A really bad trip

Joel Miller, senior editor of World Net Daily Books, is coming out with a new book: “Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America.”. Today at WND, he talked about it:

Drug laws only have public support so long as drugs are deemed extremely dangerous. Every time an effort to crack down on drugs is made with new laws, politicians hype the threat caused by narcotics and other psychoactive substances in an attempt to whip the public into a frightened tangle of angst-ridden nerves.

More fear means more support for whatever is supposed to alleviate the fear, and more support means bigger budgets. Every politician knows how to exploit this peculiar form of calculus.

This doesn’t mean that drug abuse does not cause problems. It only means that pols have every incentive to inflate problems and stoke dread to get what they want, namely tougher prohibition measures.

But as I argue in my forthcoming book, “Bad Trip,” these measures amplify every problem drugs are supposedly the cause of: crime, corruption, destructive abuse, the whole nine kilos. It’s a bureaucratic make-work program — a self-justifying and self-perpetuating system that both deceives and bilks taxpayers to keep going.

Joel nails it. I look forward to reading the book, which I’ve added to my wish list.