As a fan of Tom Tancredo, I find it very disappointing to hear him advocating for the legalization of drugs. One expects this kind of thing from liberals but when a conservative starts promoting government approval and regulation of dangerous substances, something is very wrong. In the words of former Senator Patrick Moynihan, by attempting to “define deviancy down” Tancredo may indeed be committing political suicide, and, while that would be regrettable, it wouldn’t compare to the negative consequences such a foolish policy would have on our society.

Certainly, the so-called war against drugs has not been overly successful. While hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on arresting and incarcerating drug dealers and users every year, the demand seems to continue to rise—along with the influence of criminal groups like the Mexican drug cartels. So, why not save that money and allow government to tax and make a profit from the drug trade by legalizing it, like alcohol?

In the first place, while government surely spends a lot of money on drug crimes, I’m not sure such efforts could truly be characterized as a concerted “war on drugs.” Rather than a war, the effort against drugs in the U.S. is more like a disjointed, uncoordinated, hit-or-miss endeavor run by the Keystone Cops. In fact, since Bill Bennett was drug czar under George H.W Bush, I can’t recall a serious attempt being made by the federal government in this arena. While every president since then has had a drug czar, does anyone believe a strong anti-drug policy was pursued by “I didn’t inhale” Bill Clinton? George Bush was obviously preoccupied by the war in Iraq, and does anyone think that fighting drugs is one of Obama’s priorities? In short, there hasn’t been a serious effort to fight drugs in this country for over 20 years, so despite the money being spent it’s a misnomer to call it a “war.” Instead of throwing in the towel on this non-war, perhaps Mr. Tancredo should advocate for a true national engagement on this issue.

The social cost of legalizing drugs on our society would also be immense—and likely end up costing us even more than it is now—and not just in dollars. Whatever the government legalizes receives de facto moral approval. It sends the message, as with abortion, that it is ethically okay, which only serves to encourage the practice. Before abortion was legalized in this country, abortions ranged in the thousands. Afterward, it averaged over a million a year. Legalizing drugs would have the same effect. Instead of millions, it’s likely that tens of millions would become users. Having smoked “weed” in my youth (a fact of which I am not proud), I know that it can have a very negative impact on an individual, distorting one’s thinking and creating a “dead-headed” outlook on life characterized by loopy passivity. Do we really want to have a nation full of lazy, empty-headed “stoners,” smoking grass and having no qualms about it? Another side effect of marijuana is a sense of paranoia that is heightened by the fact that it is illegal, which is a good thing. It’s an incentive to stop. Diminishing that sense of guilt and fear of being caught does nothing but encourage more drug use, which is another reason to oppose legalization.

Marijuana—as everyone who has used it knows—is a “gateway drug.” A seemingly innocuous (initially) way of getting high, it almost inevitably leads to greater drug use. Since all drugs have a diminishing return over time it takes more and more to get the same sense of euphoria, leading to smoking more and/ or seeking stronger weed. That quest usually doesn’t end with marijuana. It commonly leads to using things like hashish, peyote, ecstasy, crystal “meth” or cocaine, which in turn may lead to the use of hallucinogenics, like mescaline and LSD—and even heroin. The truth is, if we are going to legalize marijuana, we will ultimately have to do the same for all of these drugs. After all, the rationale will already be in place: just think of all the money the government can save/make! Along the way, we will continue to “define deviancy down” in our society, until virtually nothing is considered wrong anymore. Hey, if making drugs legal is good, what about prostitution?

Perhaps most disappointing about Tom Tancredo’s push (no pun intended) to legalize marijuana and other drugs is the immorality of the position, especially for a professing Christian. Unlike alcohol, which has food value and doesn’t necessarily cause drunkenness, drugs always impair one’s mind and distort one’s consciousness. That’s the only reason for using them. But they come at a high price, often impairing the user’s life, creating addicts who commit serious crimes to maintain their habit and destroying lives and families. While it doesn’t specifically mention drugs, the Bible condemns drunkenness and by extension all things that distort one’s ability to function with a clear mind and cause addiction. Such behavior is bad for the individual and unhealthy for society. Does Tom Tancredo really want to advocate for something so morally wrong and destructive to our nation? If so, his political future probably is over.

The man who rolled into The White House on a claim of being, among other things, a constitutional scholar is looking like anything but. More like a dictator.

This number represents millions of police hours spent to search for, arrest and follow-up administrative tasks (writing report, proper handling of evidence, seeking a warrant, going to court).  Since not every search results in finding marijuana, any official number of hours spent in the arrest of the 829,000 will be lower than the amount actually spent.  In the 1990s my colleagues in Mid-Michigan (Lansing area) reported searching an average of 15 vehicles in order to make one marijuana arrest.

As an officer prepares to search a vehicle, nearly always they will ask another officer to assist with the vehicle search.  This action draws the second officer out of their patrol district, thus if a 911 call goes out, they are out of service or at least further away from the scene of the emergency.  This lowers public safety. 

Whether a custodial arrest is made or the person is given a citation and released, most officers immediately return to the station to secure the marijuana in an evidence locker and write the report.  This officer is out of service and away from their patrol district.

The amount of time to arrest for felony sale or manufacture of marijuana will normally vastly surpass that of simple possession.  Those 90,000 arrests easily represent in excess of one million police hours.  To that total must be added the vast number of marijuana grow ops where the police spend hours, even days destroying acres of pots plants and no suspects are ever found and charged.

Public safety is reduced as marijuana is grown in national parks and forests.  Hikers and hunters have been threatened, even killed.  Collateral damage is also done to ecosystems as a result of the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc.  Pollution to nearby streams and posing a threat of a wildfire are added problems. 

National public safety is threatened as terrorists fund their operations with money earned from the sale of marijuana and its cousin hashish.  Federal police, DEA and FBI assets spend considerable amounts of time searching for and arresting those engaged in large scale marijuana operations, such as medical dispensaries in California, etc.  These are hours lost to searching for and arresting terrorists and other national security threats.

Any jail or prison space taken up for a violation of marijuana law is one less that could be occupied by someone convicted of a non-consensual crime like DUI, assault, rape, child porn, etc.

Mexico's ambassador to the United States has now picked up as a red herring an Obama administration drumbeat about US-origin firearms in the hands of his country's drug cartels. The drum major and majorette, Attorney General Eic Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have famously suggested that the cartels' armories can be weakened by more gun control in Mexico's neighbor to the north, the United States.