I hardly ever even saw his show, “Friends,” but I recognize his talent, and Mr. Perry’s death so young is a genuine tragedy. Whether drugs directly-caused It (nothing is more difficult to prove than causation) is unknown. 

The So-Called “War On Drugs” Is As Bad As (Repealed) Alcohol Prohibition – And Even Worse, Because At Least Alcohol Prohibition Was Made Constitutional

However, it is virtually-certain that the PRIMARY reason for his untimely death – along with so many countless others’ – was the very-existence, and ongoing, always-losing (except against its unfortunately-selected, individual victims/”criminals,” whose lives it ruins, with no benefit to anyone) prosecution by the federal government, of the so-called “War on Drugs” – the federal government’s gratuitously-declared-policy (officially-announced by Nixon, but existing decades before he did so), enforced through (ALWAYS)-draconian laws which impose on the long-suffering American citizens another, but completely-unconstitutional (neither the Constitution itself, nor – unlike the 14-years-long evil abomination permitted by the thankfully-repealed 18th Amendment – any Amendment to it permits it) version of Prohibition. 

The Constitution Specifies EVERYTHING the Federal Government Is Allowed To Do – And PROHIBITS Everything Else

Yes, contrary to what politicians pretend, the Constitution imposes major limits on the federal government’s power over us: Alcohol Prohibition was legally-permitted, as those who imposed it knew to a certainty, solely by virtue of the actual–ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 1919. 

Quite simply, under our Constitution, the federal government is not supposed to be in the business of telling American citizens what they can buy and sell, especially about what they choose to put in their bodies – unless sale of the product to an actual declared enemy of the nation poses a genuine national-security danger. In order for the government to have the right to forbid it, sale of the product itself must risk (e.g., advanced computer technology or other actual, potential weapons) giving legally-declared foreign enemies a genuine, military advantage against us.

The Federal Government Is FORBIDDEN To Police American Citizens’ Choices. 

On the other hand, there is no Constitutional or utilitarian basis for the federal government to criminalize the purchase by American citizens of anything, no matter how potentially harmful it might be to the individual. It’s simply none of the government’s damned business. As free citizens of a republic we have the right to do stupid stuff, and no one else has the right to make those decisions for us.

In addition – as the Supreme Court recently-recognized-implicitly, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen (2022), since no such laws existed when the Republic was founded, and the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees us the natural rights protected in the Declaration of Independence – the rights to life, liberty, property and, yes, to the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS! Allgeyer v. State of La. 165 U.S. 578 (1897) – and a republican (non-bureaucratic) form of government, with no greater infringements on individual liberty than were present at the time of the ratification of the Constitution – under the Constitution, after the repeal of Alcohol Prohibition by the 21st Amendment, neither the state nor the federal governments are permitted to declare any product contraband – that is, forbidding its purchase and/or sale by citizens except under the permission (what “regulating” it by the government means in plain-English) of unelected government bureaucrats – unless purchasing and/or selling the particular product actually-benefits, to the detriment of the United States, legally-declared-enemies of the country, or violates the Common Law, with violating the Common Law, as – confirmed in Bruen – it existed at the time of the Republic’s formation (completely-lacking anything resembling the hideous, no-fault tort liability! which courts have unconstitutionally-created – a massive, unconstitutional-taking, from each and all of us, without due process – beginning in the 1970s) being the only basis on which any American government, state or federal, is Constitutionally-allowed to interfere in any way with citizens’ choices about what they put in their bodies.

As is always true with all contraband laws, enduring Alcohol Prohibition was one of the most monstrous, deadly, cruel and genuinely-evil experiences the American government has ever subjected the citizens to. 

Alcohol Prohibition Was EVIL – and Did Absolutely NOTHING of Value for American Citizens

It did absolutely-nothing of value for the citizens. Alcohol Prohibition was brought to us by “Progressives” – with their Marxist loathing both of human nature and the laws of economics, and their preposterous intention to use laws to attempt, IMPOSSIBLY, of course! to change both of them – at the turn of the 20th century. 

