The trial of the man once known as H. Rap Brown was held in Atlanta recently.  He was found guilty of shooting and killing one police officer, and of wounding another, ambushing them without warning during a traffic stop.  Incredibly, the cops, both of whom were black, came in for scathing and completely undeserved criticism by so-called "civil rights" leaders in Atlanta, who tried to portray Mr. Brown as a victim of racism.  But that's another column.

This is the good side of cops, when they work to bring to bay genuine criminals, often putting their own lives at risk to do so.

Unfortunately, in a growing manner over the last several decades, cops have also taken on a much shadier role: enforcers of the drug war.

Let us not mince words.  The drug war is absolute anathema to a free society.  To begin with, the choice of what an adult puts into his own body is intensely personal, as much or more as the speech that comes from his mouth.  Outside common sense restrictions such as the prohibition on driving while intoxicated, what an adult consumes is no proper business of government busybodies, period.  But the attempt to hijack personal choices is only the tip of the iceberg for the destructiveness of the drug war. 

As has been pointed out many times, when a genuine crime is committed, there is a complaining witness to instigate proceedings against the perpetrator.  Even a dead body decomposing in a park bears vivid (if mute) testimony to a crime, and cries out for justice.

But in the drug war, there are no complaining witnesses.  The seller and the buyer exchange money for goods voluntarily.  So, to wage a drug war, cops are assigned to become spies as well as arresting agents.  In effect, every one of us is now a suspect, guilty until proven innocent.

And so we get such abominations as the seizure of large amounts of cash from people who've been so foolish as to pay for their airline tickets with a portion of it.  On no evidence whatever, only the "possibility" that the money could somehow be connected with drugs, police take it.  Even when the citizen has a perfect explanation for the cash, backed up by, say, savings account withdrawal documentation (Why should anyone have to justify their reasons for having cash?), the money is held for weeks, months, often forever.  And the cops get to spend it on goodies for themselves, once the citizen gives up trying to get it back.  What a system!

Then we have the houses raided and wrecked, and families broken apart as someone is shipped off for years to jail (there to learn "skills" like burglary, rape, etc.). The people who take part in these raids, and who do the smashing, are the real criminals, not the peaceful citizens who live within.

To be sure, in many or even most of the houses trashed, someone is in fact either using and/or selling drugs.  So what?

I'm going to say flat out that dealing drugs is not immoral.  It is immoral to sell fake drugs, or to rob your customer, or to use intimidation to scare off a rival dealer, but offering desired goods in a peaceful fashion, adult to adult, simply isn't a genuine crime.  Sorry, all you hysterical drug war pushers (ok, I'm NOT sorry!).

But even if we were to agree that drug sellers are the scum of the earth, who must be incarcerated whenever we find them, the drug war goes way beyond this.  Read some of the heartbreaking stories on the November Coalition's website, like the young woman whose boyfriend asked her to chauffeur him (he'd lost his license), who even the prosecutors admit had no knowledge that drug dealing was going to take place, who is now cooling her heels in prison because of some of this nation's barbaric laws.  To fail to condemn injustices such as this is to watch our country go down the toilet while remaining mute, or perhaps even actively participating.

Which brings us back to the cops.  They face a tough dilemma, without doubt.  Some volunteer for drug war duty, but most are drafted, assigned to the job without being asked.  They are sworn to uphold the law, and are not encouraged to ask why a given law was passed.  They can almost plausibly claim that they really have no choice but to "do their duty," no matter how horrible or unjust.

And yet, that excuse doesn't wash.  The world did not forgive prison guards in Nazi death camps, even though many correctly stated that they were "just following orders."  If someone orders me to commit mass murder, does that justify me doing so?  Absolutely not!  A crime against humanity is still a crime against humanity, and no one can be exempt from being held responsible.

It is time that society begins to cast shame upon the foot soldiers of the drug war.  Whatever the evils of drugs themselves--and obviously no one can argue that drugs are harmless--the prosecution of the drug war is evil magnified many times over.