Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Today in America the drug war is fought by both the military and by
militarized police units. The drug warriors are well armed and funded,
supported by extensive human and electronic intelligence gathering and
surveillance, and by aggressive government propaganda. The casualties
in the drug war are innocent Americans and American constitutional
liberties.
The root of the drug war in the United States is exploitation of public
fear of people who are different—fear of racial and cultural minorities.
The first move away from America’s traditional drug policy came in
1875 in San Francisco, California. In order to provide cheap labor to build
railroads in the West, many corporations had imported Chinese male
workers, who were derisively called “coolies.” The traditional pattern of
immigrants to the United States had been for the immigrants to learn
English, and to work hard to build a new home for their families in the
United States.
2
A constructive resolution of the tensions caused by Chinese
immigration would have been to ensure that Chinese immigrants were
encouraged to follow the same path as European immigrants to the United
States: to bring their families to their new home in America, to learn
English quickly, and to join the American “melting pot.”
The first federal drug law was the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914.
The United States Constitution does not give the Congress a general
power to pass criminal law. To the contrary, the Constitution authorizes
federal criminal laws only a few specific subjects—such as piracy and
counterfeiting. James Madison, “the father of the Constitution,” explained
that ordinary criminal laws would be left to the state governments.2
1
Dale Gieringer, “125th Anniversary of the First U.S. Anti-Drug Law: San Francisco’s
Opium Den Ordinance,” Drugsense.org, Nov. 2000.
http://www.drugsense.org/dpfca/opiumlaw.html
2
Even the Federalist Papers made it clear that criminal law enforcement would not come
under the federal sphere under the new Constitution. James Madison wrote that federal
powers
“will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and
foreign commerce....The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all
objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and
property of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the
state.”
James Madison, The Federalist, number 45.
http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed45.htm
3
The Constitution does give Congress the power to collect taxes.3 So
Congress enacted the Harrison Narcotics Act in the guise of a tax law. The
law required the payment of taxes for the production, importation,
distribution and use of opium and coca and their derivatives (e.g.,
cocaine, morphine, and heroin). The Supreme Court upheld the Harrison
Narcotics Act by refusing to recognize the plain truth that the Act was a
criminal law, not a genuine tax law.4 Although federal government
attorneys told the Supreme Court that the tax was not intended as
prohibition, the taxes were quickly raised to prohibitory levels, and even
people who could afford the taxes were not allowed to register to use or
sell the substances lawfully.
3
United States Constitution, Article I, section 8: “The Congress shall have the Power to
lay and collect Taxes…”
4
Alston v. United States, 274 U.S. 289 (1927). Perhaps because of the climate of World
War One, and because of the era’s great faith in big government, the Supreme Court at
the time was more deferential to Congress than the Court has even been, before or since.
5
Joseph D. McNamara, “The American Junkie,” Hoover Digest Issue #2, Spring, 2004,
page 3 http://www.hooverdigest.org/042/mcnamara.html
6
“The Racial History of U.S. Drug Prohibition,” Drug Policy Alliance, August 2001,
http://www.drugpolicy.org/about/position/race_paper_history.cfm, citing New York
Times, Feb. 11, 1914.
4
create laws on a criminal law issue over which the Constitution gave
Congress no power.
“I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette (sic) can
do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That's why
our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population
is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low
mentally, because of social and racial conditions.”8
7
Statement of Clinton M. Hester, Assistant General Counsel for the Department of the
Treasury Before the Committee on Ways and Means, Seventy-fifth Congress, April 1937,
Shaffer Library of Drug Policy. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t9.htm.
8
Statement of H.J. Anslinger, Bureau of Narcotics of the Treasury Department, Shaffer
Library of Drug Policy. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t10a.htm
5
cigarettes. Its use has spread like wildfire and is associated with crime in
its most vicious aspects.”9
Today, the music of Glenn Miller and other jazz artists from the
1930s is considered calm and soothing, and mainly enjoyed by older
people who listen to it quietly, or who dance to it elegantly. But at the time
of the Marihuana Tax Act, Harry Anslinger was warning Americans that
Glenn Miller was part of the jazz and marijuana culture that was
destroying America.
A popular film from the period was “Reefer Madness.”10 The movie
showed young people who went insane from smoking marijuana and
dancing to piano music which was played too fast. Today, the film is
shown on college campuses as a joke. But many people have spent
decades in prison because they violated laws enacted by legislators who
believed that propaganda such as “Reefer Madness” was the truth—by
legislators who let themselves be terrified by mean-spirited accusations
against Mexicans, blacks, and young people.
