"State of emergency." The phrase smells of South Africa, the Philippines, Beijing: suspension of civil rights, loyalty to the party line, a free hand for the state's police. "State of emergency": the last refuge of tyrants.
So why was this odious phrase used on February 21 when 40 House Republicans, including our own Fred-and-Ginger team of Douglas and Smith, met to co-sponsor a bill declaring a five-year "state of emergency" as a way to win the nation's war on drugs? Weren't they aware of its questionable odor? Of course they were; that's why they used it, because it describes exactly what they want to do. For these politicians, as it is for Bush and czar Bennett and many other people, the war on drugs is not about stopping drugs but about trashing the Fourth Amendment and consolidating the power of the state over the individual.
This war will not accomplish what it wants to: People will still sell, buy, use, and suffer from drugs. What it will do is erode the Constitution. If the drug warriors have their way, no one will be safe from random testing, police won't have to follow any due process for obtaining evidence, everyone will be subject to unannounced searches, and even one-time users will be subject to license revocations, property confiscations, and loss of government benefits. The politicians and their servants in the media have successfully induced a state of hysteria about drug use in this country so that all they need to do is say "war on drugs" and people will respond like Pavlov's dogs and get in line. I'm reminded of Orwell's 1984 when his office workers scream out their hate at the enemy's face on the screen.
In fact, the allusion is apt because, as in 1984, our leaders want the citizenry not to think about the problem but simply support what the leaders say. How else can any fair- minded person interpret the statement by William von Raab, former head of U.S. Customs, when he said, "anyone who even suggests a tolerant attitude toward drug use should be considered a traitor"? A traitor for thinking, for speculating? When thinking becomes the crime, then we are all living in scary times.
The best thing for everyone to do is say no to drug hysteria and get on with the business of building a society that's just, satisfying, and productive enough to make people feel that they belong and make a difference. Above all, we need to fight against the state's desire to enlist us all in diluting the protections in our Constitution that keep the state at least minimally off our backs and out of our houses. If we value our freedom, let's get rid of the czars, just as the Russians did, and build a society worth not taking drugs to escape from.
NKOTB