Be cautious, advocates for liberty who are cheering the apparent winding down of the United States government’s war on marijuana and that war’s replacement with a patchwork quilt of revised state and local laws more tolerant of marijuana growth, distribution, and use. This trend is good news, and it carries hope for similar results regarding the broader war on drugs. The bad news is that some politicians, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), want to move drug war resources into new government assaults on liberty.
Booker, who has gained attention for criticizing some aspects of the US drug war, explains in a Huffington Post interview on Tuesday that he wants to move resources from enforcing US laws against victimless drug crimes to enforcing US laws against victimless gun crimes. Says Booker:
I love when Second Amendment or pro-gun folks say, “We have enough gun crimes; enforce the laws that we have.” And I actually say, “You know what? You are right.” (laughs) We don’t actually enforce the laws that we have well because we have anemic [US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], uh ATF group, because they don’t get the funding they need. Why? Because we’re spending so much money funding other agencies prosecuting the drug war.
Watch here an excerpt from Booker’s interview where you can see Booker propose moving war on drugs resources over to the war on guns. The complete interview can be watched here.
