Drug War atrocities
August 15, 2008 – 6:53 pm by JohnRadley Balko blagged about Charlie Lynch, a Californian who smoked marijuana for medicinal purposes, which is now legal in California, but who was arrested anyway by federal thugs and now faces 100 years in prison for violating federal laws. Please read his post; it’s short. I can’t add much to it. Monstrously evil crimes like the one being committed against Lynch are becoming so commonplace that I’m a little surprised I’m even outraged at it, but I am. Maybe my outrage is directed at the inability of so many people to understand that it is everyone’s right to do what they want to their own bodies and the injustices committed by an omnipotent State that violates that right are to be expected.
Second, a man is dead and another is wounded because of an undercover drug sting that turned into a robbery in Detroit on Tuesday. The sting happened in the Westland Mall parking lot in the middle of the afternoon. The undercover cops arranged to meet with some drug dealers to sell them drugs and then arrest them for attempting to buy it. (That is how drug stings go, I’m told.) But, instead of buy the drugs, the buyers decided to rob the sellers, and that’s when the gunfire began. Over 100 shots were fired in all, with one of the police’s targets being killed and another wounded. The deal was going to be for $60,000 worth of cocaine, so it’s easy to see why the thugs who don’t work for the police were willing to take such a risk to obtain the drugs.
As someone who has the moral clarity to understand right and wrong (as contrasted with legal vs. illegal) and defend people’s rights even when their actions are repulsive to me, I am at a loss to understand why everyone in the world still fails to grasp this obvious and simple fact: MOST OF THE HARM THAT COMES FROM DRUGS IS DUE TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE ILLEGAL. I know they can ruin lives, but the State and its armed thugs ruin many more directly, not to even mention the way they ruin lives indirectly by debasing neighborhoods, families, and economies.
This fatal drug bust never would have happened if cocaine were legalized! Most other drug-related violence wouldn’t happen if all the other drugs were perfectly legal! The fact that dealers and users have to get around the law and are faced with such high demand in relation to supply (i.e., super-high prices) makes them resort to such desperate, violent measures. None of this happens with alcohol or tobacco! I know people know this but they just can’t bring themselves to admit it. This is what pro-State programming by schools, media, and politicians does to weak people’s minds. It prevents them from admitting the obvious: NONE OF THIS WOULD HAPPEN IF DRUGS WERE LEGAL!!!
One more tidbit to think on: Why do the cops not go to prison for possessing and attempting to sell $60,000 worth of cocaine? Possession and distributing are against the law, aren’t they? So why is it legal for them to do it? Hmmm, could it be…because agents of the State are subjected to an entirely different set of laws and standards than what the rest of us are victim to? Just like libertarian theory predicts would happen in any monopolistic state?