugs.” And thus we have it. From these incidental accidents of federal government action, drugs became illegal. Without any discussion, without any review of whether or not public freedom is implicated, drugs became illegal. Is that any way to create policy? Should drugs remain illegal? 1-800-345-5639, 1-800-345-KNEW. I’d love to hear your views on the legalization or the not legalization of drugs. How would you be affected if drugs became legalized? How would your family be affected? What would be wrong with it? If nobody finds anything wrong, then freedom should move forward. People should be free to make those decisions that affect their life. So what am I missing? Why shouldn’t drugs be legalized? If you’re out of the Bay Area, BobZadek@gmail.com.
Now, what’s my problem with the criminalization of drugs? Where do I start? The problem, first and foremost, is it’s insulting. It assumes that people are incapable of making decisions about their lives, of knowing right from wrong, without the government scolding them, waving its nanny finger at them, and incarcerating them if they do something which is bad for them. That’s not the role of government. We don’t need a scold. The government has more important things to do to protect us without being a nanny and a scold. Why should governments be allowed to tell us right from wrong?
Public Safety and Personal Freedom [06:30]
Bob Zadek: Larry, good afternoon. Can you hear me? I can hear you, Larry. Welcome to the Bob Zadek Show.
Larry: Thank you. How are you this morning?
Bob Zadek: Uh, I’m very good. Very good.
Larry: I think drugs should remain illegal because people use drugs to escape from reality, to help them deal with their discontentments of life, when in actuality they should be dealing with their discontentments the correct way rather than placing a bandage over them. Well, they all have hurts and issues, but we need to deal with them rather than cover them up.
Bob Zadek: That’s interesting, Larry. I agree with you. I agree with you that people should not run away from their problems. We are in agreement on that. My question is, why don’t you trust people to make that decision by themselves? And if they choose—if they are weak, and if they resort to drugs out of weakness—why should that be a crime? Help them, but why put them in jail?
Larry: Well, it affects our lives too, because a lot of times they’re poor workers on the job site, and it also involves character issues and honesty. And you’re going to have a bunch of people that are dependent on formerly controlled substances that are totally unhealthy for everybody because their choices affect our lives.
Bob Zadek: Well, but their choice—how does somebody’s choice in the workplace affect your life? If they do a bad job for whatever reason, the workplace will deal with them.
Larry: We already have—sometimes politics rule. They like this guy, but this guy could be an unsafe worker. I’m an ironworker by trade, and I need my coworkers to be safe.
Bob Zadek: What about if they drink on the job? Huh? What if they drink on the job? Are they unsafe?
Larry: Oh, that’s very bad. Alcohol is one of the worst.
Bob Zadek: So would you want alcohol to be criminalized? Do we want to go back to Prohibition?
Larry: Uh, you know, it’s too big of a problem. That would never work. You really have to change a person’s heart, a person’s identity. They have to themselves see the wrong of their ways and change themselves.
Bob Zadek: So, Larry, my question is, why do you feel that it doesn’t work to criminalize alcohol consumption, but it does work—whatever “work” even means—to criminalize drug use? What’s the difference?
Larry: The difference is we’re placing pressure on people, and it adds to the consequences of their choices. If I smoke glass, I might get arrested, I might get in a wreck, I might have this and this, so it can limit the temptation. Well, more incentive to resist the temptation if they can consider the consequences of their actions.
Bob Zadek: Larry, if you start criminalizing temptation, the jails are going to be mighty full. Larry, thanks so much for your call. I appreciate your call. Thanks for listening.
Ray, good afternoon.
Ray: Yeah, I’m for legalization.
Bob Zadek: I knew you were a smart guy, Ray.
Ray: I’m sorry, what?
Bob Zadek: I liked you the moment you dialed in. I knew you were a smart guy.
Ray: Well, you know, I tell you, I was against it for a long time. But when you see thousands, tens of thousands of people locked up for smoking a joint, and all these people that go out and get drunk and do all kinds of things, and they don’t get locked up necessarily unless they’re caught for a major felony… and then people overdosing all the time. I was in the Philippines during Vietnam, and we had a list of people overdosing and dying because the drugs were too strong over there and they weren’t that strong over here. And then you’ve got the billions of dollars that we have spent on trying to stamp it out or lock people up or discourage it, and it hasn’t worked. It’s worse today than it ever was, not to mention the cartels and the gangs that exist because of all that money.
