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 The Case for Conspiracy 


November 28, 2006 
 
[Originally published by the Universal Press Syndicate, August 26, 1997]
drug warThe conspiracy theorists have a new one: they believe that workers in America’s airports and seaports are now helping smuggle drugs into this country. Today's column is "The Case for 
Conspiracy" -- Read Joe's columns the day he writes them.Law- enforcement officials call these alleged operations “internal conspiracies.”

drug warCan you believe it? This story actually made the front page of The New York Times, which usually derides “conspiracy theories,” but told this one with a straight face.

drug warNext we’ll be told that high government officials in Latin America have been involved in these “conspiracies.” Then we’ll be told that our own government is involved, with the aid of UFOs.

drug warOK, enough cheap ridicule. These conspiracies are real enough. For example, according to the Times, some employees of Delta Airlines actually did use their positions and access to security checkpoints to help get drugs from Puerto Rico past airport customs. Since last October [October 1996], 148 airport and seaport workers have been arrested nationwide for their participation in drug-smuggling operations.

drug warWhat’s the solution to this problem? Well, as the late political analyst James Burnham used to say, “Where there’s no solution, there’s no problem.”

drug warIllegal drugs are a hugely lucrative business, and the chief effect of the federal “war on drugs” has been to drive the prices up. It has also had other effects, though, such as generating conspiracies. It’s impossible to calculate how many conspirators there are, or how high in our own government they reach. All we know is that the money is awfully tempting to an awful lot of people.

drug warIf you were a Colombian drug “kingpin,” would you worry about the war on drugs? Sure. Just as Al Capone worried about Prohibition. Like most government regulation, the war on drugs makes the costs of entry into the drug market too high for small fry, but for that very reason it’s great for the big operators. And it’s turning much of the world into the equivalent of Chicago in the Roaring ’20s.

[Breaker quote for The Case for Conspiracy: A war neither side can lose]drug warThe global drug trade illustrates the volcanic power of the free market. Like it or not, it’s beyond any possibility of suppression. That trade involves two fungible commodities: drugs and cash. Both of these are far easier to conceal than liquor, and liquor defeated all efforts to ban it by law.

drug warUnlike liquor, illegal drugs can’t even be kept out of prisons. How are they going to be banished from a continent? All we can be sure of is that the attempt to “eliminate” drugs will involve more and more people in criminal conspiracies, including many of the people who are responsible for enforcing the laws. The war on drugs is a formula for corruption.

drug warGovernments like to set themselves impossible tasks, such as “eliminating” things that can’t be eliminated. Why not? Government officials don’t have to worry about costs. It’s not their money that’s being wasted; they receive their salaries even when they fail.

drug warSo the war on drugs pits drug moguls who make huge profits against governments that don’t mind absorbing huge losses. The costs of selling drugs — including the arrests of low-level employees — are more than covered by the profits, while, on the other side, the costs of the futile pursuit of drugs are passed on to the taxpayer.

drug warIn other words, this is a war neither side can lose, because the government can’t win and, as long as it can make taxpayers subsidize its efforts, has no incentive to admit defeat. Its only incentive is to go on spending other people’s money, regardless of results. The drug dealers’ side is at least economically rational. The government, whose agents aren’t risking their own resources, doesn’t have to think in rational terms.

drug warWhat beautiful symmetry! What exquisite ecological balance! No wonder both sides in this war want it to continue indefinitely.

drug warAnd no wonder some people, including workers at airports and seaports, want a piece of the action. They know perfectly well that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel in this war. And they don’t feel that the government’s side is their side.

drug warAs taxpayers, they merely cover the government’s losses. As conspirators, they can at least exploit their own market value.

Joseph Sobran

Copyright © 2006 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate,
a division of Griffin Communications
This column may not be reprinted in print or
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