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I Flacked the Sheriff

by Ari Armstrong

What happens when a sheriff from Colorado goes to Washington, D.C. to tell the politicians about the drug war?

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Bill Masters was a drug warrior for many years. In fact, he received the DEA's award for outstanding achievements in the field of drug-law enforcement. But today he's sheriff of San Miguel County, Colo. and he has come to see that his job as a drug warrior was at odds with his job as a peace officer. Today, he believes that the War on Drugs is undermining the notion of justice by both punishing those who have hurt no one but themselves and by offering the excuse of drug addiction to violent criminals. As he wrote in the November 2000 issue of Liberty, "What kind of peace officer — what kind of society would allow a peace officer — to use one minute of time, spend one dollar, or use one jail cell for a marijuana smoker, when vicious child murderers are on the loose?"

Masters recently wrote "Drug War Addiction: Notes From the Front Lines of America's #1 Policy Disaster." In March, he went to Washington to speak out against the drug war and promote his book. I went along to take photographs, help with the scheduling, make notes, and collect videotapes and various bits of information.

As my wife and I drove to the Denver airport, I hoped I wouldn't be superfluous. I hate Denver International. It's the most difficult airport I've ever tried to find my way around, and it's painfully far from Denver. And I wasn't looking forward to the post-Sept. 11 airport security measures.

I showed up three hours early and breezed through the lines.

To my surprise, the "random" searches failed to target an attractive female. Instead, a tall, lanky man was selected for special attention. He wore a shit-eating grin that said, "I feel ridiculous and slightly embarrassed, but I know you feel a little embarrassed watching me, too."

At the security gate, I passed the military guys with the cool guns. I had to resist the urge to ask for technical information about the guns and to take a closer look at them. I didn't figure such conversation would go over very well. Man, that job looks boring. They wear camouflage inside the airport and have to carry guns around all day but they don't even get to shoot.

I was flying into Reagan, so there were extra-heavy-duty security precautions. They roped off an entire area near the gate and the military guys examined every nook and cranny with interesting-looking gadgets. Once we were checked into the "secure" area, we weren't allowed to leave. Of course, on the way out of the gate there was a non-secured door to the outside world.

I've seen photos of plastic knives a lot nastier than the box cutters those murderous bastards used last September, and nothing I saw would have prevented such weapons from making it onto the plane. But I felt secure because I knew that I and most of my fellow passengers were ready to do what needed to be done to fend off terrorists, should it come to that.

And I was damn proud to be flying again. Sure, the government has done its damnedest to screw up the airline industry. Still, jetting through the air while eating a turkey wrap and potato chips is a technological marvel, a salute to human ingenuity and all the secular values hated by mystical zealots of all stripes.

Once in the district, I purchased my Metro card and stopped by the Libertarian Party offices at the infamous Watergate building to meet up with George Getz and Ron Crickenberger, who were helping Masters publicize his book. Getz was worried that his press release hadn't generated the interest in Masters' visit he had anticipated — a previous release had generated over two dozen radio interviews for the sheriff.

I went to my hotel room to make a few phone calls and ate dinner at a nearby brew pub. The sheriff arrived. He is a pretty down-to-earth kind of guy, somebody who tends to make those around him feel comfortable. After stopping at the local Starbucks, we headed off to our first appointment, a radio interview with Alan Nathan, whose show "Battle Line" runs on Radio America.

After explaining how he wants Republicans out of his bedroom and Democrats out of his pocketbook, Nathan told us that he wasn't that enthusiastic about Libertarians, either, just because they're not centrist enough. He was a nice enough guy, though, and sympathetic to many of Masters' points.

Nathan just couldn't accept the notion of decriminalizing "hard" drugs, because drugs can make people go "crazy." The sheriff responded to this rather florid argument by pointing out that drug abuse may be bad, but that drug prohibition is far worse.

Back at LP headquarters, Getz had lined up a telephone interview with Jeff Johnson of the Conservative News Service, an online deal. The Sheriff was on top of his game as he explained that the drug war is largely about class. Rich people can afford fancy lawyers, so asset forfeiture and other weapons of the drug warriors are aimed at the poor and the politically unconnected. "I think you'd find new respect in the [law-enforcement] profession if we were to end the drug war," he said. To me, this is his most compelling message. The War on Drugs alienates the police from the people they're supposed "to serve and protect."

In a speech at Cato that afternoon, Masters told how, as a young lawman, he had gone toe-to-toe with a gang of ruffians in Telluride. He approached the group, and they dispersed. The fact that the patrons of the local cafe had lined up on the street corner behind him made all the difference. "We got your back, sheriff." Years later, after he had made his reputation as a drug warrior, many of those same patrons burned an effigy of him to protest his policies. You could tell it broke his heart.

These days, it can be easy to forget that the profession of protecting people's rights is among the noblest careers anyone can pursue. Drug prohibition destroys trust among civilians within the community and between the community and law enforcement. Sheriff Masters is trying to win back a little bit of that trust.