Bob Zadek: You know, Prohibition has taught us—Larry taught us, Ray—Prohibition has taught us that if you try to repeal, if you try to criminalize basic human nature, all you do is send the people and the providers underground. Prohibition virtually created organized crime. Gambling created organized crime. You can’t repeal human behavior. You can appeal to people to do the right thing, but you’re exactly right, Ray. You can’t repeal human behavior.
Ray: Well, you know, we’ve tried—we’ve tried really hard for what, 30, 40, 50 years? We’ve tried everything imaginable. We poured billions into it, and it hasn’t worked. I mean, it’s the same way with Prohibition. It didn’t work. So let’s try something else and not lock everybody up that makes a little mistake or that smoked a joint instead of had five beers.
Bob Zadek: Well, when you say they made a little mistake, I would argue they didn’t make any mistake at all. They ran their lives the way they chose, correctly or incorrectly. They didn’t make a mistake. The mistake was made in the legislation. Human behavior—natural human behavior—is rarely a mistake. Laws must recognize humans are humans. And while for sure people should be prevented from harming others—there’s no question, that’s the essential role of government—people are free to harm themselves. And what you and I can do because we care is try to talk our friends and relatives out of doing bad things, but they are free to do so.
Ray: Well, that’s exactly right. That’s a good point.
Bob Zadek: It’s just that some of the laws we have and some of the agenda of the judges that make these laws—when they shouldn’t be making laws—criminalizes things and hurts people just wrongly. The harm done by incarceration is much more damaging than the harm people would suffer from making an intelligent decision to use a mood-altering drug when they wish to. We have the statistics: 80% of the increase in the federal prison population was due to drug convictions for the 10-year period between 1985 and 1995. 80 percent! Do you know how empty the prisons would be if drugs were legalized? And the cost: $40 billion a year in an unwinnable war on drugs. Ray, it just makes no sense.
Ray: I couldn’t agree more.
Bob Zadek: Thank you very much for your call, Ray. This is Bob Zadek, host of The Bob Zadek Show. Today’s topic: legalization of drugs. 800-345-5639, or rzadek@gmail.com. We’ll be right back.
Individual Choice and the European Model [08:45]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to The Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek, at Talk 910 KNEW. Today’s topic: the legalization of drugs. This is not a pro-drug show. Frankly, when I was growing up, I wasn’t very much “with it.” I smoked marijuana a few times; never got high. It didn’t have any effect. I faked it a few times; I pretended I was high because people would think I was cool if I got high from marijuana. Maybe I wasn’t smoking marijuana—who knows? But I never enjoyed it very much. It never did anything to me. And today, I can’t be around anybody who has altered their behavior through drugs. I don’t like it.
This is not a pro-drug show at all. It is a pro-individual choice show. That’s what I like. Women want to have pro-choice over what they do with their bodies. Well, how about pro-choice for what people do with their inhaling? Jess, welcome to The Bob Zadek Show.
Jess: Yeah, Bob, thanks for taking my call. I just want to say that—
Bob Zadek: Nice to hear from you this morning.
Jess: Pardon me?
Bob Zadek: Nice to hear from you this morning. I was being nice, Jess.
Jess: Yeah. Beautiful day out here in San Francisco. What’s on your mind this morning?
Jess: Well, first I just wanted to say that I totally agree with the point of view I understand you to be presenting here this morning. And I have a question: aren’t there a couple of countries in Northern Europe who take this approach? And isn’t the evidence—you know, in terms of reduced cost and reduced crime, reduced robbery—just irrefutable that it’s the best way to go?
Bob Zadek: The results are somewhat irrefutable, if you can have degrees of irrefutableness. The Netherlands allows marijuana to be—and maybe other drugs, I’m not sure about that—but the Netherlands has allowed marijuana use for some time. And the visitors to the Netherlands have sometimes complained that the apparent prevalence of drug use is not pretty to watch.
