"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
While I enjoy the recent surge in popularity of such a movement, my primary issue with drug policy is that it is unconstitutional, or at leasty arguably so. I fail to see a properly explained distinction between drug X and $ANYOBJECT Y when it comes to any governments ability to restrict a person from it. Whats the difference between caffiene and mj and alcohol? What about mj and harder drugs? What about harder drugs and two cans of coke a day? A person can be addicted to anything, (not to ignore the chemical/biological addictive properties) so what is to prevent any object from becoming a danger to the person or those around theme? To me this seems to be the core foundation upon which anti-drug persons base their argument. ie. "Once a person is addicted, they are likely to become a criminal and violate other peoples rights, so it's the governments duty to prevent that!".
To me though, it's not the governments duty to essentially engage in pre-crime criminalization. We all know about the private prison industry, but what gets me the most is that people in prison for non-violent drug charges are almost there, not because the drug itself was a crime, but because the underlying, implied logic is that they were about to become criminals anyway.
All of this flies in the face of the constitution, for once it is admitted that it's the duty of government to protect a person against their own actions, very few serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.
In essence the drug war is a huge slippery slope which only opens up our system for further degradation of fundamental rights.
Also, I would to point out, beyond and before what is proposed as a mostly racist basis for the drug laws, that the larger purpose for the original drug wars (Opium Wars I and II, misc smaller conflicts), were largely about two other factors that are far too often overlooked:
1. Black-markets = free flowing, unaccountable money. Even in the modern times, this is a favorite of the three letters, to get black budget money thats outside the oversight of congress. If there isn't a blackmarket, you simply create one by buying off the politicians to make something illegal.
2. Similar to the racists vein, but more as a tool of control of the masses. while I have no problem constitutionally with legalization, the national security implications of "opiating the masses" are not to be ignored. The state of the Chinese population after introduction of mass quantities of opium as a good example of this done as a deliberate strategy.
As an aside, at one time I bought into the Dupont/Hemp conspiracy, but have since been able to find very little to no evidence to support this claim, so just a word of warning to any others who have fallen for it, that you should try to find some sources (and don't forget to share them if you do!)