Then we get a new party and the ron paul type will go against the conservative. With conservatives Israel is in and drugs are out! And here I thought Conservatives were for Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law. The War on Drugs [WOD] is an evil contraconstitutional policy which has legally damaged liberty like no other policy I can think of, it is harmful to most of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights.
- 4th Amendment -- Drunk Driving Checkpoints
A procedure which utterly disregards the requirement of a warrant for searches, both of person and effects. - 4th Amendment -- No Knock Raids
A procedure [which usually is warranted] which is unreasonable, dramatically increases the probability of injury or death, and yet assumes that the perp is guilty and therefor such deaths are not murder but at worst "mistakes." - 5th Amendment -- Property Seizures
"Nor shall [he] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" is regularly violated via "property seizures" under the assumption that property [involved in drugs] can be 'arrested.'
(This is why they can take all your money if you have a large amount of cash on your person; also it violated the 4th.) - 6th Amendment -- Jury Tainting/Tampering
The 6th guarantees impartial juries, however drug-charges are reliant on juries (a) not being impartial, or (b) being ignorant [of the real law]. You see, there is nothing in the Constitution authorizing the federal control needed to regulate drugs -- indeed even by 'precedent' a Constitutional Amendment was needed for such regulation with respect to [WRT] alcohol -- and therefore such drug 'laws' are null and void. - 8th Amendment -- Sentencing
Mandatory minimums, which often exceed the reasonable punishment, have made it 'normal' to lock up people for a significant portion of their lives; caging people and depriving them of the freedom of life is cruel and inhumane. - 9th Amendment -- Text
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
There most certainly is a right to self medicate, it's called pursuit of happiness and while not recognized in the Constitution is recognized in the Declaration of Independence as an inalienable right endowed upon humanity by the Creator. - 10th Amendment -- Proliferation of Crimes
As the 6th Amendment point above points out, these drug 'laws' are not among the powers delegated to the Federal Government, indeed it would be an act of war should the federal government try to regulate [and enforce it] in foreign countries as they do here; the clause used to justify the WOD is that delegating the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" means that the powers to regulate amongst the states are the same as in foreign nations... and to try to impose our own will on [the commerce of] other nations [by military or police power] would rightly be considered an Act of War.
There are more I could list, but as you can see the WOD degrades more than half of the Bill of Rights.
How than can any conservative countenance continuation of such policy?