Editorial: The Spirit of Lawfulness http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/362/lawfulness.shtml David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org, 11/12/04 One of the concepts often lost in the debate on law is the more natural concept of lawfulness: the respect by authorities for the intended spirit of a law; consistent treatment under the law for all; erring on the side of rights, at least when urgent matters of safety are not immediately on hand; giving primacy in lawmaking and enforcement to the fundamental ideals lying at the root of the idea of law itself -- the protection of life, liberty, and property from their violation by others. Law and order types tend, perhaps not universally but typically, to apply these standards one-dimensionally and in a lopsided fashion. The law is the law, break it and you should be punished and it's your fault -- but when enforcers of the law break the law in the process of ostensibly enforcing it, that's okay. At least it's okay for them to stretch the law and let the courts sort it out later. And if the letter of the law allows a law enforcement official to violate a law's spirit, that's okay too. As usual, this week's news offers multiple examples of such rationalized lawlessness by enforcers. In Georgia, police were shot down by the state Supreme Court on a search for cocaine unlawfully conducted over the objections of one home owner; the home's other owner had consented. In Illinois, that state's Supreme Court objected to drug dog searches incident to a mere traffic stop; the US Supreme Court heard arguments on the case this week. Ann Arbor's police chief plans to ignore the city's new law passed by the people's direct vote, because a loophole in the law allows him do so. On the other side of the globe, police officers in Thailand hundreds of young club-goers to undergo drug tests over a three hour time period and threaten the club owner with extra-legal restrictions on club activity -- almost trivial next to the thousands of murders of drug suspects committed by police in the government's drug war, but a violation nonetheless. A right does not completely exist in practice if the owner of that right is forced to undergo years of time and expense fighting for it in court -- all the way to Supreme Court, in some of these cases after winning in lower courts. Only when society's institutions proactively seek to respect our rights, do they have their intended protective effects on the lives of the citizenry. While one might afford some slack to an officer who makes the wrong judgment call in response to a hurried and pressured situation, the deliberate testing of the boundaries of constitutional protections by our officials is morally repugnant. And the deliberate violation of them, a daily occurrence in cities around the country, why is this not punished as a crime? After all, isn't it one? Most law and order types don't like that kind of logic. But it is merely a consequence of the all important standard of equal justice under the law. Ultimately, lawfulness is about more than the boundaries of when a person is protected from search and seizure by government forces. True lawfulness is based on the idea that the individual has the right to live in freedom. Freedom should not be taken away by individuals (e.g. violence, kidnapping, theft or vandalism); freedom should not be taken away except for exceptionally strong reasons by governments (e.g. prison and prohibition laws). It is a travesty, and a massive perpetration of lawlessness, that hundreds of thousands of Americans, people who have in no way violated the safety or property of others, are living large portions of their lives locked inside cages. Though legislation exists which purports to justify it, the unjustifiable cannot be justified. That which is lawless in its essence is not made truly lawful through the passage of mere laws. Every day these hundreds of thousands languish behind bars, each of the four thousand or so times a day one more unlucky one is arrested for a drug offense, is a crime unto itself. Every act of perjury by a law enforcer, each deliberate decision by an officer to test the limits of constitutional rights to the detriment of the individual upon whom the test is conducted, degrades the morality of our society. The totality of all of this makes up an historic evil. Our cause is to replace the institutionalization of injustice with an enlightened spirit of respect for individual lives, one at a time, and for human life as a whole.
One of my biggest Problems with the Drug Laws is inconsistant Enforcement Suburban Kids have 'YOUTHFUL TRANSGRESSIONS" Urban Kids ARE HARDCORE THUGS Pound of Cocaine and a Pound of Weed and a Pound of Crack all treated differently Skin Color, Economic Status and generally the mood of the court affect this more than the evidence. It sucks I was PRO MANDATORY sentences but they worked around it by letting SOME FOLX Plead down to lessor Charges or not charging them at all Rocket River
Thanks for the biased information to support your flawed theory from stopthedrugwar.org. Using an obviously biased editorial from such a source as the basis of your arguement is laughable. It is no different then a conservative posting the latest gossip from the Drudge Report - and should be ignored as such.
