“we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy”

For quite some time, I have been vehemently opposed to the candidacy of Newt Gingrich, to the point where I sometimes thought I was being paranoid, even allowing that I suffered from Gingrichphobia.

Well, I now feel vindicated, and if anything I don’t think I was being paranoid enough. In his latest interview, Gingrich has made it abundantly clear that he wants to ramp up the War on Drugs.

As to states rights, forget it. Newt says the federal government should rule:

Three Republican presidential candidates have shown an openness to handing over control of drugs and medical marijuana to the states. Would you continue the current federal policy making marijuana illegal in all cases or give the states more control?

I would continue current federal policy, largely because of the confusing signal that steps towards legalization sends to harder drugs.

I think the California experience is that medical marijuana becomes a joke. It becomes marijuana for any use. You find local doctors who will prescribe it for anybody that walks in.

In other words, the man sees doctors as a suspect class along with everyone else. Of course, his belief that doctors should not be free to practice medicine as they see fit, but should instead have federal overseers, is perfectly consistent with his traditional support for Obamacare-style Big Government health care tyranny.

His reasoning does not even mention constitutional considerations. He simply thinks there should be federal supremacy because people will cross state lines.

Why shouldn’t the states have control over this? Why should this be a federal issue?

Because I think you guarantee that people will cross state lines if it becomes a state-by-state exemption.

I don’t have a comprehensive view. My general belief is that we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy. And that we should recognize that the Mexican cartels are funded by Americans.

Expand on what you mean by “aggressive.”

In my mind it means having steeper economic penalties and it means having a willingness to do more drug testing.

“Aggressive” does not stop there. It also includes his continued support for the death penalty for drug offenses:

In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?

I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they’ve done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there’s nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, ‘These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.’ If you’re serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we’re going to have drugs in this country.

Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They’ve been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.

What a dichotomy! You either think there’s nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine, or else you think that drug dependency is “antithetical to being an American.” Why single out drug dependency among the various social ills for “un-American” status, unless the goal is clearly to malign, demonize, scapegoat, and persecute? Looking closely at the Singapore model, I do believe that is precisely the man’s goal. To reshape America along totalitarian lines.

And Republicans (much less a plurality of them) are even considering voting for this guy?

I have to say, I have never been more ashamed to be a Republican than I am right now. (BTW, it pains me to have to write this, because I am a loyal person who has long believed in bending over backwards in the interest of helping the Republican cause.)

And how can he stand there and accuse Ron Paul of saying “there’s nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine”? Ron Paul has gone out of his way to condemn drug use (as well as other irresponsible behaviors), but like many Americans, he believes the war on civil liberties is far worse.  I see the Gingrich view as along the lines of “there’s nothing wrong with violating the Constitution.”

To this Machiavellian striking a utilitarian pose, the Constitution means little or nothing. Nor do the rights of any individual. What matters to him is his opinion of what constitutes the greater “good.” Thus even patients in need of medical marijuana should be deprived of it by the government because otherwise it might send a message that it’s OK!

In 1981, you introduced a bill that would allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. What has changed?

What has changed was the number of parents I met with who said they did not want their children to get the signal from the government that it was acceptable behavior and that they were prepared to say as a matter of value that it was better to send a clear signal on no drug use at the risk of inconveniencing some people, than it was to be compassionate toward a small group at the risk of telling a much larger group that it was okay to use the drug.

It’s a change of information. Within a year of my original support of that bill I withdrew it.

I’d like apply the Gingrich “logic” to pain killers. Better to have some people inconvenienced by intractable pain than send a message that it is OK to use narcotics! And why not? Aren’t narcotic drugs more dangerous than marijuana?

Pressed for specifics on the WOD, Gingrich makes what I consider a surprising admission. He proposes making drugs more expensive. (Music to the ears of the drug cartels, of course.) By violating the rights of as many Americans as humanly possible in a massive invasion of the privacy of their bodily fluids.

