Harry Anslinger was no Moses!

I’d like to see more Republicans like Ann Lee:

“Bad law needs to be dealt with, we don’t need to follow it blindly,” says 86-year-old Ann Lee, the founder and executive director of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition (RAMP). In an interview with Reason at a Cleveland hotel near the Republican National Convention (RNC), Lee adds, “The mystery to me is why Republicans respect this law like it came from Moses, and when you read how it came about in 1937 under FDR…why Republicans support that is beyond me.”

It’s beyond me too. And has been for decades. I do try to understand why people think what they think, but I’ve never been able to fathom the bipartisan love affair with an incredibly stupid, incredibly cruel idea.

In the case of the GOP, a big problem remains the fact that Ronald Reagan ramped up the war on drugs in a major way, and he is revered to the point where questioning any of his premises is considered near-blasphemy. Many conservatives cling to Reagan’s war on drugs as if it had been in fact an emanation from Moses.

I don’t know what it would take to change minds. Perhaps the realization that when the war on terror and the war on drugs merge, constitutional freedoms will disappear entirely.

MORE: It is worth noting that the war on drugs is also a war on dogs:

Police in Wynnewood, Oklahoma arrived at the home of the Malones with a warrant for someone who had lived at the rental residence 10 years earlier, according to local TV station Fox 25.

While there, an unidentified police officer took what Fox 25 described as a high-powered rifle from his vehicle and shot Opie, described as a bulldog/pitbull mix, multiple times, including at least twice in front of children who were having a birthday party, according to Vicki Malone, the mother. Police insist the dog came around the house to menace police, but Fox 25 reports it obtained video that showed the dog lying on the ground with a bullet wound in its head near the fence, not near the house as police insisted.

The police chief also admitted to Fox 25 that they knew the Malones were the most recent residents and that a number of people had moved in and out of the house. But, said Ken Moore, police “had to start somewhere,” and the warrant gave them the authority to enter the Malone property without their permission.

They “had to start somewhere,” so they started by shooting a fenced in dog at a birthday party attended by innocent children with absolutely no connection to the original suspect.

As to the ten-year-old warrant, one guess as to what it was for.

If you guessed “drugs,” you were right!

According to police, the officer was looking for Shon McNiel when he came to the home occupied by Vickie Malone and her children. They’ve lived there for a year and told Fox 25 the officer who shot their dog, Opie, had responded twice to calls for service at their address in the past year. Malone told FOX 25 the officer was aware of Opie during a previous visit.

According to court records, McNiel’s last known address was not at the Malone house. Instead, the address on the warrant issued for his arrest lists a home on a nearby street. The warrant says McNiel owes Garvin County $3,712.72 for a 2006 drug conviction.

FOX 25 spoke with Garvin County Sheriff Larry Rhodes whose office keeps track of warrants. Sheriff Rhodes says while his agency did not request assistance from Wynnewood, it is not uncommon for local departments to initiate fugitive searches.

Rhodes told FOX 25 when his office entered the warrant from the court, a different address came up for McNiel, the address where the Malone family lives. However, the sheriff said the county’s computer systems are not interconnected and it is possible for one of them to have a more updated address than the other.

The victim was a dog (and dog lives don’t matter), but they could just as easily have shot a child.

The war on drugs gives trigger-happy officers a license to do almost anything.