It was such a nightmare for the country that it was eliminated, after 14 years, in 1933, with that elimination led by FDR, himself a previously-card-carrying “Progressive,” publicly-promoting that repeal of Alcohol Prohibition under his new, self-adopted name/mask (American Marxists always wear masks, always hide who they really are). When he ran for president in 1932, he called himself a “Liberal” (Alcohol Prohibition had made the name “Progressive” as utterly-detested as its actual-synonym –”Marxist” – so FDR began to call himself a “Liberal” solely because of his opposition to Alcohol Prohibition) – “Liberal” being the name previously-reserved for what we today, in America (but not in Europe, where they are virtually-extinct under either name), call “Libertarians,” literally the very-opposite of “Progressives”/Marxists. 

That end to Alcohol Prohibition was effected by the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th Amendment, which alone had permitted it. 

But at least in that instance, before the 1920s, the politicians who imposed Alcohol Prohibition on the hapless citizens – unlike all the other endless mandates/contraband laws, and many others, we suffer from today – had the decency to follow the Constitution; they didn’t ignore the limitations of the Constitution and just go ahead and pass “laws” imposing that abomination – like they have been doing in endless other cases, ever since 1905, with so many other “Laws” (unconstitutionally-establishing the FDA, the FBI and the Fed, e.g.).

Yes, to stick us with that abomination of Alcohol Prohibition, they at least first went through all the legally-required, under its Article V, process of amending the Constitution. And, yes, as with other Constitutional Amendments (like the 16th Amendment permitting the abominable income tax) they did so by tricking the American citizens to ratify the 18th Amendment. 

“Progressives”/Marxists Who Created the FDA, And Other American Contraband Laws, Knew That a Constitutional Amendment Was Necessary for Them To Be Legal – And Did Them Anyway, In Contempt Of The Constitution And American Citizens

But yes, those politicians knew that that Constitutional amendment was necessary to permit the federal government legally to be involved in that whole horrible business of Alcohol Prohibition. 

But in the years immediately-preceding the time when the “Progressives” were proposing the 18th Amendment, under the direction of the accidental-president Theodore Roosevelt – who knowingly used outright-fraud (promoting as “true” the slanderous-lies in the Marxist Upton Sinclair’s fraudulent book, “The Jungle”) to trick American citizens into thinking it would be something of value and was Constitutionally-permitted), they just went ahead and lawlessly-created the FDA, under which, together with the then-previously-existing, and equally-unconstitutional Agriculture Department – which had always been filled with Marxists promoting the idea of the worthless and truly-evil FDA – the federal government is given the power to police, with NO practical limit to such power, ALL aspects of the invention, creation, processing, purchase and sale of all food, at all stages of its production, food on which we depend to live! – AND of drugs – and medical devices of all kinds – that is, EVERYTHING we need and/or want to ingest or use in or for our own personal bodies in any way – in the country, not simply, like with Alcohol Prohibition (for which, again, they went to the trouble of amending the Constitution), alcohol (which happens to be both a food and a drug) alone. 

Yes, at the very-same time when they were just going ahead and “legalizing” it, the “Progressive” politicians knew that the FDA – and all of the “laws” it both enforces and additionally-unconstitutionally creates (under Article I of the Constitution, Congress ALONE is allowed to create actual laws), that is, all federally-enforced Contraband Laws involving substances of all kinds – was unconstitutional when they created it. 

“Progressives”/Marxists Have Destroyed the Rule Of Law In America And Replaced It With The Rule Of Lawyers/Bureaucrats 

And yet they just went ahead lawlessly and did it anyway – in blatant, undeniable defiance of the Supreme Law of the land, the Constitution, beginning the process of turning America into a politician-directed, lawless country, indeed, into the completely-unconstitutional police state we have today – instead of a country ruled by the Rule Of Law under the Supreme Law, the Constitution – the Rule Of Law being the necessary, absolutely-essential foundation of and for individual liberty, as our Founders’ great victory in our Revolution guaranteed us we would have – the Rule Of Law being the very-opposite of the rule of unelected bureaucrats/lawyers, as we are stuck with right now. 

