Three weeks ago, President Biden issued a mass pardon for people convicted of federal marijuana possession. His leftist supporters praised and glorified him for his act of extreme compassion and generosity.
Never mind that there was no one incarcerated in a federal penitentiary for simple possession of marijuana. Never mind that Biden’s pardon didn’t extend to people serving time in the federal pen for possession with intent to distribute. Never mind that it didn’t extend to people who were incarcerated for distributing marijuana to people who wanted it. Never mind that his pardon didn’t extend to people serving time for possessing or distributing other drugs.
And never mind that his former boss, President Barack Obama, did the same thing when he was president back in 2016, after which the drug war continued, just as it is continuing after Biden’s pardon. All that mattered was that Biden had lengthened the federal leash a bit on American serfs — the leash that came with the war on drugs when it was launched decades ago.
Let’s get something very clear: A genuinely free society is one in which people are free to ingest whatever they want. It doesn’t matter how dangerous it is or how harmful it is. No government, including the U.S. government and the state governments, has the legitimate authority to punish anyone for ingesting what public officials consider should not be ingested.
It’s the same with distribution. People have the right to give away or sell whatever they want to whomever they want, regardless of whether it is cocaine, heroin, marijuana, meth, tobacco, alcohol, or whatever. No government has the legitimate authority to control, regulate, or punish such transactions.
Public officials are not our daddies or our mommies. Sure, I can understand a parent prohibiting his child from putting bad things into his or her mouth. That’s different. That’s a child. With drug laws, we are talking about adults.
There is no way that people living in a society with drug laws can legitimately be considered free. It’s not a coincidence that people in Russia, China, North Korea, and Cuba live in societies in which their governments have drug laws.
The problem with so many Americans is that they have come to view themselves as serfs. They have a serfdom mentality. That’s why many of them are praising and honoring Biden for his compassionate and generous act. “Thank you, Mr. President, for lengthening my leash,” they exclaim.
They simply cannot break free of their serfdom mentality by demanding that Biden and other federal serf-masters repeal all federal laws that criminalize the possession or distribution of any and all drugs, pardon everyone who has ever been convicted of such crimes, expunge their records, and apologize to them on behalf of all the people who foisted this travesty on our country.
At that point, the American people, in an act of compassion and generosity, could consider whether to pardon Biden and his statist ilk for their drug-war destruction of life, liberty, and property.
This article was originally published at the Future of Freedom Foundation and is republished here with permission from the author.
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