Toe-Sucking Consultant Advises Prez: Put Drug War Front & Center!

Reader Stephen Rynerson passes along this Dick Morris col about what Bush needs to do get his groove back. Rynerson notes the piece is "unremarkable," except for "one suggestion that practically caused me to fall out of my chair":

Put the drug fight front and center: Demand drug testing in schools with parental consent, and tax incentives for workplace drug testing. Link cocaine to terrorism, and build a national consensus for tough measures to cut demand.

For the full col by Morris, who was driven from the Clinton White House by one of the most tawdry sex scandals of recent years (Washington division), go here.

Hey, the feds have already linked coke to terrorism, at a laughable traveling exhibit put on by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

And if you want to start an anti-prohibition revolution, just start mandatory drug testing in schools, especially for honor students. That will drive home the absurdity of the war on drugs more quickly than the government's own propaganda.

Comments

[ChicagoTom]

And if you want to start an anti-prohibition revolution, just start mandatory drug testing in schools, especially for honor students.

Doubtful. Didn't a study come out suggesting that a majority of students believe the government should be able to censor newspapers and curb 1st amendment protections?

I doubt too many kids today are going to rise up against mandatory drug tessting -- or just about anything else.

[Greg]

Actually, given that this would effect them in a tangible way, I would bet students would voice opposition. High school students don't vote however.

[Number 6]

Nick Gillespie- I'd like to think that your final paragraph is accurate, but experience suggests that madatory testing would be welcomed with open arms. After all, it's for the...well, you know where this is going.

[B.D.]

Hm, just last week, one of Tony Blair's ministers came out for random drug testing in all schools. I believe the article was in The Independent online. Do I see a theme?

[Jersey McJones]

NJ is considering universal HS drug testing now. Of course, all they'll find are the pot smokers.

We are a nation of assholes.

JMJ

[Jersey McJones]

NJ is considering universal HS drug testing now. Of course, all they'll find are the pot smokers.

We are a nation of assholes.

JMJ

[Jersey McJones]

NJ is considering universal HS drug testing now. Of course, all they'll find are the pot smokers.

We are a nation of assholes.

JMJ

[Lurker Kurt]

NJ is considering universal HS drug testing now. Of course, all they'll find are the pot smokers.

We are a nation of assholes.

JMJ

For once, I totally agree with JMJ.

[KipEsquire]

We should keep in mind that the Supreme Court has not (yet) ruled that random drug testing of students without more (e.g., as part of athletics) is constitutional, though given the progress down the slippery slope thus far there's little room for optimism.

And nice to know that the presumption is that parents can waive their children's rights willy-nilly like that.

[Deus ex Machina]

Link cocaine to terrorism...

Wouldn't this open the Prez to questions about his own youthful (and adult) indiscretions? And this time he won't have the benefit of Gore distracting everyone a live makeout session, unlike in the 2000 campaign.

[Warren]

Cocaine funds communism, heroin funds terrorism. And if you didn't want my money used to buy bullets for the FARC, then why don't you let Pfizer compete?

I'd happily buy my weekends from American owned companies - pumping dollars into the coffers of publicly traded corporations, providing an instant tax windfall, creating thousands of new jobs, and generally beefing up the economy and restoring the USA to the land of the free and No. 1 in the world - if only you didn't arrest or kill everyone who tried.

[TrickyVic]

Linking drugs to terrorism would be an excellent argument for legalization.

It's the prohibition that funnels money to criminals, not the use. The 18th and 21st amendments to the Constitution speak clearly.

The 18th amendment allowed criminals (or the new PC term "terrorist") like Al Capone to flurish.
The 21st put them out of business or forced them to become legit.

[uncle sam]

Is the function of government to put the dumbest clever folk in charge?

[JSM]

Link cocaine to terrorism...

Just like linking Saddam to Al Queda? This just might help Americans lose interest in the current WoD and facilitate change. Or, I am just having another operation pipe dream!

[Ethan Nadelmann in National Re]

In other news, Ron Paul introduced legislation recently to disband the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Check out MPP dot ORG for details.

"Soros saw in America's drug war many of the same political and intellectual traits that had made him hate Communism and fascism: political indoctrination substituted for education; bureaucratic apparatchiks disfiguring scientific evidence to serve the state's agenda; massive deployment of police agents and their informants in ever more intrusive ways; politicians mouthing stupid cliches without the slightest hint of embarassment; official spokesmen responding to substantive criticisms of government policy not in kind but instead by the motivations and characters of their critics; and the arrest and incarceration of millions for engaging in personal tastes and vices, as well as capitalist transactions, prohibited by the state for reasons it can no longer clearly recall."

[Dogzilla]

"retrofitting all gas stations for ethanol and hydrogen"
Huh? No dilithium crystals?
"Link cocaine to terrorism"
Don't worry about the facts. Link atheism to terrorism while you're at it.

Dick Morris is an evil little man.

[M']

Many (most?) here seems to dream of that one thing the govenment will do that will elucidate the absurdity of the drug war -- "Maybe this is the one" -- but there's no end in sight.

They already did the drugs-fund-terror-but-ne'er-mind-the-gasoline-mmmkay-thing right after Tuesday, September 11, 2001 (I'm in long date format mode).

Why don't they just invade or nuke Iran already so they have something to do?