If we have to have a drug war, can’t we have an honest drug war?

In my earlier post about the war on drugs, I mentioned Ronald Reagan’s unfortunate (although quite possibly inevitable) role thusly:

Amazingly, the problem wasn’t solved by news laws, so we launched a “war.”

Try as I might, I simply cannot figure out what is “conservative” about it.

Unless conservatism is to be forever defined by and chained to a great mistake that tarnishes the legacy of a great man, I just don’t get it.

I did not mean to single Ronald Reagan out, for he did not start the drug war. Nor was his escalation of it the only escalation. Far from it. It escalated before Reagan, and it has been escalating ever since.

What caused Reagan to escalate the drug war was its previous failure. Yet his efforts, too, draconian in nature as they were, were also doomed to be failure. One of his greatest failures:

Reagan’s failure in the war against drugs and related crime activities is so great that drugs were the number one issue in the 1988 presidential campaign.

At the time, Reagan had escalated the war on drugs to a level unprecedented in American history. Yet despite the fact that that escalation failed, it led to new escalation.

Failure works that way. So does escalation. When escalation produces more failure, that leads to more escalation and more failure.

The tragedy of Ronald Reagan’s role on the war on drugs is that it this built-in dynamic of failure was not his fault. Yet he exists as a convenient target of blame (or praise, depending on point of view).

Lest anyone not think our failure is escalating, consider the dramatic new powers now being deployed in the war on drugs.  The Patriot Act was sold to a nervous and vulnerable public as new, much-needed tools to fight terrorism. And as we now know, these tools (roving wiretaps, sneak and peek warrants,etc.) have become little more than routine new tools to fight the war on drugs, which have militarized law enforcement more than ever in our nation’s history. Some have called this “mission creep,” but I am a little more cynical. I consider it a fraudulent escalation of the war on drugs. Fraudulent because we were lied to, and it’s pretty clear that the people who lied knew exactly what they were doing.

The first thing you need to understand about the Patriot Act is this: Osama Bin Laden‘s destruction of the World Trade Centre wasn’t the reason the act was passed; it was merely the excuse. The real reason dates back to the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan demonstrated his principled commitment to personal liberty and small government by turning the “war on drugs” up to 11.

Of course, the constitution as it’s written makes drug laws difficult to enforce. Police learn about most crimes – real crimes – when the victims report them to the police. But there’s no victim to complain when a willing buyer purchases a product from a willing seller, so drug cops looking to make arrests and justify their existence had to resort to privacy violations and fishing expeditions instead.

Then came the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the most horrific in my country’s history. But it was also the answer to every drug warrior’s prayers: they finally got the unconstitutional powers they craved, and under a spiffy patriotic acronym to boot.

It sure as hell wasn’t Reagan’s fault. He was history when this fraudulent escalation took place.

Obama, on the other hand, was not. He promised to repeal the Patriot Act, then voted for it. And when he signed the extension of the Patriot Act provisions, the drug war was thus escalated again — in a deal that was done virtually in secret:

On Thursday, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders agreed to a deal to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act for four years, a significant decision that generated little press attention or sustained political debate.

Certain sections of the Patriot Act, which originally passed Congress a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with near-unanimous support, have long been criticized by civil libertarians in both political parties.

But the Obama administration and its allies on Capitol Hill have been eager to renew about-to-expire provisions that expanded domestic intelligence collection and wiretapping powers. As the AP put it, “The idea [of the deal] is to pass the extension with as little debate as possible to avoid a protracted and familiar argument over the expanded power the law gives to the government.” A vote is expected within several days.

And guess what? Surprise! He signed it. Well, at least he sort of virtually kind of signed it:

Minutes before the midnight deadline Thursday, President Obama approved a four-year extension of the government’s Patriot Act powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

“I think it is an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” the president said from the G-8 Summit in France.

The White House said Obama had signed the bill from Europe using an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president. The action comes a month after intelligence and military forces hunted down Usama bin Laden.

Notice the way the media spins this deliberate escalation of the war on drugs? Not once in that entire article (or many like it) were drugs mentioned.

It would be like passing a law allowing the government to monitor virtually all private financial transactions, and then telling them it’s only a law to stop money laundering.

So I will say this for Reagan. At least when he escalated the war on drugs, he didn’t call it something else.

MORE: Once again, here’s the graph comparing the “delayed-notice” search warrants (authorized by the Patriot Act after trusting Americans were assured they would only be used against terrorists):

If you think the Patriot Act looks like a tall tale, you’re right!