In fact, Jess, I can read you something. U.S. News & World Report, a biweekly news magazine, did a survey and asked its readers to opine on the legalization of drugs. I read some of the responses, in part to learn why people were opposed to legalization, because I was so much in favor of it and I wanted to hear the other point of view. Jess, let me just read to you what one reader reported after visiting Western Europe where drugs were legal. This reader said, “In Europe it was tragic”—his words—“to see the number of emaciated youths sprawled about the floors of stations in legalized countries. Their bodies appeared to be wasted due to malnutrition and drug use. The legally available drugs certainly did not enhance their lives or the lives of others in their communities.” And that was a guy named Don. So, at least one person found it to be unpleasant to visit those countries.
But Jess, I wonder if that’s the issue. Let’s assume that Don, the reader whose quote I read to you, was being accurate. My comment is: so what? So what if there are people who have made really, really bad decisions and really are emaciated and stoned and wandering around and doing all kinds of things that are unpleasant to visitors? Isn’t that their choice? You know, we talk about the cost of the war on drugs. There is an economic cost, which is profound, but there is the cost of the loss of freedom. That cost doesn’t find its way into a budget, but it’s pervasive, Jess.
Jess: Right, right. The question that comes to my mind on what Don was observing there is: do those countries offer a choice for the user of recovery?
Personal Responsibility and Socialized Medicine [00:00]
Bob Zadek: I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s known programs where people can recover from whatever—heroin or marijuana, you know, whatever. Do they have that choice to select that? Most of Western Europe has nationalized and socialized medicine so that people who suffer medical adverse effects of drug use simply go into the healthcare infrastructure and get taken care of. My—in my view, in my world, my perfect world—I’m of course vehemently opposed to socialized medicine. I’m vehemently opposed to what Obama wants to do with healthcare—a different topic. But what I would say is if people suffer health consequences from drug use, they must pay. If they want to use drugs, they have medical insurance with a drug use rider. So I don’t want to pay for their problems, their medical problems. Let them pay. That way they make a choice to use drugs. Inherent in that choice is they’re paying the freight.
Jess: I see, yeah. Well, I just want—and I’m, I’m gonna disagree with you, but I guess, you know, open discussion is a good thing. Like, I’m for socialized medicine, and I’m for everybody having a place to live to eliminate the homeless. I think everybody should have a place to live no matter how they ended up out in the street. But I’m one of these West Coast liberals, I guess.
Bob Zadek: Jess, I got a lot of work to do with you. I’ll keep listening. Appreciate your call, Jess. Thanks so much.
The Social Cost of Drug Use [05:00]
Bob Zadek: Len, welcome to the Bob Zadek Show.
Len: Good morning or afternoon, Bob. You know, uh, thanks so much for your call. Some guy said once, if you don’t know history, you don’t learn from it. You know, nobody seems to remember what happened to the Chinese around 1800 for a couple of generations while their country was laissez-faire about the opium use; they lost quite a few people. The whole structure of government started to fall apart. It happened here in the United States until about 1914 when they looked—when we, our guys, looked over and saw China, how they were falling apart, and decided to stop us by passing certain laws that would prohibit the public from consuming all kinds of drugs. So, you know, anybody that thinks that legalization is beneficial has to be a socialist, has to believe in social medicine because that way the government gets to control every aspect of a dope fiend’s life. That’s why they call it dope, because the person loses his freedom after taking it.
Bob Zadek: Isn’t he free to do that?
Len: He may be free, quote-unquote, to do so. It’s more like license than freedom. But after a time, he loses his freedom because the dope, the drug, takes that choice away.
Bob Zadek: Why should that behavior be illegal? Behavior that is harmful to somebody is harmful. We’ll—will not you and I will agree that you have to be pretty irresponsible to use mood-altering drugs. At least that’s my opinion. So I have no respect for anybody, and I don’t think I could be friendly with people who routinely show the effects of mind-altering drugs. It’s just not—doesn’t comport with my standards. But they’re free to do it. Freedom—freedom is important. You can’t minimize that importance.
Len: When you take the freedom, when you take what you call the freedom of the individual to do as they please, and you turn to the social structure, the context, and put it in the proper perspective, it’s a burden for the rest of us.
Bob Zadek: Economic or non-economic?
Len: Both. Both socially and economically.
Bob Zadek: How?
