Conservatives and the Drug War

Martin at Media Crapola has the story about Martha Witherspoon, a 75-year-old great-grandmother, who just finished serving 15 years in prison for buying cocaine from a narc.
Martin concludes his post with this strong point:

Not to pick on the Right here, but Republican conservatives are the most vocal of the drug warriors, and they fervently believe that when it comes to GUNS, the adage “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, while emphasizing the idea of personal responsibility. Yet, to suggest that “cocaine doesn’t kill people,…. “etc. is roundly rejected. How can one inanimate object, like guns, be completely innocent of complicity while another inanimate object. like cocaine, be, in and of itself, capable of murder and mayhem, and worse? It just doesn’t make any sense. This insanity has to stop. To repeat myself: DRUG PROHIBITION DOES MORE HARM TO OUR SOCIETY THAN THE DRUGS THEMSELVES.

Good question.
In a somewhat related item, the excellent Drug Policy Alliance is working on placing a series of ads titled “The RIGHT Response to the War on Drugs” in the New York Sun and Roll Call during the Republican Convention, with quotes like:

“…I wouldn’t be surprised if in 10 years or so you saw the
conservative coalition come out for an end to drug prohibition.”
— Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

“Can any policy, however high-minded, be moral if it
leads to widespread corruption, imprisons so many,
has so racist an effect, destroys our inner cities, wreaks
havoc on misguided and vulnerable individuals and brings
death and destruction to foreign countries?”
— Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Winner (Economic Science, 1976), Presidential Medal of Freedom (1988)

I think it’s a great idea. At Drug WarRant, I believe that drug policy reform must be the goal of liberals, conservatives and everyone else (and it’s going to take everyone to make the necessary changes). Why not help out with these ads?