It’s almost impossible to get a police officer on the scene for anything less than assault or armed robbery anymore. We’re constantly bombarded with demands for more funding, more officers, better equipment and a broader interpretation of the rules under which law enforcement operates. One might think that this is a result of higher levels of crime and a lower per capita investment in fighting it.

That’s not quite true, though. Many of our current problems are a direct result of the War on Drugs, which has greatly distorted both the size and nature of the role law enforcement plays in our society.

It all started, of course, back in the days of yore, when someone – several someones, actually, in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere – completely forgot both the criterion (constitutional amendment) and the results (elevated crime and societal decay) of alcohol prohibition, and decided that the government had a legitimate role in deciding what citizens may eat, smoke, inject, or otherwise partake of for medicinal or recreational purposes.

The fact is that as late as World War II, the U.S. government was paying cash bonuses and offering draft deferments to farmers who were willing to grow hemp – what we now call marijuana – for the defense industry. Until not long before that, the world’s most successful soft drink contained cocaine and was advertised as a "pick-me-up." It was, and still is, named for the coca plant, source of cocaine. And at that time, drug addiction was so rare as to be considered a non-problem.

Fast-forward to 1998. The War on Drugs is big business now. The daily horror stories of crack babies, meth busts, and turf wars hardly touch a nerve anymore. Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) takes in and distributes millions of dollars in private and taxpayer funds, even though studies indicate that it’s only effect on the adolescents exposed to it is to slightly elevate their use of marijuana. And, of course, the seizure laws which skirt around the edges of (or simply ignore) the fourth amendment provide law enforcement agencies with revenue for which they are accountable to no one.

This last point, while not necessarily the most immoral aspect of the War on Drugs, may be the most damaging one to the citizenry and the most corrupting one for law enforcement.

Do you want to know why you can’t get a police officer to come examine your burglarized house or car? The profit margin for the department on such a house call is nil. If, on the other hand, the same officer can bust Joe Six-pack down the block with a pound of marijuana, the department may very well end up as the primary beneficiary of the auction proceeds from Joe’s house, Rolex, and Ford Explorer.

Do you want to know why, if your skin is of darker than average hue, you are more likely to be pulled over for a traffic violation or just a random check? Because discriminatory profiling results say that if you’re black, male, young, and driving a late model car, there’s more likely to be something in the trunk of that car that will send you on an all expense paid vacation to the penitentiary and get the officer who pulled you over a commendation (and more money in the department treasury to secure his job).

A few years ago, a young girl disappeared from the streets of Springfield, Missouri. A massive search was launched for her. "Every available officer" was on the job.

Her body was found some time later.

"Every available officer" doesn’t mean what it sounds like. In the interval between the girl’s disappearance and the discovery of her molested and desecrated corpse, I watched the paper. I counted a number of drug busts by the Springfield Police Department, as well as the arrest of a gambling ring in a sting operation involving eighteen officers. Pulling down football bettors and pot smokers was more important to law enforcement than saving the life of a twelve-year-old. See above for the reasons.

Vice laws and the apparatus for enforcing them – given the sequence above, I’m including gambling, although the War on Drugs bears the larger share of blame – don’t make us safer. They corrupt our police departments. They knock law enforcement priorities out of whack. They militate toward the abuse of power and the infringement of our constitutional rights. And they don’t work.

Drug prohibition, just as alcohol prohibition, has proven to be the foundation of a black market dominated by organized crime. It’s created an incentive to compete not on product quality or price, but on the ability to foster addiction and get the upper hand in gun battles with competitors.

Drug prohibition has kept prices high, forcing users into lives of secondary crime – burglaries and muggings, for example – when they, like many alcoholics, might have held normal jobs and led decent lives. It has stigmatized the drug user, minimizing the chances that he or she will seek treatment – and maximizing the erratic conduct that results from constant fear of arrest.

The War on Drugs is a war of attrition on the underclass. It is a war of meritless distinction for the pork-barrel politicians who perpetuate it out of greed and venality. Legislators who were too busy hiding in universities on deferments to serve in Vietnam now parade the pomp and circumstance of a War on the Bill of Rights before us in search of tribute to their "heroism."

Let’s be clear on this:

When a political candidate promises a more vigorous prosecution of the War on Drugs, he or she is promising to do everything in his or her power to jail your children.

He is promising that real crimes won’t be investigated on his watch so long as there’s a chance to pull down a crack ring.

She is swearing that the corruption of law enforcement will not be impeded in any way, shape or form if her vote counts for anything.

He is vowing to drain the treasury, discard the Constitution, ruin the lives of untold millions, sponsor violent crime, increase addiction, ignore legitimate priorities, and conduct a disrespectful burlesque on the sacrifices of those who have given their lives , fortunes and sacred honors to secure and defend our rights for over two centuries.

Remember this – and keep it in mind when considering whether such a candidate deserves your vote in the Congressional elections next month. Chances are that the Libertarian will be the only candidate who isn’t holding that club over your head.