Len: Well, there is a social cost. The pro-criminalization part of society point to many social costs. They point to—it disrupts families. They talk about 50% of the homeless people are drug abusers. They point to more traffic accidents. They point to mental illness.
Bob Zadek: And I say stress at work is harmful. Eating sugar is harmful. Alcohol for sure is harmful. There are so many things that are harmful. The fact that something is harmful is not in and of itself grounds to make it illegal. It’s just harmful. Sugar is harmful. You enter a slippery slope. Too much oxygen or water is harmful.
Len: So are you going to, you know—we have to determine on a large scale, on a social scale, the importance and give and take. We’re not going to restrict your intake of water. But if so many people are taking a substance that is harmful—alcohol was made illegal at one time, and as a matter of fact, prohibition did work.
Bob Zadek: Well…
Len: The incidence of alcohol abuse did go down. People dying of cirrhosis did go down. There’s certain powers in the government that found that to be not appropriate for their pocketbook, so they went back and legalized it again.
Bob Zadek: You know, Len, you said something really interesting. You said it worked because cirrhosis went down.
Len: Death from alcohol.
Bob Zadek: Death from alcohol. I say that’s not the test. That doesn’t prove it worked. Because if you had a society that was very, very rigid, and there were many more laws than we have now, people might very well be healthier, but they’d be miserable. So the test of whether something works is very subjective.
Len: Well, if you want them to all be happy, then put drugs in the water supply system.
Bob Zadek: That’s what I’m saying. I want them to be free, not happy. Len, I just want them to be free. Thanks so much for your call.
Len: Thanks, Bob. Thanks a lot.
Bob Zadek: You’re listening to the Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek. 1-800-345-5639. Should drugs be legal? We’ll be right back.
The Failure of Prohibition [12:00]
Bob Zadek: Welcome back to the Bob Zadek Show. I’m your host, Bob Zadek. Today’s topic: should drugs be legalized? This is not a pro-drug show; it’s a pro-freedom show. Should drugs be legalized? I’d love to hear your views. 1-800-345-5639 on Talk 910. Or if you’re out of area, RZIC@gmail.com. I’d love to hear your views on should drugs be legalized.
Before we went to break, Len took the position that Prohibition, quote, “worked.” That was your words, Len. It worked. And as evidence that it worked, there was lower deaths from alcohol. That’s not the test. If you restrict people’s behavior enough, if you prohibit them from going outside, something will work. The test is not, “does it work in the narrow sense?” The test is, “does it work, i.e., is it healthy for society?”
Now, those of you who think prohibition of drugs works, consider this: drugs are cheaper now and purer than they were 40 years ago. Organized crime earns about 400 billion dollars a year on the illegal sale of drugs. The illegal sale of drugs is 8% of the world trade. The prison industry makes a fortune. Private prisons, prison employee unions—they make a fortune. An overwhelming percentage of the prison population is there either because they dealt in drugs or because they used drugs. Len, I’m sorry, that’s not working.
Bob Zadek: Jonathan, welcome to the—second welcome to the show.
Jonathan: Thank you very much. I—I just couldn’t agree with you more on many levels, but primarily, in bringing it down to the fundamentals, the choice of—and freedom—is the most important as far as I’m concerned. Uh, we’re—we’re individuals. We’re a democracy. We should have the choice to do whatever we want to on our bodies. Uh, number—the second level is just the sheer fact of: it’s going to happen regardless. Uh, tax the heck out of it. You know, uh, go ahead and make it governmental. Take it away from the criminals who are—are benefiting and profiting from this every day. And the criminal aspect of it is just astounding. And as far as the—as you just said—with the—with the cost of the prison system, the bloating of the prison system, uh, it just is—is revenue. It could be revenue generating. Take those revenues and apply them to educational standards to help people who become addicts. As was pointed out, it’s just too huge.
The Economic and Moral Case for Legalization [00:00]
Bob Zadek: Jonathan, you’re exactly right. Um, a—um, a local official in Oakland, California, has pointed out that in California, marijuana—uh, it was Rebecca Kaplan, who’s an Oakland City Councilwoman—she pointed out, quote, “It’s ironic that the largest cash crop in the state,” talking about marijuana, “is not being taxed.” Now, of course, she’s reacting the way any public official does: “I’m going to tax it.” Putting aside the issue of salivating over the taxes, uh, she in Oakland—Rebecca Kaplan does—points out that this is a source of revenue. And if you’re offended by how bad it is to earn revenue off this bad habit, what about the states earning a fortune off gambling, which is addictive, but yet the state runs the lottery and taxes the heck out of gambling casinos? The state taxes the heck out of cigarettes. They are addictive. And alcohol, and alcohol, and alcohol.
