Members of the Libertarian Party applauded a recent opinion piece in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof calling for an end to the War on Drugs. “This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won,” Kristof writes.
Last month, drug-tolerant Netherlands announced it was closing eight prisons because there wasn't enough violent crime in the country. The United States is suffering no such shortage, with five times the rate of incarceration of the average developed country, even though its prison population prior to Richard Nixon's declaration of the War on Drugs was comparable to that of the Netherlands.
Violence is not a legacy of drugs. It is a legacy of drug laws. Former LP candidate for Treasurer in California Less Antman notes, “A hundred years ago, nearly all Americans could buy alcohol and heroin at the general store with no restrictions or even prescriptions, yet rates of addiction were not much different than today. Some abstained, some used these items responsibly, and some misused them, just as happens now. But the streets were much safer, the government much smaller, and the businesses supplying these products didn't need to be skilled at violence.”
Libertarians are years ahead of Kristof and others now calling for an end to prohibition. Ending the government’s actions against peaceful drug users has long been a top priority for the Libertarian Party. Marc Montoni, Secretary of the LP of Virginia, says that “the Libertarian Party, and the libertarian philosophy, isn't just about eminent domain reform, gun laws, and taxes. It is about those things; but it is also about repealing drug prohibition. All of it. It's about abolishing laws against consensual behavior.”
Americans had it right at the start, when interfering in their neighbor's personal choices would never have occurred to decent people. We can make that choice again. Within months of the repeal of alcohol prohibition, organized crime syndicates collapsed with the loss of revenue, and violent crime dropped dramatically. We need America to quit the War on Drugs—Cold Turkey.