9
Letter from Mrs. Hamilton Wright, special representative, Bureau of Narcotics, Schaffer
Library of Drug Policy. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/wright.htm
10
A “reefer” is old-fashioned slang for a marijuana cigarette. http://www.reefer-madness-
movie.com/history.html
11
U.S. Sentencing Commission, Special Report to Congress, “Cocaine and Federal
Sentencing Policy,” 1995.
6
1994, for example, 96.5% of defendants sentenced federally for crack
cocaine offenses were non-white.12
12
U. S. Sentencing Commission, 1994 Annual Report, table 45.
13
National Institute on Drug Abuse, “Overview of the 1991 National Household Survey on
Drug Abuse.”
14
Joseph D. McNamara, “The American Junkie,” Hoover Digest Issue #2, Spring 2004, p.
1. http://www.hooverdigest.org/042/mcnamara.html
7
II. The Growth of the Drug War Bureaucracy
In 1970, Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and
Control Act, which consolidated and updated all previous federal drug
laws. It also allowed “no knock” searches; the police could break into
homes without knocking first, in order to prevent drugs from being
destroyed while the police knocked.
15
Joann Ellison Rodgers, “Addiction: a whole new view,” Psychology Today, September-
October 1994. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_n5_v27/ai_15766724
16
John Horgan, “Tripping De-Light Fantastic, Are Psychedelic Drugs Good for You?”
Slate, May 2003. http://slate.msn.com/id/2082647/
17
U.S. National Institutes of Health, “Report on the Medical Uses of Marijuana,” August
1997. http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/mj022.htm
8
In 1973 Congress created the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration, consolidating the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement
(ODALE) and Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs; the new agency
also included agents from the U.S. Customs Service and the Central
Intelligence Agency.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush created the cabinet level Office
of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to oversee and coordinate U.S.
drug policy. In charge of the new agency is a “Drug Czar.” In the United
States--a constitutional republic—a high level government official in
charge of a powerful internal law enforcement agency is referred to by the
same term as an absolute Russian tyrant.
The DEA is hardly alone in the federal drug war. The U.S. Justice
Department operates its own drug intelligence agency.
18
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA Staffing and Budget, 1972-2005.
http://www.dea.gov/agency/staffing.htm
19
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA Staffing and Budget, 1972-2005
http://www.dea.gov/agency/staffing.htm
20
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Foreign Offices table
http://www.dea.gov/agency/domestic.htm#foreign
21
ONDCP, Federal Drug Control Spending by Function, Table 1, Fiscal Year 2003-Fiscal
Year 2005.
9
In addition, the ONDCP conducts a public relations advertising
campaigns against drug users, and against citizen efforts to change
American drug policies. One television commercial claims that Americans
who smoke marijuana are helping terrorists.22
State prison populations have also soared, with many state prisons
taking in more drug offenders than property felons.25
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/budgetsum04/drug_control.pd
f
22
Radley Balko, “The War on Drugs: Throwing Good Money at a Bad Idea,” Cato Institute,
February 2002. http://www.cato.org/research/articles/balko-020228.html;
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/budgetsum04/drug_control.pd
f
23
Joseph D. McNamara, “The American Junkie,” Hoover Digest Issue #2, Spring 2004, p.
4. http://www.hooverdigest.org/042/mcnamara.html
24
“Too Little Too Late: President Clinton’s Prison Legacy,” Center on Juvenile and
Criminal Justice. http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/clinton/clinton.html
25
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prison Statistics, 2003.” In
2001, drug offenders made up 20% of the state prison population versus 19% for property
crimes. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
10
Overall, there are more two million Americans in prison, and
another 4.5 million on probation or parole. Two million more people work
in the prison business—making prison employees (like government school
teachers), one of the most powerful lobbies in many state legislatures.
Some of the prison-population increase is attributable to sterner attitudes
toward violent and property crimes, but the explosive growth of the prison
population over the last two decades would have been impossible without
the massive incarceration of people for drug offenses.
Yet despite the vast expansion of the drug war establishment and
America's "success" in turning the United States into the world's largest
jailer, both heroin and cocaine are purer, cheaper and at least as
available today as they were 15 years ago.
