Have a Drink in the Name of Freedom

Happy Repeal Day! It has been 75 years since the end of the ill-advised adventure of prohibition, so use this opportunity to celebrate by getting drunk. Drug czar John Walters uses the day to inform us that the government is winning the war on those nasty intoxicants that remain illegal. Huh. Who knew? Maybe someday, if we just wish hard enough, we'll be celebrating the anniversary of the right to put whatever we want into our own bodies!

Jacob Sullum on Waters' statement:

"The good news in drug policy," Walters writes, "is that we know what works, and that is moral seriousness." Moral seriousness on this subject would require taking into account half a million nonviolent drug offenders behind bars, the victims of black market violence, avoidable deaths caused by the unreliable quality and unsanitary practices that prohibition fosters, the risk-premium subsidy to thugs and terrorists, the corruption of law enforcement officials, and the loss of civil liberties resulting from the drug war's perversion of the Constitution. Walters' claim to moral seriousness is therefore hard to take seriously. I'd settle for a little bit of intellectual seriousness from whomever Barack Obama chooses to succeed Walters, but it seems to be incompatible with the job.