And in the past, it's "don't get divorced, don't drink alchol, outlaw p*rn and don't have sex at all." Standards change over time. What we need to look at is how much the vice is harming our society and how effectively we are dealing with it.
I am aginst drug laws, but that editorial is a horrible argument against them. There is no argument against the existence of proibition, except to say that drug laws do not merit jail time, presumably in the opinion of the author. I think we should work toward the legaliztion of drugs in our society, bit I also feel that until we do so, the laws that are on the books need to be obeyed, and I have no sympathy for those who break them and then complain about suffering the consequences.
I note that you do not actually take issue with any of the author's points, nor do you make any salient ones of your own. David Borden is certainly biased, I mean he works for a living as a drug policy reform worker, but his points are relevant and well put. The main point that I like is the fact that the drug laws have caused us to begin to tolerate lawlessness by our officials, police, judges, customs agents, and the DEA just to name a few. Anything is tolerable to fight this miserably failed "war." Vietnam and Iraq put together pale in comparison to the fiscal and human toll that has been inflicted on our country by this archaic extension of Prohibition. It is time to begin to rationally discuss the direction that our drug policy needs to go.
You have to understand. This man is writing to an audience that takes that (drug laws do not merit jail time) for granted. He is publishing to a pretty narrow audience and his editorials are written for that audience. Presumably you feel this way as well since you say you are against drug laws, so why are you reaming him for not "proving" that drug laws do not merit jail time. If you searched his archives, you would find literally thousands of arguments that support the assertion that drug laws do not merit jail time. The way I understand it, what he is basically saying is that it is unjust to tolerate one type of lawlessness while punishing so harshly behavior that is, with notable exceptions, not dangerous at all when prohibition is not involved. The author is not a man who is "suffering the consequences." This is someone writing passionately and IMO correctly about a terrible injustice in our society. Racism is ugly, but prohibitionism has proven to be one of the most racist policies in this country's history. All over drugs. We can get drugs out of the hands of our children, but it will only happen in a regulated market.
His individual points are moot because his theory is flawed. The article is entirely rubbish. The Police and other branches of law enforcement dont have the ability to write, modify, or have any say in the interpretation of the laws. They get paid to enforce it. They dont care whether the speed limit is 10, 50 or 100, they care whether the speed of your car is higher then the speed of the sign on the side of the road. And if you cant understand that enforcement requires the ability to excede the law to catch those who do the same then you have lost myself and every other sane person in this forum. I guess I still dont understand your point. Are you attempting to justify vigilante justice? A society in which each member gets to determine which laws apply to them and which do not?
police departments aren't that easy to paint with either brush. there is a pretty long history in this countrty of police departments being extremely racist including up till today. and no they dont enforce every law. the new texas law about having your license plates completely obstruction free...most of us would get a ticket for that...but does anyone?
No, it is opinion, an opinion that apparently you cannot counter or you would have put forth specific rejections of the theory rather than just saying "this article is from stopthedrugwar.com" and thinking that invalidates the author's opinion. No, but apparently you ARE trying to justify vigilante justice. Are you seriously trying to say that law enforcement has the RIGHT to break the law in order to catch drug "offenders?" You are saying that the police are allowed to decide which laws apply to them and which do not simply because they are charged with enforcing drug laws. Whose logic is flawed here? Enforcement that is allowed to bend and break the law in order to enforce it is absolutely 100% wrong. You are actually trying to argue here that you must break the law in order to enforce it. In the case of drug "crimes," you are absolutlely correct. There is virtually no way to police drug "crimes" without bending some and breaking other laws in the process. That is the entire point the author is making. Forcing prohibition on the populace and then allowing officials at all levels to break the law to enforce that prohibition is absolutlely wrong, completely unjust, and morally reprehensible. You might want to live in a country where law enforcement just gets to make up the rules as they go along, but I would rather concentrate on getting drugs out of the hands of our children.
