Argentine pot: no harm, no foul

August 31, 6:38 PMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

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Maybe it's time to quit stigmatizing Third World countries by calling them Third World countries.

At least when it comes to the drug war.

While the supposedly advanced and enlightened First World countries, such as The United States of America, still love to gussie up their cop corps with military style guns and gear and gangland arrogance and turn them loose like a pack of hounds on people who are doing nothing more than committing an act of harming no one, the nations of South America are dismantling the War On Some Drugs one law at a time.

Argentina's Supreme Court, in a recent unanimous ruling, held it "unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana as long as it doesn't harm anyone else." (CNN News).

The decision was handed down only four days after Mexico launched their own law that legally allows their citizens to indulge in small amounts of the most popular prohibited products (marijuana, meth, cocaine, heroin, LSD) without the horror of the hoosegow hanging over their heads.

And earlier this year, according to the same source, the appeals court in another so-called Third World nation, Brazil, "ruled that possession of drugs for personal use is not illegal."

Yet the War on Drugs, an expression first employed by President Nixon in 1969, is still being hotly pursued forty years later, making it not only America's longest war but the longest war against its own citizens.

Argentina's Supreme Court Justice Carlos Fayt claimed his mind was changed by "reality."

So where is America's reality? In the early twentieth century it took only 13 years for people, including many of the most passionate prohibitionists themselves, to see the revolting reality of killing and corruption and criminality created by the idiocy of outlawing alcohol.

But libertarians are seeing signs that the "awakening" to the reality of drug prohibition is poised to take an ugly turn. Governments just can't bring themselves to simply leave people the hell alone. They are congenitally predisposed to muck up peoples' lives.

The developing paradigm seems to be Treatment Instead of Trial.

Unfortunately, not prosecuting crack users isn't as enlightened as it's cracked up to be.

Mexico's new law will "encourage" smalltime users to seek treatment but the third time they're busted "treatment is mandatory."

So you're either a prisoner or a patient but never an autonomous person.

Robert Pastor, a former Jimmy Carter advisor, notes that "handling drug use as a health challenge and focusing on treatment may be more efficient."

So forget rights, government efficiency is all that matters.

Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue policy institute talks in terms of "harm-reduction" and how to "reduce harm to users and society."

Nary a word about individual choice and self-ownership.

And America's own Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, "signaled" (a political weasel word) that the Obama Administration would not use the term "War on Drugs" because it's counter-productive (progressives don't like the term because it sounds rightwing) and is contrary to the (still unimplemented) policy favoring treatment (compulsory behavior modification) over incarceration in trying to reduce (peoples' freely chosen) drug use.

So rather than seeing a gradual end through legalization or decriminalization or political policy changes, expect to see the War on Drugs morph into a Mandatory Medical Interdiction on Drugs.

Instead of SWAT teams dressed in black and wielding lethal weapons and handcuffs your children and grandchildren's lives will be invaded by Medico-Commandos swathed in white and brandishing hypodermic needles and straightjackets.

And the government's War Against its Own Citizens will simply continue in another guise.