DPFOK Hears From a Libertarian

The individual is sovereign and individual choice has to be allowed. The Libertarian Party is based on this premise, according to Tom Laurent, who spoke at the May Meeting of the Drug Policy Forum of Oklahoma. Laurent is the Oklahoma County chair of the Libertarian Party. He said the idea of "I don't like you doing drugs. I'm going to put you away," is morally wrong. If you don't like drugs, don't do them. Laurent said that the law prohibiting the use of drugs does not stop anyone who wants to do drugs, just as the prohibition of alcohol did not stop the consumption of alcohol. When prohibition ended, mob rule stopped, but thanks to the drug laws pushed through by Harry Anslinger, the mob still rules. The bureaucracy, including the DA, the police and local courts, continue to make money from these unjust and immoral laws.

"What are the drug laws supposed to do?" asks Laurent. He answers that they don't stop drug addiction. Addicts are put in prison instead of given treatment. Junkies, he said, may be pathetic, but they are not particularly dangerous. They would be less dangerous if the drugs were legal. Also children would be protected from the use of drugs if they were legally regulated. The use of drugs is a victimless crime, just like gambling and prostitution.

The user needs to be in charge of his own treatment. Imprisonment helps neither the user nor society, who foots the bill for the huge prison population. At least half of the prisoners are non-violent and threaten no one but themselves. The criminal justice system is overloaded with these victimless criminals, some of whom need to make restitution, instead of receiving retribution. We need a system of Restorative Justice. Our government exists to protect life and property, not to dictate what we do in the privacy of our own homes.

Some of Laurent's remarks were virtually identical to those of Abraham Lincoln's when he spoke against prohibition in 1840, "A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. It goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes" (Illinois House of Representatives, Dec. 18).

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