William Otis, a former federal prosecutor invited by Cato to respond to the sheriff, gave a response that struck me as sincere. He said, "There is much to admire in Masters' book, as there is much to admire in the libertarian philosophy which Masters champions." He referred to Masters as "a principled man" who hadn't sufficiently thought through the consequences of ending prohibition.

Legalizing drugs, Otis argued, would lead to more drug use and abuse. Even Masters realized this, he said, and then quoted the following from Masters' book: "Once drug prohibition is repealed and the violent black market is wiped out, the prices of most drugs will drop dramatically. Thus, some addicts and casual users may take more drugs, and some people who don't take drugs today . . . may start taking them" (64). But Otis failed to quote the very next line: "But that simple economic model doesn't tell the whole story. Repealing drug prohibition will also result in some people taking fewer or no drugs" because of things like more truthful education about drug harms, greater access to treatment, and more emphasis on personal responsibility.

Otis argued that drug use can result in death or physical injury to the user, that some people who take drugs hurt other people, and taxpayers bear the burden of irresponsible drug use. These social harms can be partially prevented, he suggested, through prohibition. As to the argument that the repeal of drug prohibition would be as salubrious as was the repeal of alcohol prohibition in 1934, Otis argued that, unlike the 1930s when alcohol prohibition was repealed, we live today in an "age of indiscipline" that has helped to "destroy moral standards." Otis cited the news story about a woman, who happened to be a recreational drug-user, who crashed into a man and left him dangling from her shattered windshield for days as he died in her garage. This, he said, illustrated the need for drug prohibition. The question running through my head was, "How many pot smokers did the local cops bust while this poor guy was dying in the woman's garage?" Even if he could link drug use and homicidal behavior — a stretch — Otis would still have to admit that she got the drugs despite the current program of prohibition. (It was later reported that the initial reports were wrong: The man, also a drug-user, had died upon impact or shortly thereafter.)

The sheriff responded, sensibly enough, that to take Otis' "externalities" argument seriously, we would have to adopt police-state tactics to prevent the use of cigarettes and double cheeseburgers. Further, designer drugs like methamphetamine are a product of prohibition and will only become more prevalent if prohibition continues. Masters noted that the rate of drug addictions has remained constant regardless of the laws and asked, "Who are these mysterious people who will jump up and start shooting heroinÊonce prohibition is repealed?"

During the question period, Roger Pilon noted that Otis' "cost-benefit" approach to drug prohibition is at odds with Republican rhetoric on other issues and pointed out that the costs of the drug war substantially outweigh the benefits. Most drug overdose deaths are a direct result of prohibition, which results in tainted drugs of unknown potency.

Oddly, Otis said that Masters was wrong to link gun prohibition to drug prohibition because, while the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms, there is no constitutional provision to prevent the government from criminalizing drug use. Apparently, Otis has yet to make his way through to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

After dinner that evening, the sheriff and I met Getz to head over to a local television studio for an interview on C-SPAN's Washington Journal. The sheriff shined. He looked at home and he made an excellent presentation during his half-hour interview. He hit all the major points: drug prohibition wastes police resources, it doesn't stop drug addiction, it's hypocritical, it's enforced differently depending on class, and it subverts individual responsibility. One caller, a recovered addict, said, "I celebrate hearing these words." I was celebrating too, especially when the station showed a close-up of the book's cover.

After C-SPAN, the sheriff and I walked around the Mall. He had never been to the Jefferson Memorial or the Vietnam Memorial. Bill gathered a couple pencil rubbings of names on the wall. We chatted about his job. I learned a lot about law enforcement, which I found really interesting. We made our way back to the Watergate building and met Getz again, who drove us out to meet Roger Arnold so the sheriff could talk about the economics of the drug war on Arnold's radio show.

That night, Masters spoke at an LP-sponsored banquet. I had fun yakking with the local activists and policy wonks. It reminded me of the difference between the "small pond" of Colorado and the "ocean" of national policy centered in D.C. I remembered the days when I was a young idealist who just couldn't get radical enough. Well, now I'm an older idealist who hopefully knows better how to pick his battles.

As the sheriff and I had a drink at the hotel restaurant, I was struck by the irony of imbibing a drug that was once prohibited. Then we retired. The sheriff had a couple hours sleep, then caught a limo to Dulles and headed home. But he had no opportunity to catch up on his sleep. A couple of skiers had gone into an avalanche area near Telluride and been trapped under a wall of snow. Masters is a member of a volunteer rescue unit, which went into action. It found one of the skiers. The other remained lost and is presumed dead, after a snowstorm forced the crew to retreat and wait for warmer weather.

My flight left the next day. Back at Reagan, I was reminded that I had to show "government-issued ID" to board the plane. "Papers, please!" That was enough to jolt me out of my cheery optimism that everything would be okay now that Masters is taking his message to the public.

My flight was delayed for about an hour because of a security breach at Denver. Somebody had unplugged one of the metal detectors and nobody noticed for a while. They even brought some planes back from the runway and unloaded all the passengers. An unplugged metal detector. I'm not kidding.

© Copyright 2008, Liberty Foundation

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