1998 Ron Paul 46:1
Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Speaker, as I said, in most of our
history, the control of drug abuse has
never been a Federal issue. This is only
very recent. This doesn’t diminish
one’s concern. It’s respecting the Constitution, and it’s also emphasizing the
fact that the more we have centralized
our control and the more that we have
tried to enforce the thing at the national
level, the worse the problem has
gotten.
1998 Ron Paul 46:2
I’ve many conservatives say we
have an educational problem, and all
they want to do is throw more money
at it. I can’t see how this is any different. Yes, we have a major problem. But it
gets worse, and all we do is throw more
money at it with exactly the same programs.
1998 Ron Paul 46:3
My goal today is just to suggest, just
to bring it to the Congress’s attention,
that possibly we are not doing the
right things. And if we would ever come to
admitting that, then maybe we will not
have to suffer the abuse of how the war
on drugs goes awry.
1998 Ron Paul 46:4
For instance, we have had this war
on drugs, and there is no evidence even
that we’ve been able to keep drugs
out of our prisons. So maybe there is
something we are doing wrong. Maybe
we are treating a symptom rather than
the cause of the problem. Maybe the
cause is not legislatively correctable. That’s a possibility. Obviously there is
a problem there, but we need to think
about it. We need to take a consideration,
and not ever to write off those of
us who might say we don’t endorse
the current approach as being one that
might not be concerned about the
issue.
1998 Ron Paul 46:5
Obviously I am concerned. I have five
children, I have 13 grandchildren. I’m a physician. I have a great deal of
concern. But I have also been involved
and I have seen people who have suffered,
and, therefore, I have probably a
slightly different approach to the problem.
1998 Ron Paul 46:6
But I do think that we ought to look
for a minute at the harm done with the
war on drugs. So often there are victims
from the war on drugs that go unnoticed. How often have we seen on television,
how often have we read in our
newspaper of a drug bust with hooded
FBI agents and hooded DEA agents
barging in to the wrong apartment and
really tearing the place up, confiscating
property of people who’d
never committed a crime?
1998 Ron Paul 46:7
Why are we at the point now that we
permit the war on drugs to be fought
without due process of law? All they
have to be is a suspect. All you have to
do is have cash these days, and the government
will come and take it from you. And then you have to prove your innocence. That’s not the Constitution. We have
gone a long way from the due process. Our job here is to protect the civil liberties of individuals. Yes, we ought
to try to influence behavior. And yes, we
ought to make laws against illegal behavior;
national, when necessary, but
local when the Constitution dictates it. But at the rate we are going, we are making
very, very little progress.
1998 Ron Paul 46:8
I have a suspicion that there are motivations
behind the invasion of privacy. Because government so often
likes to know what people are doing,
especially in the financial area, this
has been a tremendous excuse to accuse
anybody who spends anything in
cash of being a drug dealer, because
they want to know where the cash is. This is part of the IRS collection agency,
because they’re worried about collecting
enough revenues.
1998 Ron Paul 46:9
And yet we carelessly say, well, a little
violation of civil liberties is okay, because
we are doing so much good for
the country and we are collecting revenues
for the government. But we can’t
casually dismiss these important
issues, especially, if anything I suggest,
that this war on drugs is, or the
problem of drugs in perspective is not
nearly what some people claim it to be,
and that many people are dying from
other problems rather than these.
1998 Ron Paul 46:10
I would like to suggest in closing
some of the things that we can consider. First, let’s consider the Constitution,
for instance. We have no authority
to create a Federal police
force. That’s not in the Constitution.
1998 Ron Paul 46:11
So we ought to consider that. It’s a
State problem. It’s a State law enforcement
problem. Most of our history,
it was dealt that way.
1998 Ron Paul 46:12
I think education is very important;
people who know what is going on. We
should, if anything, be emphasizing the
educational process. Possibly my medical
background influences me into
what I am going to say next; and that
is, could we conceive of looking at
some of this problem of addiction as a
disease rather than a criminal act? We
do this with alcohol. Maybe that would
help the problem.
1998 Ron Paul 46:13
But is it conceivable that we are looking
at a symptom that the drug problem,
the drug craze, is a reflection of moral
values in the society?
1998 Ron Paul 46:14
You know, we can’t get rid of teenage illegitimacy
by writing a national law
against teenage pregnancy. And we’re not
likely, we haven’t been able to get rid
of drug usage, teenage drug usage, by
writing national laws and coming down
with the armed might of the Federal
Government. So I do not think the current
process is going to work.
1998 Ron Paul 46:15
Kids go on drugs because they’re
seeking happiness, they are alone, they
are in broken families. And this is a problem
that will not be solved by more
laws and a greater war on drugs. We
have 80,000 Federal policemen now carrying
guns. Character is what is needed. Laws do not create character. This
does not dismiss us from expressing
concern about this problem, but let’s
not make the problem worse.
1998 Ron Paul 46:16
In 1974, Switzerland passed a law that
said that the doctor could prescribe
medication for addicts. I, as a physician,
if an addict comes into my office
and I agree to give him drugs which
would support his habit, because I figure
for him to go out on the street and
shoot somebody for it is a little worse
than me trying to talk him into a program
by giving him drugs for a while,
I am a criminal. I am a criminal today
if I decide that somebody should use or
could use marijuana if they are dying
with cancer or AIDS and they are
dying of malnutrition because they
can’t eat. There should be a little bit
of compassion in this movement.
1998 Ron Paul 46:17
Again, we cannot distract from the
serious problem of the drug war, but all I
do is I beg and plead for my colleagues to
just say, let’s look at the truth. Let us read the
news carefully, let’s look at the Constitution,
like we do when it is convenient,
and let us consider another option. It can’t be any worse than what we are doing.
1998 Ron Paul 46:18
We have too many people on drugs,
and this resolution makes my point. The war on drugs has failed. Let us do something different. Let us not pursue
this any longer.