No, “Precedent” Does NOT Legitimize Violations of The Constitution

And once they disobeyed the Constitution, they then lawlessly proclaimed that their action in so doing became, magically, “legitimate” – because of “precedent!” But “precedent” – that is, actions by public officials in-violation of the Constitution – is NOT a method for amending the Constitution, amendments which are only permitted pursuant to the procedures the Constitution itself prescribes in its Article V, none of which are “precedent.” 

And no, “Precedent” cannot – Magically! – legitimize itself; otherwise, if “precedent” were actually a method for amending the Constitution, instead of being the “supreme law of the land,” as its Article VI specifies that it is, the Constitution would, preposterously, literally be an invitation to its own violation! 

And no, multiple repetitions over many years – as we have been subjected to by politicians, particularly since 1905 – of Constitutional violations do not legitimize themselves either. Repeated acts of violating the Constitution – an utter abomination! EACH time – the same way are simply repeated, lawless and destructive abominations, becoming more-and-more lawless, destructive and abominable the MORE they are repeated! As we are living witnesses to today.

If Politicians Who Violate the Constitution Are Not Punished, They Get More And More Sociopathic – And Violate It More And More

And unfortunately, if the lawless-politicians are not themselves policed (by prosecutors and the courts) and punished for their Constitutional violations – instead of, as they invariably are, being celebrated as supposedly-brilliant “heroes” by “journalists” for those very violations! – in other words, if they get away with violating the Constitution, more and more sociopaths will be attracted to becoming politicians; and, when the Rule Of Law is broken – as it has been massively in this country, especially since 1905 – there are no limits to how many ways the increasingly-sociopathic politicians will find to disobey it; and that very-public, Constitutionally-contemptuous, politician-effected disobedience itself turns us into a Banana-republic tyranny, a lawless former-republic, governed by the monstrous rule of lawyers! with the formerly-free citizens at the mercy of the lawless, dictatorial discretion of increasingly-sociopathic men, not by the Rule Of Law, the Rule Of Law – and not of men, and certainly not the rule of lawyers! – which our very brave and great Founders fought for in the incredibly-bloody and difficult (they were each under threat of being hanged as “traitors”, and their families dispossessed, if they did not achieve victory) Revolution they won for our benefit.

Under the War on Drugs and multiple other “laws” created since 1905 establishing the unconstitutional FDA, the purchase and sale of multiple substances – not simply one product, like alcohol – which people want to ingest, primarily to have FUN with them, is “legally”-forbidden. 

“Badges? Badges? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges”

But, in creating the FDA and those other contraband laws, unlike enacting the 18th Amendment for Alcohol Prohibition, the politicians didn’t even bother with amending the Constitution, as they knew was required to do it all legally, to engage in their totally-stupid, pointless and evil “War on Drugs,” didn’t bother with amending the Constitution to create the FDA and all the other hideous, unconstitutional, citizen-policing federal bureaucracies (functionally-indistinguishable from the bureaucracies which terrorized and ruined the lives of Russians and their captive-“republics,” under the USSR) which enforce it, just went ahead and declared it, without bothering with any Constitutional amendment (“Badges? Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges”) they knew was required – as shown by those same “Progressive” politicians’ own actions in knowing that they always needed the 18th Amendment ratified in order to permit Alcohol Prohibition – prohibition “legally”- and functionally-indistinguishable from the powers they have been exercising over all food, drugs and medical devices since the formation of the FDA in 1906.

Contraband Laws, Like The “War on Drugs,” Are Nothing But Lawless, Federal Politician’s War On The Citizens THEMSELVES, Reducing Citizens’ Choices And Power In A Zero-Sum Game

Yes, Nixon’s War On Drugs was simply the latest most-vicious power-grab against the American people conducted by the federal government, along with EVERYTHING else the FDA, and all of the other (equally-unconstitutional) federal bureaucracies involved in “regulating” (their euphemism for having unelected bureaucrats dictate to the citizens EVERY SINGLE DETAIL concerning) food and drugs American citizens want to purchase, sell and ingest (except with the always purely-discretionary, dictatorial and fabulously-expensive permission of bureaucrats). 

