Drug War Idiocy
I’m going to take a break this week from talking about national matters and focus on something that is happening on the State level in many states currently. There is a noted explosion in Methamphetimine production across the country. I heard a number this morning on the way in saying that compared to five or so years ago, the number of Meth labs in North Carolina has exploded (going from 7 to 348). Apparently many of these labs operate by going and purchasing products that contain ephedrin or pseudo-ephedrin and distilling it out to use in the production of Meth.
So what have a number of States done to correct this problem? They’ve now made it harder for anyone to purchase products containing ephedrin by requiring that they be kept behind the counter and you must present an ID to purchase the product. In many states, there is also a limit on how much you can buy at one time. North Carolina’s law went into effect as of today.
Now, like many Libertarians, I’m a proponent of ending the War on Drugs (but I’m not a Republican who scored a good dime bag once, as a friend of mine put it recently). Far too much has been done over the years in the name of the War on Drugs that has led to increasing violence in many areas of the country, danger to the Border Patrol and Coast Guard, and situations resulting in infringing on civil rights. There are studies out there that note that the most cost effective way of dealing with drug use is not in criminalizing it and trying to stop it at the source or at the border, but rather to spend the money on rehabilitation and prevention programs.
Instead, we have a situation where cold medicine is being made a defacto controlled substance. In order to purchase something that there is no law against owning, I have to provide an ID to a pharmacist rather than just walking up to the shelf, getting what I need, paying, and leaving. I personally see the arguments of ‘but if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you shouldn’t care’ to be juvenille and naive. Just because I’m not doing anything wrong doesn’t mean that someone has the right to order a closer scrunity of me in an attempt to capture a small subset of those purchasing an over the counter medication. It’s very close to a de facto presumption of guilt where it becomes my responsibility to prove that I’m going to use the product for its intended purpose rather than using it to manufacture a controlled substance.
Sooner or later, people are going to need to wake up and realize that Freedom isn’t necessarily safe. There are risks involved in everything and part of being free is accepting that there are going to be those risks and you will have to accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions. If you want to be free, you can’t constantly ask Mama and Daddy Government to protect you and provide for you. If you do, you’re handing over more and more of your Freedom in return for whatever amount of security they’re offering–with no guarantees that what you pay for is what you’ll get.
I can understand and appreciate the good intentions of the various States who have instituted laws of this sort. I’m just ashamed that none of them care to take a look at where the road they’re paving with these good intentions is taking us. I for one have no desire to end up in the hell of a nanny state.