Early in the last century, The Great War gave the Temperance Movement a huge political boost, and the Eighteenth Amendment was passed in 1919 to control the vice of drinking alcohol. For those of you that slept through history class, this led to the rise of organized crime, a general contempt for the law, and oddly enough NASCAR, as delivering moonshine and outrunning the police became not only a skill but a sport.
Just about the only legislation less popular and more ignored in our history than Prohibition was the 55-mph speed limit, which had the exact same effect, putting law enforcement in the position of enforcing something only they took seriously. Politicians, business people and even good old mom and dad ignored the 18th Amendment on the sly; likewise, driving any major highway during that gas-saving effort at social control revealed that Americans had an internal speedometer and thought 55 was foolish. This was demonstrated by the rise in popularity of CB radios and radar detectors as the citizenry attempted to avoid getting pulled over by “Smokey.” And yet, when the gas crisis was over, suddenly priorities shifted from economics to safety, and it took another few years for that effort at social control to be eliminated.
The Drug War, too, was a well-meant effort to control human vice that created laws only crime fighters really seemed to care about and enforce. Early in my career, the local prosecutor said essentially, "If it is a quantity for individual use, don't bring it to us." "Grass" possession became a ticket eventually, and in retrospect why not? The intellectual elite, entertainers, and popular culture all seemed to mock those who didn't enjoy the leaf of Cannabis sativa. My generation laughed at Cheech and Chong, and a college party without Mary Jane was no party at all. Returning friends from Vietnam, true heroes to me, would enjoy a joint and a beer and cheer our favorite teams with me on a Sunday afternoon. Anyone see a problem here?
Once I became a law enforcement officer, drug laws seemed to be quite variable based on agency and prosecutorial discretion. The federal efforts were always ongoing, yet we began to realize the prohibition of drugs was having the exact same effect as Prohibition in the 1920s. Criminalizing drugs made criminals billions, cartels and gangs blossomed, and millions of impoverished kids saw an easy way to gain large incomes in very short time-frames. I have to admit that my greatest adventures as a crimefighter, and the best people I ever worked with, came during my time working Narcotics, and I bear no ill will toward my chosen profession. But what today's rapidly changing attitude toward drug enforcement should forewarn is the same lesson not learned in our earlier venture into controlling sin: The law should be the last, not first, resort for dealing with social ills. Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, not Leftist radicals by any means, warned us long ago about the unintended consequences of the War on Drugs.
Today, law enforcement is being blamed for the incarcerations created by these laws, criminality is rampant in major urban areas, and the only thing politicians seem intent on controlling is freedom of speech, crippling our ability to debate solutions to our social ills. Law enforcement has borne the brunt as we have attempted to make poorly thought-out laws work, and America should celebrate the programs like DARE and GREAT that we created so that we could avoid having to arrest the young as they mature.
