The DOJ is Prosecuting a Drug Kingpin, Blah, Blah, Blah

From [HERE] The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) was patting itself on the back with gusto last week in publicizing it is prosecuting alleged drug kingpin Zhi Dong Zhang upon his extradition from Mexico. The prosecution is a really big deal in the US government’s effort to win the war on drugs according to the assertions of several government employees in the DOJ press release.

In reality, the hoopla is just more “blah, blah, blah” in support of a destructive drug war that continues to cause much harm while failing to achieve its stated objectives including the reduction of drug use and threats to safety. . . .

For someone with limited familiarity with the US drug war, these statements may be convincing that a major victory in the “war” is being accomplished that will lead to a diminishing of drug use and problems associated with it. However, the truth is very different. People who have followed the US war on drugs know that the comments of the various government employees in the press release are just a bunch of “blah, blah, blah” that can be ignored. Been there, done that. The US government has indicted and convicted many kingpins over the decades without it reducing drug use, helping drug users, or making America safer or more free. Rather, these and other enforcement efforts encompassed in the drug war have contributed to increased dangers for drug users and have, as libertarian communicator Ron Paul has been arguing for decades, made America more dangerous and less free while failing to reduce the supply of drugs.

In his February of 2014 Future of Freedom Foundation editorial “Yawn. Another Big Drug Bust,” Jacob G. Hornberger laid out the logic and history of why it is wrong to think that the arrest, indictment, incarceration, or killing of a drug kingpin, be it Zhang last week or another such as Joaquin Guzman Loera at the time Hornberger wrote his editorial, will do anything to help the American people. “[B]usting a big drug lord or some drug gang reaps nothing but a lot of publicity for the drug warriors,” concluded Hornberger. It instead is part of a larger effort — the war on drugs — that causes many harms that people wrongly blame on drugs.[MORE]