26
Timothy Lynch, “Population Bomb Behind Bars,” Cato Institute, February 23, 2000.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-23-00.html. See also David B. Kopel, “Prison Blues: How
America's Foolish Sentencing Policies Endanger Public Safety,” Cato Institute Policy
Analysis number 208 (1994). http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-208.html
27
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Division of Uniform Crime Reports, “Crime in the
United States, 2000,” Section IV, persons arrested (2001)
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/00cius.htm
28
Eric E. Sterling, “A Businesspersons Guide to the Drug War,” in Ari Armstrong, editor,
“The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the Drug War”, Accurate Press, 2004.
http://www.accuratepress.net/np.html.
11
• “Cocaine prices in 2001 remained low and stable, suggesting a
steady supply to the United States.”
• “Average purity for cocaine at the gram, ounce, and kilogram levels
remained stable at high levels. In 2001, the average purity of a
kilogram of cocaine was 73 percent.”
In short, heroin and cocaine use in the United States is much greater
than when the Harrison Narcotics Act was passed. Marijuana use is much
greater than when the Marihuana Tax Act was passed. Millions of
Americans have been arrested and jailed, huge amounts of tax money
have been spent, and thousands upon thousands of government
employees have been hired to fight the Drug War. Yet the United States is
much further from the goal of creating a “Drug-free America” than when
the Drug War began.
29
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, State Fact Sheets, “Drug Trafficking in the
United States.” http://www.dea.gov/pubs/state_factsheets.html
12
militaristic law enforcement, because they believed that such a model was
a grave danger to civil liberty.30
30
Sections III and IV of this Occasional Paper include excerpts from: David B. Kopel,
“Militarized Law Enforcement: The Drug War’s Deadly Fruit,” a chapter in the book After
Prohibition, Adult Alternatives to the Drug War (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2000).
The chapter is available at:
http://www.davidkopel.com/chap/AfterProhibition.htm. Information about the book is
available at:
http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&pid=144986&method=search&t=
after+prohibition&a=&k=&aeid=&adv=&pg=
13
According to the revised law, the military may assist drug law
enforcement agencies in surveillance and similar activities, although
soldiers are still not supposed to confront civilians directly. Military
equipment may be loaned to law enforcement agencies, and the military
may train law enforcement agencies. The equipment and training may be
for any purpose. If the purpose is drug enforcement, then the equipment
and training are free; if the training is not for drug war purposes, the
civilian agency must reimburse the military for the training and the
equipment.
Although the JTFs were created solely for the drug war, this
limitation is disappearing. Early versions of JTF manuals discussed JTF
cooperation with a “DLEA” (“Drug Law Enforcement Agency”), meaning
that the JTFs would be working with agencies such as the Customs
Bureau and the Drug Enforcement Agency whose job description includes
enforcement of drug laws.
But now, the word “drug” has been dropped, and the JTF
vocabulary simply refers to the “LEA.” This change reflects the fact that
almost every law enforcement agency, no matter how specialized, can
invent some connection to the drug war.
31
JTF-6 was originally responsible only for the border states of California, Arizona, New
Mexico and Texas. The JTFs have been restructured over the years, consolidating areas
of responsibility. For instance, what used to be called Combined Joint Task Force Four
(CJTF-4) is now Joint Inter-Agency Task Force East in Key West, Florida and has
responsibility for the Caribbean and Latin America.
32
Joint Task Force-6 Website. http://www.jtf6.northcom.mil/subpages/history.html
14
compound of a small religious community, the Branch Davidians, outside
Waco, Texas. Approximately eighty armed agents invaded the compound,
purportedly to execute a single search and arrest warrant. The raid went
badly; six Branch Davidians and four agents were killed, and after a fifty-
one-day standoff, the United States Justice Department approved a plan
to use CS gas against those barricaded inside. Tanks carrying the CS gas
entered the compound. Later that day, fire broke out, and all seventy-four
men, women and children inside perished.
As part of the planning for the Waco raid, the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms went to the Joint Task Force Six, which covers
Texas, and asked for training, medical, communications, and other
support. The JTF-6 staff explained that they could only be involved if the
case were a drug case. Immediately thereafter, BATF began asserting
phony claims that the Waco case was a drug investigation; Branch
Davidian prophet David Koresh was supposedly running a
methamphetamine laboratory. It should have been obvious to JTF-6 that
the supposed drug connection was false. 34
33
In 2002, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) was removed from the
Treasury Department, and placed under the Justice Department. The Bureau was
renamed the “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.”