Speaking of Ron Paul, at the last debate, he said that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. We’ve spent billions of dollars since President Nixon and we still have rising levels of drug use. Should we continue down the same path given the amount of money we’ve spent? How can we reform our approach?

I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.

[OK, so let’s “name it.” How about getting a tax refund? A mortgage interest deduction? A social security check?]

It has always struck me that if you’re serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting–I don’t think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.

Sometime in the next year we’ll have a comprehensive proposal on drugs and it will be designed to say that we want to minimize drug use in America and we’re very serious about it.

Hey, I don’t doubt for one moment that he’s serious about it.

That’s the whole problem.

The man wants to massively ramp up the drug war. A war against citizens he considers less than citizens, and as people who should not be regarded as Americans.

Words fail.

I have been hoping I was wrong in my paranoid assessment of Gingrich, but it has now become obvious that I was right. If anything I understated the case.

Perhaps I should have been “much more aggressive” about Gingrich. When was the last time his urine was tested?

I hate to say this, but I might have to consider voting Libertarian after all.


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19 responses to ““we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy””

  1. James Solbakken Avatar

    The drug war is only incidentally about recreational use of drugs. Primarily, in terms of totalitarian politics, it is all about our medicines. Who the hell is the Newt World Odor to compel us regarding our medicines? WTF is up with that? I’m supposed to feel like a degenerate junkie if I feel like taking something to ease my pain while I die of cancer? Gimme a break.
    The Bible says give painkillers to those who are perishing. But the Gingrich who stole Xmas says NO, because it sends a message he doesn’t like.

  2. Mark Lindholm Avatar
    Mark Lindholm

    This definitely gives me second thoughts about Gingrich. But he does have a point about medical marijuana becoming a joke. Recreational smokers commonly invent symptoms that they know will trigger the prescription they need. And ultimately medical professionals will have a harder time sorting reality out of the bullshit because of these laws.

  3. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    When my companion got cancer 3 years ago and had to take chemo and radiation he completely lost his appetite, and suffered what seemed like unending bouts of nausea. He went from a robust 225 lbs. down to 155 lbs. before he died.

    I hate to relive this, holding his head over the toilet while he retched, watching him in convulsions, unable to eat or sleep.

    His radiologist prescribed dronabinol (marinol) after other medications failed. Our insurance provider, Blue Cross, refused to cover the expense which was over $2,000 per prescription, because THC is classified as a Schedule I narcotic.

    So we found an illegal source, and became criminals. It didn’t save his life, but it did ease his suffering.

    Gingrich and his kind are nothing more than fascists bent on total control. And he has the gall to call himself a Christian. I would never under any circumstances vote for the bastard.

  4. jb Avatar

    One candidate considers both the citizens, and the Constitution. He understands that foreign policy DOES NOT trump the Constitution.

    He is called the doddering uncle and fringe, while “conservatives” continue to think “their vote counts” and continue to vote for statists.

    We get what we deserve, or vote for. Serves us right.

  5. Craig Avatar
    Craig

    It seems to me this issue is just extremely trivial compared to the mammoth issues we are facing. We need a united voice to get Obama’a far worse ideology off the table, rather than vote for a futile third party and increase his prospects

  6. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    It seems to me this issue is just extremely trivial…

    Freedom is trivial? If the choice is between Gingrich and Obama then there is no choice. Go down the list of positions the man has taken from agreeing with Pelosi about Global Warming to draconian escalation of the Drug War to support for an individual healthcare mandate, and add in corruption on a massive scale with millions in “consulting” fees from Freddie Mac, and tell me he is the lesser of two evils.

    So in a hypothetical contest between Stalin and Hitler we should vote for Hitler because he only gassed a few million Jews, while Stalin starved 20 million Kulaks.

    Statist thugs reside on both the left and the right. Newt Gingrich is as corrupt a statist thug as is Obama. Flip a coin.