So the utter hypocrisy of picking one activity which is, quote, “bad for you,” and saying we’re going to put people in prison. However bad, uh, mood-altering drugs damage your life, what about those people—those hundreds of thousands of people—who are in prison for having contact with drugs? What about the effect on their lives of being in prison? Where does that get built into the equation?
Jonathan: Well, the thing is that they’re still getting drugs in prison.
Bob Zadek: Well, that’s all—that’s sort of—sort of besides the point. The issue is, to me, it is utter hypocrisy that nobody who defends criminalization can make a compelling argument other than this soft stuff that it is bad for you. Richard, welcome to The Bob Zadek Show.
Richard: Yeah, how’s it going?
Bob Zadek: Nice, Richard. Welcome.
Richard: Well, I’m not a drug user, and, uh, I actually all these years believed, uh, you know, it should be banned, but the more I think about it, if, uh, cartels make enough money off drugs to make an army, and states and our country is losing all that money, just legalize it.
Bob Zadek: Well, legalize it and control it. That’s it. Right now we can’t control it, and we—we spend money on it. If you legalize it, you can control it, and instead of spending money, you make money. It’s all backwards, Richard. You got it.
Richard: They just say we’ll drive out the gangs and they could do something else, you know, but maybe they’ll go to prostitution or something.
Bob Zadek: You know, we should legalize that too. I mean, what the heck? Richard, tune in—an upcoming show: legalization of prostitution. You and I think alike, Richard.
Richard: But you know, I mean, we’re wasting so much money fighting it. Uh, the cartel and the people that are manufacturing it and selling it over here—they’re making oodles of money, and this is money that could be pushed back in our economy, so we don’t even have to sit there and, uh, do bailouts and that. That’ll cover it by itself.
Bob Zadek: Richard, you’re so right. Thank you so much for your thoughts.
Richard: Have a good day.
Bob Zadek: Thank you, Richard. Bye-bye.
Laboratories of Democracy [08:15]
Bob Zadek: You know, I don’t know if Justice Brandeis—one of our greatest Supreme Court justices—uh, was a drug user. I suspect that he was not. Uh, but Brandeis, who served on the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939—a very long tenure then—uh, Brandeis respected the importance of states as being the incubators for ideas. Brandeis said that states are “laboratories of democracy.” What wonderful words. Brandeis said states are places where individuals would choose a given locale based on, uh, how much or how little government they wanted. Brandeis railed, again unsuccessfully, against federal encroachment on states’ rights issues. Brandeis knew that the states were the laboratories.
California is possibly going to be on the forefront if it has the courage to go forward and experiment with one small step: the legalization and control of marijuana. Now, California’s doing it probably out of desperation because it doesn’t have any money. But if that desperation causes California to experiment with something really healthy and a good idea, God bless it. So we’ll have to see if Tom Ammiano’s bills have any legs.
Right now, we are losing, losing, losing the war on drugs. We’re spending a fortune. We’re interfering with people’s personal freedom. We are insulting individuals by telling individuals, “You lack the good judgment to be a good parent, to be a good individual, to make decisions about yourself that make sense.” We insult people by insisting government knows better than they do how to run their lives.
As a libertarian, this is not about drug use to me. It’s not about using drugs. It’s about the state—the government—telling me, “Bob, we trust your ability to make good decisions. And if you don’t, it’s on you.” Well, Washington, Sacramento, Albany—I want it to be on me. Give me the freedom to make choices about my own life. If I harm somebody else, there are existing laws that will deal with me. So long as I don’t harm somebody else, give me that freedom. That’s what libertarian talk radio is all about. That’s what The Bob Zadek Show is all about. We’re here every Sunday from noon to one o’clock on Talk 910, KNEW. 1-800-345-5639. This is Bob Zadek, host of The Bob Zadek Show.