34
Had BATF actually been planning to take down a methamphetamine lab, its plans would
have been far different. Testimony at the 1995 congressional hearings on Waco indicated
the potential dangers of an explosion if a meth lab is not taken down properly. For
instance, because a stray bullet could cause a major explosion, a “dynamic entry” (a
violent break-in, the BATF’s method of “serving” the Waco search warrant) would be an
extremely risky, disfavored approach.
In addition, the chemicals involved in methamphetamine production are toxic,
capable of injuring lungs, skin, liver, kidneys, the central nervous system, and potentially
causing genetic damage. Thus, DEA protocol for seizure of meth labs requires that
agents wear special clothing and bring other specialized equipment. BATF not only made
no such plans, but made express advance plans to use flashbang grenades--grenades
which could set off a massive explosion in a real meth lab. For more, see David B. Kopel
and Paul H. Blackman, “No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement
and How to Fix It” (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1996).
15
many investigations for the purpose of getting, gratis, federal military
assistance.
Far larger than the number of U.S. Army personnel involved in the
drug war on any given day is the number of National Guardsmen. Although
the National Guard was created under the Congressional war power, and
the Guard is part of the military Reserve, and the Guard receives almost
all of its funding and equipment from the U.S. government, the Guard
operates under the legal fiction that it is not part of the military, and
therefore does not have to obey the Posse Comitatus Act.
35
Office of the Attorney General, State of California, press release, “2003 Campaign
Against Marijuana Planting Program Has Record Breaking Season,” October 19, 2003.
http://caag.state.ca.us/newsalerts/2003/03-133.htm
36
House Report number 107-532, Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2003, Drug
Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/cpquery/?&db_id=cp107&r_n=hr532.107&sel=TOC_357198&(2
16
National Guard’s 2005 marijuana eradication program, which includes
eradication, aerial surveillance and interdiction support.37
In California and in many other states, use of the National Guard for
marijuana eradication is sometimes preceded by a declaration from the
Governor that marijuana cultivation represents an “emergency” which
necessitates the use of the Guard. While most persons think of an
“emergency” as a spontaneous and unexpected event (such as a flood),
the Orwellian military use of “emergency” means “something that the
Governor thinks is a serious problem, even if the problem has persisted at
endemic levels for many years.” The truth is another casualty of the war
on drugs.
The drug war has also led to the proliferation of another type of
firearm in law enforcement, the German-made Heckler & Koch MP-5
machine pistols—which are usually bought by law enforcement, rather
than donated by the military. These weapons are sold almost exclusively
to the military and police. Some of the company’s advertising to civilian
law enforcement has conveyed the message that by owning the weapon,
37
Office of Senator Mitch McConnell, press release, “Senator McConnell Announces
Funding For Kentucky National Guard,” June 22, 2004.
http://mcconnell.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=223028&start=21
17
the civilian officer will be the equivalent of a member of an élite military
strike force, such as the Navy SEALs. One advertisement linked civilian
law enforcement to an actual war: “From the Gulf War to the Drug War.”
The MP-5 itself is a fine machine pistol, but the sensational advertising can
promote overly militaristic attitudes among civil police officers who use
the guns.
The military Joint Task Forces provide federal, state, and local law
enforcement with extensive training. Among the subjects taught are
patrolling, helicopter attacks, sniping, intelligence, and combat
techniques. The combat techniques often fall under what is called
“Advanced Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain” (AMOUT). This is a
euphemism for Close Quarters Combat (CQC)—house-to-house urban
killing, as practiced in places such as Stalingrad in 1943. Before 1993,
official Army policy forbade teaching Close Quarters Combat to civilian
law-enforcement, but that restriction has been abandoned. Much of the
military training is provided by the Army Rangers or the Navy
SEALs—élite attack teams.38
Far more common than the use of the military or National Guard is
the use of paramilitary police units in the drug war. Over several decades
of the drug war, “Drug Warrior” has replaced the term “Peace Officer” in
many police departments across America, and the casualties have been
piling up.
In the late 1960’s, the City of Los Angeles, California formed the first
Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team in America, which gained
national notoriety, first through high profile missions in the late 60’s and
early 70’s against the Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army,
both militant anti-government groups, and later in the 1970’s television
police drama “S.W.A.T. “
38
“SEAL” stands for “Sea, Air, Land.” For information about the SEALs, see their official
website: http://www.seal.navy.mil.
