For decades, the Left, traditionally the anti-free market side, opposed the Drug War, exposed its ill effects on the most vulnerable classes of people, and all the tragedy that ensued. The Right, despite their declared support for free markets, have almost universally supported the Drug War, as well as the law-and-order approach to offenders and the militarization of police. How both sides were able to hold such a contradiction in their collective minds for so long is beyond me.
The Left, in calling for the legalization for cannabis, implicitly understood the humanitarianism of the libertarian vision of removing controls on voluntary behavior, and the idiocy of declaring something illegal when there exists no victim. It would only take a small nudge to apply that libertarian humanitarianism to every other area of life currently blighted by government interference.
Most of the mainstream Right only recently admitted to the utter lunacy of cannabis prohibition, and how it contradicts their supposed support of freedom. The ‘libertarian Right’ if there is such a thing, has supported legalization, but they have historically been drowned out by the Republican demagogues of Prohibition.
Only the libertarians remain as the ones who have not only supported legalization, but understood the principle behind it.
But marijuana legalization belongs to neither the Left nor the Right. Marijuana legalization has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt what libertarians have been saying for years: that liberty is humane, and good, and our only option.
It’s prohibition of voluntary behavior of any stripe that is immoral, because it violates the dignity of both parties to a transaction, forces transactions underground where neither side have recourse to courts of law. Prohibition augments and consolidates power, siphoning it away from the people and into the hands of the government. Prohibition becomes a black hole for taxpayer billions and an unending source of power for its architects.
The Drug War became a jobs program for hundreds of thousands of government employees. It also became a playground for all the totalitarian surveillance tech that was designed and manufactured by the domestic arm of the Military/Industrial Complex, and then handed over to the cops, who took it gleefully and immediately deployed it against U.S. citizens. It is now coming to an end, in grand fashion.
The definitive herald of the end of the Drug War is the appearance of the colorful, creative cannabis billboards that have popped up around Oklahoma City. They are beautiful to behold, who would’ve predicted their presence a decade ago? They signify a dramatic increase in liberty, well-being, and prosperity.
Liberty is humanitarian, and nothing is more exemplary of that fact than legalized cannabis.