    Too much hyperbole? Then just know that the man is the epitome of a social conservative without an ounce libertarian softening. A vote for him is a vote for a right wing police state. Why do you think Bill Clinton has nice things to say about him? Maybe they both like cigars?

  7. jb Avatar

    Craig-

    Perhaps I am reading you wrong, so forgive me if so, but I did not say a thing about “3rd Party.”

    What I did allude to is that there is one candidate who adheres to the Constitution as written, is not smitten by the “run around the world and make war on every imagined devil,” and who the GOP, were it honest about its roots and its base, would nominate in a NY minute.

    There is Ron Paul . . . and then, the 7 dwarfs, all of whom can’t wait to attack more countries, waste more dollars doing so, maintain 190 bases worldwide, all the while we are stuck with Uncle Ben Bernanke who, as we just found out, on the sly and not wanting to answer to Rep. Paul or anyone else, handed out 7.77 TRILLION DOLLARS more than TARP to the flipping banks.

    Only one “Republican” is addressing that issue, and his/her name is not Romney, Gingrich, Cain, Perry, Bachmann, Santorum or Huntsman; yet you and I just found out we have an additional bill of almost 8 TRILLION dollars. We don’t need to worry about “foreign” terrorists, we need to worry about these politcos on the home front that are terrorizing our savings and retirement and aborting those accounts of our kids and grand-kids before they are are even born..

    Only Ron Paul addresses the issues at hand, and yet again, the stupid party (GOP), is about to nominate yet another loser who will guarantee the worst-case scenario – a 2nd Bammster term.

    Romney slides around on all sides of opinion, constantly wetting his finger and sticking it in the wind. Ole 999 ought to stuck to pizza dough and toppings. Gingrich? Oh, please! Why not just nominate John McCain again and be done with it. The rest of the dwarfs? Sheesh! Please!

    Of course, immediately will come the “isolationist” charge against Paul. Yeah, what of it? That was what our founders intended, and despite the neo-connish arguments to the contrary, saying we need to spread “democracy around the world,” I am reminded that we are not a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic that needs to get its own house in order before running around the world playing policeman to folks who don’t want us there.

    But don’t you know, if we just elect the right person, or somehow defeat the Bammster (the GOP said that about Clinton and gave us Bush, who as did his Dad, loved running up the budget!), we will correct matters. Uh, HUH!

    I hate to puncture sacred balloons, but . . .

    To picture one of the dwarfs as President, or the Bammster back in for another term, or the worst case scenario (which may well occur), Obama doing an LBJ and Hillary getting the Dems’ nod (she will win, hands down!), is enough to make me lose my last meal.

    And the GOP simply cannot see it. Sad spectacle.

    Forrest Gump’s Mama got it right, and it wasn’t about a box of chocolates:

    “Stupid is as stupid does.”

  8. A Critic Avatar
    A Critic

    “It seems to me this issue is just extremely trivial compared to the mammoth issues we are facing.”

    My younger brother died as a result of the “War on Drugs”.

    He wasn’t the first nor was he the last. Thousands die directly, only God knows how many die indirectly (i.e. those who could have survived cancer if they had access to med pot). Millions more have their lives ruined by jail, prison, fines, forfeiture, etc.

    Trivial? That’s just plain ignorant.

  9. M. Simon Avatar

    A Critic November 29th, 2011,

    Mine too. Back in ’74. The Drug War will never be trivial for me either.

  10. Pogo Avatar
    Pogo

    This whole Republican primary campaign started out just fair, and has really gone down hill since. Makes you wonder.

  11. Simon Avatar
    Simon

    Pogo,

    My mate and I were discussing that very topic and came to the same conclusion.

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  18. […] vote for Gingrich over Obama, and the thought sickens me to no end, because Gingrich is a man who seriously believes in capital punishment for victimless crimes (in the name of the war on drugs). Romney is bad, but […]

  19. […] can be trusted with pain meds, and drug policies are dictated by the philosophy that it’s better to have some people inconvenienced by intractable pain than the alternative. Print PDF Categories: Uncategorized 0 […]