39
David B. Kopel and Ari Armstrong, “Colorado Supreme Court Paved Way for Mena
Killing.” Http://www.davekopel.org/CJ/OpEds/mena.htm.
18
better equipped and trained than regular police. The trend quickly caught
on and in many police departments, SWAT became more specialized and
“elite”--often operating outside the normal police command structure.
The victims of drug raids are not only people who break the drug
laws:
40
Peter B. Kraska & Victor E. Kappeler, Militarizing American Police: The rise and
Normalization of Paramilitary Units,” Social Problems, Feb. 1997,volume 44, issue
number 1, pages 1-16. http://www.pressroom.com/~afrimale/kraska.htm
41
Joel Miller, “Kill Zone,” World Net Daily.com, July 17, 2004.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39486
19
• In Houston in the summer of 1998, six police officers broke into the
home of Pedro Oregon Navarro and shot him dead. The pattern was
the same as in so many drug war deaths: the police broke into his
home at night, with no warning. When the victim grabbed his gun to
protect himself from the invaders, he was shot 12 times. Navarro
had nothing to do with drugs; the search warrant had been based
only on the word of a drunk who, arrested for public inebriation,
was given a chance to give the police the address of a “drug
dealer,” in exchange for being released.
One can be in favor of drugs being illegal, and still oppose “the war on
drugs,” just as one can want food stamp fraud to be illegal without
wanting a “war on welfare cheaters,” because to have “a war” is to make
it likely that the military will become involved, or as happened in the U.S.
police will become more like the military, and that, inevitably, innocent
blood will be shed.
V. Asset forfeiture
42
3 U.S. (3 Dallas) 297 (1796).
20
proceedings in asset forfeiture, “[T]he right to an indictment, the
presumption of innocence, the right to effective assistance to counsel, the
right to a jury trial, the right not to be punished prior to adjudication of
guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the right not to be punished in a manner
disproportionate to the crime, the general presumption that the state
prove culpability, and the practice of resolving legal ambiguities in favor
of the defendant all do not apply.”43
Kochan continues:
43
Donald J. Kochan, “Reforming Property Forfeiture Laws to Protect Citizens’ Rights,”
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, July 1998.
http://www.mackinac.org/article.asp?ID=1291
44
U. S. Department of Justice, FY 2003 Asset forfeiture Fund Reports, Equitable Sharing
Payments of Cash and Sale Proceeds Executed During Fiscal Year 2003, by Recipient
Agency. http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/afp/02fundreport/2003affr/report2b.htm
21
The federal Department of Justice (DOJ) forfeiture fund is used to
reward state and local law enforcement agencies for acting contrary to
state and local laws about forfeiture! In 2000, the Kansas City Star
newspaper broke a story detailing how police agencies in more than two
dozen states had been circumventing state asset forfeiture laws, with the
cooperation of the federal government.
45
Karen Dillon, “Cash in Custody,” Kansas City Star, May 19, 2000.
http://www.kcstar.com/projects/drugforfeit/new3.htm
46
“Forfeiture Fury,” Reason Magazine Online, July 1999.
http://reason.com/bi/bi-forf.shtml
22
of the five-million-dollar Scott ranch before the raid, apparently with
the expectation that the ranch would be forfeited to the
government.47
47
For details on the Scott case, see Kopel and Blackman, “No More Wacos,” supra.
48
Marijuana Policy Project, “Patients Protest Congressman Bob Barr’s Move to Overturn
D.C. Medical Marijuana Initiative,” press release, Oct. 21, 1999.
http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr102199.html
49
Marijuana Policy Project v. District of Columbia Bd. of Elections and Ethics, 191
Federal Supplement 2d 196 (District Court for the District of Columbia, March 28, 2002);
23
The Bush and Clinton administrations have prosecuted people who
complied with state medical marijuana laws, but who violated federal
marijuana laws. 50
Marijuana Policy Project, “Medical Marijuana initiative Accepted for November Election,”
Nov. 8, 1999.
51
The issue is not whether the DEA has the legal power to act in these cases. In 2001, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 does not allow a
"necessity" defense in federal court, at least not in a context in which no individual's
medical needs were before the court.
52
Karen Abbot, “Pot sparks showdown with feds”, Rocky Mountain News, Dec. 10, 2003.
http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_2491358,00.html
24
state governments and of the people to control their own state
governments.