You are using the word "law" here too losely. It is not against the law for a police car to excede the speed limit with its siren on. It is not against the law for enforcement, under order, to purchase drugs for the intent of catching a criminal. Now, if that officer were to purchase those same drugs for recreational use then, duh, thats against the law. If you take away the ability to enforce the law, you will end up with a society that doesnt have a reason to obey it. If I didnt have to worry about being caught using drugs or alcolhol while in high-school, you are damned sure I would have tried them. However, I was able to weigh risk vs reward and made it though a period of heavy peer pressure without using them - something that we all agree is the correct path for children/adolescents. You are underestimating the influence of the law.
Just because some dipsh*t politician passes a law doesn't mean you have to follow it. If you feel a law is unjust, it's your responsibility to fight it, break it and make it known how stupid it is. Even if you're never caught -- or completely innocent -- raise hell. How else are crappy laws supposed to be overturned? There are MANY more of us than them. They understand this uncomfortable reality, but until *WE* do, nothing will change.
I'm not talking about undercover buys here, I am talking about tolerated perjury (police have a term for it since it is so common, it is called testi-lying), illegal searches on a massive scale, and corruption that is so widespread that it is simply ignored. That is not to say anything at all about the other illegal crap that police simply get away with in pursuit of the drug users. Police can beat people, shoot and kill them, steal drugs and money, take and give bribes, and even offer protection to dealers, all without seeing consequences since they are trying to "police" the drug trade. The point of this article was that it is morally reprehensible that police and officials are able (and encouraged) to get away with one form of lawlessness in order to prosecute behavior that, in and of itself, is not dangerous to anyone but the user. You must be seriously overestimating the influence of this particular law. It is so influential that over half of our young people use drugs before they even leave high school (whereas in Holland, teenage rates of use are about half of ours), millions upon millions of adults regularly use all manner of drugs, and despite a massive escalation drug prices have fallen and purity has increased. Our young people now report that it is actually EASIER to get illegal drugs than it is to acquire alcohol, so this program must be an influential one indeed. Contrast this with alcohol and tobacco, two drugs which, though legal, have seen significant rates of decreased usage for teens (25% for tobacco and 50% for alcohol) since the "We Card" programs and the like were implemented nationwide in the mid-90s. In a regulated market, it would STILL be illegal for minors to possess drugs, so that particular disincentive would still be in place. The difference is that in a regulated market, we could come up with strategies that ACTUALLY reduce teen usage rather than policies that only pay lip service and "send messages" that "drugs are bad, mmmmmkay."
at the end of the Untouchables, elliot ness is asked what he would do if they repealed prohibition...he said, "i'd probably go get a drink." i don't get to decide the law...i elect others to do that...and sometimes my guys don't win. we don't advocate anarchy, here...rather we say, if you disagree with the law, vote to have it changed. it's not just one "dips#$t politician" that passes a law. it doesn't work that way. raise all the hell you want, though...petition...vote...speak your mind...those are all great things. but you'll lose clout in your argument if you attack the law by simply breaking it. it will be enforced, nonetheless. i'm not sure that advocating anarchy is the way to go...that will bite you in the ass when you're part of the majority that DOES agree with the law du jour.
I agree. I respect the law and the process under which it is passed. But I also respect the limits of the law and the possibility (probability?) of unjust laws being passed for less-than-honest reasons. In those cases, it's our responsibility to fight them with protest. Each person has to decide what that protest is -- be it signing a petition, marching on Washington or defying the law outright -- but the law is nothing more than words on paper. If 270 million Americans outright defied an injust law, the law would mean nothing and would likely be changed. That is power, and it's a power Americans forget we have. This is *our* country, not the government's. What you call anarchy I call defiance of the unjust. Anything less than rage against oppression is dangerously un-American.
