The War on Drugs

Drug policy reform is the issue for which I'm best known, and to which I've dedicated the better part of my life and most of my past efforts. In 1996, I helped Californians pass Proposition 215, the nation's first "medical marijuana" law. Medical marijuana and "compassionate use" legislation have since gained support and passage of across much of America, but there's a lot left to do.

Let me preface my position by pointing out one thing: This is no more about drugs than the Boston Tea Party was about tea. It's about freedom:

Freedom to look after your own health without a bureaucrat snooping around in your medicine cabinet.

Freedom to choose the substances that you're going to eat, drink, smoke or otherwise ingest without having to fear that midnight knock at the door and the shout of "police!"

And, yes, freedom to "get high" without risking arrest and imprisonment.

You may not use drugs. As a matter of fact, I don't care whether or not you use drugs. It's still not about drugs, it's about freedom. Your freedom, whether you use drugs or not.

If you don't think the drug war limits your freedom, it's time to think again.

You may not use drugs, but you shouldn't have to urinate into a cup to prove to the government that you don't ... and neither should your son or daughter.

You may not use drugs, but hundreds have Americans have learned -- sometimes at the cost of their very lives -- that that doesn't matter when the police break down the wrong door because an informant lied or a typist got the address wrong on the warrant.

You may not use drugs, but your government still spends tens of billions of dollars of your money every year unsuccessfully trying to prevent everyone else from using them.

More than 800,000 Americans were arrested last year for possession of marijuana. Our prisons are filled with individuals convicted of non-violent "drug-related offenses." America, land of the free, now imprisons more of its own people than any other nation on earth. In many American cities, "driving while black" might as well be a crime, because it's nearly certain to get you pulled over so that your car can be searched for drugs. Many of our neighborhoods are free-fire zones where gangs of crooks battle for dominance in a black market that would not exist if anyone could stop by their local drug store and pick up their drug of choice for use in the privacy of their home.

Everywhere you turn, the war on drugs pervades our social fabric. Everywhere, that is, except the one place you'd expect to find it: The Constitution. Go ahead, look. Try to find any authority in the Constitution for this kind of perpetual nationwide dragnet. You can't find it, because it's not there.

If you read the Constitution, you'll see that our politicians realized they had to amend it in order to prohibit alcohol. They did -- and they repealed that prohibition after a 15-year national nightmare that included a nationwide rise of organized crime, street violence and ... drinking! Before alcohol Prohibition, less than one in five Americans consumed alcohol. By the end of it, one in three Americans were boozing it up.

Our politicians forgot the lessons of alcohol Prohibition almost immediately as they moved to crack down on other drugs. They also forgot that they needed a constitutional amendment to make that crackdown legal.

We could argue all day long about the virtues and vices of drug use, and you might be surprised at some of the facts that your government doesn't want you to know ... but it really isn't about virtue or vice. It's about the destructive effects -- far more destructive than drug use itself -- that the drug war has on our society. It's about the wise limits that our forefathers put on the power of government and which are now being ignored. And it's about your freedom to live as you see fit, so long as you refrain from aggression against others.

As I travel around the country seeking your support for my candidacy, I'll be carrying in my shirt pocket the text of my first executive order (click here to read it), to be issued upon my inauguration, should I be elected. Unlike previous presidents, I'll be using executive orders to restrain, rather than empower, government.

My first executive order will be a "stand down" order for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the subdivisions of all other government agencies which are party to the "war on drugs." That executive order will freeze those agencies' and subdivisions' operating accounts, place their employees on leave or on other duties, and direct their department heads to produce and submit permanent "stand down" plans for Congress to refer to in its next budget session.

After issuing that order, I'll wait.

I'll wait for someone to sue, seeking a writ of mandamus from the courts to force me to prosecute the "war on drugs." If that suit comes, I'll direct the Solicitor General of the United States to vigorously defend my administration against any order requiring it to enforce unconstitutional laws.

I'll wait for Congress to appropriate new money for support of the "war on drugs." And I'll veto any budget which contains such an appropriation.

I'll wait for Congress to pass, and send to the states, a constitutional amendment making the "war on drugs" legal. I don't think they'll do it -- if for no other reason than that to do so would be to publicly admit that decades of past drug prosecutions were illegal and unconstitutional, and that those convicted and punished under those laws are owed restitution for the unjust treatment to which they were subjected.

The war on drugs has been an exercise in failure and in national dishonor. It's time to end it.