Legal Commentary

The War on Drugs goes viral

By Tom Kirkendall

The perverse damage that federal and state drug prohibition policies impose on American citizens and our neighbors has been a frequent topic on this blog over the years.

In this must-read Reason.com article, Radley Balko reviews how America?s drug prohibition policies are increasingly being used as a basis for conducting Gestapo-like raids on American citizens:

Last week, a Columbia, Missouri, drug raid captured on video went viral. As of this morning, the video had garnered 950,000 views on YouTube. It has lit up message boards, blogs, and discussion groups around the Web, unleashing anger, resentment and even, regrettably, calls for violence against the police officers who conducted the raid.

I've been writing about and researching these raids for about five years, including raids that claimed the lives of innocent children, grandmothers, college students, and bystanders. Innocent families have been terrorized by cops who raided on bad information, or who raided the wrong home due to some careless mistake. There's never been a reaction like this one.

But despite all the anger the raid has inspired, the only thing unusual thing here is that the raid was captured on video, and that the video was subsequently released to the press. Everything else was routine. Save for the outrage coming from Columbia residents themselves, therefore, the mass anger directed at the Columbia Police Department over the last week is misdirected.

Raids just like the one captured in the video happen 100-150 times every day in America. Those angered by that video should probably look to their own communities. Odds are pretty good that your local police department is doing the same thing.

Meanwhile, after suggesting on the campaign trail that drug prohibition policies needed to be changed, President Obama has cynically and hypocritically retreated and now supports the federal government?s drug prohibition policy. Meanwhile, the enormous costs of the dubious policy continue to pile up.

America?s War on Drugs is lost. It is way past time that we require our leaders to acknowledge that and end it. Their war has now become a war on us.

Update: Scott Henson has more.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on May 14, 2010 (boomark / email).