THE DARK SIDE: The good, the bad and the ugly of the war on drugs

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A remarkable thing happened at the Republican debate in South Carolina earlier this month. One of the candidates proposed legalizing controlled substances, and asked whether anyone would begin using heroin just because it was legal.

The crowd roared approval. Presumably, they agreed with the argument that legalization would not lead to rampant abuse, and were not signaling that they would abuse heroin themselves.

The moderator even remarked that he never thought South Carolinians would cheer for heroin.

Perhaps this will turn out to be a seminal moment in the legalization of controlled substances. I certainly hope so.

The war on drugs reminds me of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” Both are seemingly interminable.

Even the characters are the same. We have the good – that’s you and me; the bad – that’s the violent gangs that control the illicit drug trade; and the ugly – that would be the junkies.

There is a great scene in the movie, in which Blondie and Tuco need to cross a river to get to the cemetery where the gold is buried. But they cannot, because the Union and Confederate armies each control one side of the river, connected by a bridge. And the armies fight every day over control of the bridge.

Blondie gets the idea of blowing up the bridge as a means to compel the armies to move the front elsewhere, so they could then get to the gold on the other side. A light goes on in Tuco’s little brain, and he declares that, indeed, if the bridge were blown up, “Then these idiots would go somewhere else to fight.”

We are in a similar situation. We would like the gangs to stop fighting over turf and drug profits. And all we have to do to accomplish that is to blow up a bridge – legalize the controlled substances that they currently control and fight over. Then, these idiots would have to go somewhere else to fight.

As I mentioned earlier, the movie is seemingly endless. A person could hardly be blamed for falling asleep and missing the end. If that’s ever happened to you, here’s how the movie finally ends: The good kills the bad, and leaves the ugly out in the desert.

Legalization of controlled substances would effectively accomplish the same thing: the good (us) would kill the bad (the gangs) and leave the ugly (junkies) out in the desert.

Of course, it is even more important to do what Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson suggested at the debate – repeal the minimum wage and the corporate income tax. Just as criminalization of mind-altering drugs forces their trade and use underground, the minimum wage forces productive economic activity underground, and the corporate income tax forces it to lower-tax countries.

But in contrast to people getting high on drugs, there is not even a remotely plausible reason why the government should be suppressing people who want to engage in productive economic activity.