From the front lines of America’s #1 policy disaster
by Sheriff Bill Masters
Reviewed by Brian Wright

Editor’s note: I met Sheriff Bill at the 2002 Libertarian Party National Convention in Indianapolis. He looked just like the picture, authentic law-enforcement (LE) good guy, unpretentious, whistle blower. He had the inside skinny on how corrupt the cops of Samland had become, almost all being on the take in the Drug Racket. With federalization, the drug war money from the Washington—guns, SWAT teams, civil forfeiture, and simply mountains of tax loot—made for a welfare system few of his buddies in Colorado LE could resist. It became just too easy to become a self-righteous thug. The book was hot stuff around the l/Libertarian circuit in 2001 when it came out. I bought the book from his table, did a read in a couple of days, and found it remarkable that so little a book could be so dense-packed with moral and practical observations of the “#1 policy disaster.”

I especially like the way the book starts with “Remember Zeke,” a story on collateral damage of the War on Drugs (WOD). Ezekial Hernandez, a teenage boy tending goats near a small south Texas town near the Rio Grande, happened on a Marine joint task force drug interdiction team… and because Zeke was carrying a .22 rifle (for plinking and to fend off coyotes and wild dogs), the Marines opened fire and killed him. Another good boy who won’t become a good man thanks to the WOD. Masters provides story after story of collateral damage, killings, rife with willful police misconduct… and that’s only up ’til 2001. It’s 10 years later. That the WOD has murdered tens of thousands and incarcerated hundreds of thousands more, destroyed millions of lives is a pure imcomprehensible, heinous outrage.

No serious, caring human being can any longer view the WOD as moral or practical, any more than it was moral or practical to invade Iraq, kill a million civilians, displace five-million more, and leave depleted uranium in their soil and water for the next 4.6 billion years. But for those on the slow side let me run down Bill Masters’ list of practical arguments, perhaps the best succinct common sense case for sanity and end the deadly hysteria once and forever:

…the basic theory of supply and demand tells us that when prices go down consumption goes up. Once drug prohibition is repealed and the violent black market is wiped out, the prices of most drugs will drop dramatically. Thus, some addicts and casual users may take more drugs, and some people who don’t take drugs today because they’re so expensive may start taking them. But the simple economic model doesn’t tell the whole story. Repealing drug prohibition will also result in some people taking fewer drugs or no drugs:

Forbidden Fruit. For some rebellious young people, taking drugs is a way to say ‘to hell with the Man.’ As a song by Rage Against the Machine put it: “F*** you, I won’t do what you tell me!” Some people simply do not resist forbidden fruit. The tendency is so ingrained in human nature that it is central to the story of Adam and Eve…

Education. Today, drug education is a joke. The drug war requires a vast body of propaganda to sustain it. Basically, we lie to our children about drugs. It’s no surprise, then, that many young people ignore even the legitimate warnings about drug use…

Treatment. Today, drug addicts are treated as criminals or social pariahs. Thus, many addicts don’t seek the treatment they need. With the repeal of drug prohibition, addicts would be more open about their problem and more willing to pursue treatment options…

Minors and Children. Many parents feel that drug pushers will give drugs to their children. But we don’t have this fear about alcohol. Why is that? Because alcohol is sold by reputable business owners, while other drugs are sold by criminal street dealers…

Personal Responsibility. When drug prohibition is repealed more people will stop pretending the government will solve our country’s drug problems. Religious and other spiritual leaders will take responsibility to help people deal with drug abuse…

Exacerbate the Problems. Some conservatives make a simple argument that sounds plausible at first: “Look at all the problems with violence that we have today. Gangs are murdering one another over drug turf, we have drive-by shootings and stray bullets, and pushers shoot first, ask questions later. If we legalize drugs, these problems will only get worse.” Not only is this argument wrong it is exactly opposite of the truth. Violence in drug sales is caused by prohibition…

Turf Wars. For no legal business do we see violent gangsters walking around murdering their competition. In the drug trade that happens all the time.

Protection. As David Friedman writes in his book Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, “Drug sellers have lots of portable wealth in the form of money and drugs, and do not have the option of calling the police if someone steals it. The result is violence by drug dealers defending their property and by other people trying to steal it.”

Violence Training. People who think they might want to live a violent lifestyle are attracted to the drug trade. Drug dealers then train themselves and others in the methods and instruments of violence. Sometimes this violence carries over into non-drug-related activities.

Violence by Police. When politicians compel the police to make midnight, no-knock, military-style assault raids, drug dealers aren’t the only ones to suffer. Sometimes law enforcement officers get killed or wounded, too. Sometimes fights between the police and drug dealers spill over and take the lives of innocent people. Sometimes the police raid the wrong house and traumatize or kill the innocent people living inside…

So that covers a lot of Masters’ key practical points against drug prohibition. The section ends with a quote from Harry Browne: “America woke up in 1933 and ended the ‘Noble Experiment’—the nightmare of alcohol Prohibition—that had triggered the worst crime wave in the nation’s history. It is long past time to end the even larger crime wave sponsored by drug Prohibition.”

So why hasn’t drug Prohibition ended? Basically because war—all wars—is the health of the Borg… and its many financial lackeys. As Masters says, there are simply too many political forces addicted to the ‘lure of easy money’ (and power) that Prohibition provides. On the street level the Prosecutocracy is addicted to drug laws because of the power. On the Wall Street level, the financial interests are addicted to drug laws because of the money. And like all Borg antihuman projects, the real people suffer and die.

Yes, Masters’ book is excellent and makes the case beyond any reasonable doubt that the WOD is terrorism of the most wretched and extreme kind. But he writes 10 years ago! What’s changed since then?! Just recently a SWAT team attacked the home of and murdered an innocent former Marine in Tucson, AZ. These atrocities have to stop, and those responsible for them— namely anyone associated with the apprehension and prosecution of persons for drug offenses—need to be put on trial for treason and removed from society if found guilty. [btw, that includes anyone in the US Congress—73 senators and 255 representatives—who voted for the recent unconstitutional extension of the Patriot Act. These men and women are traitors and must be put away ASAP, not killed, but ‘reconciled’ and removed from all authority.]

Realistically, I know that the WOD and its traitorous implementers are going to be in ‘polite’ society for a while yet. Thus, the longer-range, permanent solution is to raise consciousness through spiritual awakening. Fortunately, I am now on the cusp of implementing a new ‘religion’ of nonaggression. Check it out here, and I hope you can be available to visit with me at this year’s Free State Project Porcupine Festival and discuss the tools of our imminent salvation… from atrocities like torture, war, drug prohibition, and the Great Collective Unconscious (GCU) that has stuck the majority of decent, striving humanity with statism and aggression for centuries. Repent and be saved! 🙂