The so-called “War on Drugs” is, in reality, a war on citizens’ choices, with ALL choices (ANY choice, permitted under the Common Law, The Common Law which did not include any contraband laws) in both one’s work/Profession/Business and also enjoyment of any form, supposed to be, in our Republic, Government-protected, Allgeyer, and NOT forbidden, and specifically-identified, in the Declaration of Independence itself – the “Pursuit Of Happiness” which, along with life, liberty and property, were precisely the things our Founders explicitly-said they fought the Revolution for. 

The Constitution Preserves Our Natural Rights to Life Liberty, Property, The Pursuit of Happiness INCLUDING, of course, CHOICE (So Long As It Doesn’t Violate The Common Law)

Yes, that natural right to all choices permitted under the Common Law was indeed one of the very-specific things the American Revolutionaries, our Founders, fought the British to preserve, as our natural, God-given right, to preserve that particular right for us forever. 

And the so-called “War on Drugs” – focused particularly on recreational substances – is but a part of that entire, unconstitutional, endless-fools-errand abomination which politicians and unelected bureaucrats have created in all the hideous, unconstitutional bureaucracies they have created since 1905. 

The particular species of “laws” used to effect the banning/”regulation” of substances are known as Contraband Laws, laws which historically have been proven to be virtually-unenforceable without inflicting misery on the citizens. 

Yes, that citizen-misery is their only, historically-proven, guaranteed-predictable, actual consequence.

Contraband Laws Criminalize Otherwise Perfectly-Legal Transactions, Turning Harmless Citizens Into “Criminals”

Contraband laws forbid the purchase and sale of particular goods, whether “natural,” or manufactured, and turn that purchase and sale (which, as anyone who has any understanding of human nature and economics, understand will always occur when DEMAND exists) into an illegal, forbidden black-market operation. 

And yes, substances forbidden by those laws clearly were a problem in Mr. Perry’s life – and the lives of countless others; but his and others’ personal-inability to handle the substances which those laws forbid is not a valid utilitarian (aside from their unconstitutionality) excuse for the government to get involved in precluding others or, indeed, anyone, including Mr. Perry, from buying and selling whatever substances they want – unless there is a genuine, National-Security/military reason for forbidding the sale of the particular item.

NOTHING But Genuine National-Security Concerns Justifies Contraband Laws 

And nothing – apart from actual – and not simply politically-concocted – national security/military reasons – in the US Constitution permits the federal government to be involved in dictating and enforcing contraband laws at all. Nothing. 

No such power is given to the federal government anywhere in the Constitution, and the 9th and 10th Amendments explicitly-PRECLUDE the federal government from exercising any power it is not explicitly-given in the Constitution itself, the Constitution in which the states and citizens joined together and contractually–created (“We the people…”) the federal government and specified in it all its limits, specifically-described the only things it is permitted/empowered to do vis-a-vis the citizens (with every drop of power, in a zero-sum game, subsequently unconstitutionally-taken by politicians in the federal government, an equal reduction of the power of individual citizens), none of which involve interfering with citizens’ choices regarding what they choose to buy and sell to put in their bodies.

Without Contraband Laws, There Would Be No Black-Markets, No Drug Criminals

Black-markets DON’T EXIST without contraband laws: they only happen when the government – acting against the citizens, always, eventually, through unelected bureaucrats – gets involved in forbidding (or overtaxing or otherwise attempting to control) the purchase and sale of products which people want. 

Yes, in the case of the so-called “War on Drugs,” like all wars, it can’t actually be against inanimate objects; it’s against people! and it’s actually a war against citizens, under the pretext that their use of drugs justifies the federal government – through its unelected bureaucrats – sticking its nose into their lives.

And black-markets always – by the contraband laws’ gratuitously themselves criminalizing citizens’ otherwise-lawful actions – rather than actually-protecting citizens, as the politicians and bureaucrats who create them always, fraudulently – and impossibly! – promise, inevitably create NEW dangers for citizens in every aspect of the purchase and sale of items which people want (or they wouldn’t buy them, and forbidding them would be pointless!), dangers far-greater than those products, and/or their purchase and sale, would be in a free market.

Contraband Laws Are UNENFORCEABLE, Because Of The Laws of Human Nature and Economics, Without Destroying All Liberty – And The Rule Of Law Itself

The laws of the market always exist and operate whether citizens are free to enjoy them or not. They simply operate in a different, completely-distorted and hideous manner when the market itself is declared contraband, and therefore illegal. 

