Controlled Substances Act

1970. President Nixon Signs the Controlled Substances Act. Attorney General John Mitchell (left) and BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) Director Jack Ingersoll (right) attending. Why are they so happy? Dreaming about all the small people's lives that are going to be destroyed?

I read a rather horrific story this morning about a woman who was detained at the border because she was suspected of smuggling narcotics. As is typical of this kind of story, they emphasized the salacious aspects, the unreasonableness of the search and the innocence of the injured party, and true to form I was outraged by the thuggish behavior of our civil servants.
    What can we do about this outrages? Well, we could punish the officers involved, we could call for hearings, the victim will probably file a lawsuit, all of which are fine and dandy and won't do a thing about the root of the problem.
    How about we repeal the CSA? That would change everything. Why hasn't it been done? Possibly because there are numerous entrenched, monied interests that don't want it repealed. But who are these people? Is there some way to track them down?
    My first thought was the Partnership for a Drug Free America, but from what I see they are entirely focused on their public service advertising campaign. The mastermind behind the CSA might be hiding somewhere in their organization, but let's see if we can find a more suspicious looking target.
    Google leads me to Wikipedia's article on the CSA wherein I find this disturbing paragraph:

The Cato Institute's Handbook for Congress calls for repealing the CSA, an action that would likely bring the United States into conflict with international law, were the United States not to exercise its sovereign right to withdraw from and/or abrogate the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and/or the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances prior to repealing the Controlled Substances Act. The exception would be if the U.S. were to claim that the treaty obligations violate the United States Constitution. Many articles in these treaties—such as Article 35 and Article 36 of the Single Convention—are prefaced with phrases such as "Having due regard to their constitutional, legal and administrative systems, the Parties shall . . ." or "Subject to its constitutional limitations, each Party shall . . ." According to former United Nations Drug Control Programme Chief of Demand Reduction Cindy Fazey, "This has been used by the USA not to implement part of article 3 of the 1988 Convention, which prevents inciting others to use narcotic or psychotropic drugs, on the basis that this would be in contravention of their constitutional amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech".

So now we can't repeal the CSA because the USA would be an international criminal. Big deal. Like we aren't the biggest criminal on the planet already. In our defense I was going to say that at least when we beat up on somebody we are at least open and above board about it. Everybody knows who the bully is, unlike the vermin scurrying around in the dark hollering "Mohammed made me do it". But then I remembered the gang of cretins from Langley. Kind of puts a stain on our black hat.
     On the other hand, we already disregard article 3, though I am not sure just what would change if we started to enforce it. I wonder, does that mean they could arrest you for talking about drugs? Guess we should count our blessings and be thankful that the Medellin Cartel (or rather their successors) is such a big campaign contributor to our politcal parties.

P.S. Could it be that Earl hasn't gotten the message? Is Obama not sharing the loot? Or could it be that Earl is actually a straight shooter?