IX. Solutions
• Most state and local law enforcement officers who currently enforce
drug laws or serve on federally sponsored narcotics task forces should
be re-assigned to investigating crimes against people and property
and first-responder preparedness for counter-terrorism.
53
“ State of the States: Drug Policy Reforms: 1996-2002,” Drug Policy Alliance, Sept.
2003 http://www.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/sos_report2003.pdf
54
H.R. 1658, The Civil Asset Reform Act of 2000.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:h.r.1658:
55
“Newsbrief: “States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana Act” Reintroduced”, Drug War
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/288/statesrights.shtml
25
• Those Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and other
federal agents currently looking for drugs should instead be looking for
al Qaeda and other terrorists.
• Congress should close the drug war loopholes to the Posse Comitatus
Act and de-fund the U.S. military’s drug interdiction operations (to
include the National Guard). The job of the military is to fight war
against America’s enemies, not against American constitutional
liberties. The more that Americans realize that defeating Islamic
terrorism is essential to American survival, the more that Americans
will support making the war against Islamist Jihad the most important
foreign policy goal. Therefore, whenever the war on drugs conflicts
which the war against terror, the war against terror should win.
For three centuries, America has set a good example of freedom for
other nations. America can continue that tradition by ending the freedom
robbing drug war at home.
26
David B. Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute. www.davekopel.org.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Michigan Law School and with
Honors in History from Brown University. He is the author of ten books and three dozen
articles in scholarly journals. He also serves as an Associate Policy Analyst with the Cato
Institute.
served in the United States Coast Guard from 1987-1991 where among other duties he
performed search and rescue, immigration and drug interdiction missions in the North
Book Chapters:
"A Foreign Policy Disaster," in The New Prohibition: Voices of Dissent Challenge the
http://www.davidkopel.com/CJ/chap/ForeignPolicyDisaster.pdf
Articles:
“Losing the War on Terrorism in Peru: The U.S. government has undermined the war on
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel032202.shtml
“Wasted: Can’t the DEA or Congress find a better way to use the DEA’s resources?”
Medical marijuana raids in California. National Review Online, Nov. 19, 2001.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel112601.shtml
“License to Kill: The (drug) war on civilians in Peru.” National Review Online. Aug. 16,
2001. http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel081601.shtml
“Out of Colombia: The drug-certification mandate and the international drug war are
making America more like Colombia.” National Review Online. Apr. 11, 2001.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel041101.shtml
“The Prohibitionist’s Burden: Congress has repealed the Fourth Amendment for
everyone on a ship.” National Review Online. July 10, 2001. Coast Guard and the drug
war.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel071001.shtml
“This is Kerry on Drugs: Starve a peasant, feed a terrorist.” Reason Online. July 15,2004.
The drug war record of Rand Beers, Homeland Security Advisor to the Kerry campaign.
http://www.reason.com/hod/dk071504.shtml
By Kopel:
“Feel Like Dancing? Beware of Tom Daschle.” National Review Online. Jan. 30, 2003.
With Glenn Reynolds. Senator Daschle's omnibus crime bill attacks RAVEs and dance
parties by classifying them as "crack houses."
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel013003.asp
27
"Smash-up Policing: When Law Enforcement Goes Military” in Busted: Stone Cowboys,
Narco-Lords and Washington's War on Drugs (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation
“Meth lab video fearmongering.” TV program pits neighbors against each other in
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel043001.shtml
“Make Policy, Not War.” Confusing drug policy with “war” is dangerous. National Review
“Militarized Law Enforcement: The Drug War's Deadly Fruit.” Chapter by Kopel in the
Cato Institute book After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st
http://www.davekopel.com/CJ/chap/AfterProhibition.htm
“Extreme Drug Law Tramples Bill of Rights. Flaws Seen in Uniform Controlled
http://www.davekopel.com/CJ/IP/ExtremeDrugLaw.htm
“Marijuana Jail Terms: Costly and Hasty.” Independence Institute Issue Paper. 1991.
http://www.davekopel.com/CJ/MarijuanaJailTerms.htm
“Drug Testing: Shaky Science May Nullify Good Intentions.” Independence Institute Issue
“Street Junkies are the Real Enemy.” Phony drug war statistics. Colorado Statesman.
http://www.davekopel.com/CJ/OpEds/Assault-on-Privacy.htm
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