Contraband laws are, in reality, as impossible to enforce as a law declaring the end of the law of gravity. 

Anyone who understands the reality of Human Nature (which no one, especially politicians, is ever going to change, and have no damn business trying, even though “Progressives”/Marxists have always pretended they have that power also), the laws of economics, the laws of the market, the law of supply and demand, understands that when a country embarks on creating contraband laws, it is doing nothing but asking for – and imposing on the citizens – very-serious adverse consequences – so it must have a very, very, very good reason for enacting such laws; and simply “protecting” citizens (from themselves!) is not a sufficient, utilitarian (their unconstitutionality can only be cured by things like the 18th Amendment) reason.

The Contraband Laws Breed and Reward Sociopathology – and Danger for The Citizens

Once the black-market is created by – yes, BY the contraband laws themselves outlawing those items – ultimately, and eventually, sellers who operate in that market can only survive as sellers by being, or becoming, sociopaths – because the outlawing of the market itself guarantees that the manufacturers/sellers inevitably will, even if they don’t at first, inevitably have to COMPETE with sociopaths and, among sociopaths, only the most-vicious, -evil, -monstrous and -unprincipled always win.

The preposterous, so-called “Drug War” has always been UNCONSTITUTIONAL (the federal government has NO power to police what citizens ingest) and is insane, always LAWLESS, WORTHLESS to EVERYONE, costs a fortune and has been DESTROYING all South America – with many, additional dire consequences to us, America, as well. 

Without Constitutional amendments like the 18th, ALL federal contraband laws are unconstitutional, and therefore lawless, and ALL of them are ALWAYS-impossible to enforce – precisely because they are always based on the fact that people want to buy something the government doesn’t want them to buy – and if someone wants to buy something – again, because of the laws of economics and human nature – SOMEONE is ALWAYS going to find a way to sell it to them. 

And the harsher the enforcement of the contraband “law,” the more brutal the sellers are going to (have no choice but to) become, with wars among the sellers resulting in only the most-sociopathic staying in business.

Genuine National Security Requirements Are the ONLY Legitimate Justification for Contraband Laws

The ONLY actual utilitarian- and Constitutional-justification for contraband laws at all is if a PARTICULAR such law involves banning the providing of ACTUAL WEAPONS to officially-declared (legally so-declared, in laws which comply with the procedures of Article I of the Constitution, declared by competent authorities –the president and majorities of both houses of Congress – Constitutionally-authorized to do so, so that there is NO ambiguity about it) actual enemies. 

Only if they have that legally-declared, clear-and-undeniable, national-security purpose can they ever be justified under the Constitution – and as a practical matter. 

Because in that case people who violate the contraband laws, unlike ordinary black-market sellers, are genuine traitors, and not simply merchants benefiting from the presence of the very contraband laws (the profits to the sellers are always extraordinarily-high because of the risk they have to run).

The Unconstitutional “War on Drugs” Has Only Harmed American Citizens and Benefited Our Enemies

And in the case of the preposterous “War on Drugs” (always a facially-ridiculous idea) that very effort, the so-called War, provides a weapon to our enemies everywhere, including the sociopaths who end up participating in the war, to destroy us – and is literally an unconstitutional weapon for the government to war against and harm the citizens. 

Contraband laws all by themselves inevitably turn us into a surveillance state – because that’s the only way those laws can and could be even partially- (they can never be completely-) enforced. 

The “Cure” – the contraband “Laws” – which never work even for their claimed, usually-pretextual purposes anyway, “Laws” which never can be completely-enforced against the very people they are supposedly-intended to apply to (the sociopathic sellers), is always infinitely worse than the disease.

In response to: https://reason.com/2023/11/03/matthew-perry-drug-abuse-and-prohibition/

Clifford Ribner

Clifford Ribner is a Tax Lawyer, Litigator,  and Trial Lawyer based in Tulsa, Oklahoma and he is the author of Freedom’s Last Stand – A Common Sense Guide to Understanding the Tyranny of Collectivist Ideology and How We The People Can Recover Our Stolen Constitutional Rights.