A proposed law in South Carolina that
would make it a crime to buy or sell urine -- that's right, urine -- shows
just how ridiculous the War on Drugs has become, the Libertarian Party
said today.
"Politicians have finally figured out the #1 problem
in the country: The, ahem, yellow market
in illegal urine," said the party's director of communications, Bill Winter.
"Are they worried about crime control or bladder control?"
The bill, introduced
by State Senator David Thomas (R-Greenville), makes it a felony
punishable by five years in jail to buy or sell human urine "with intent
to defraud a drug screening test." Thomas argued that the bill is necessary
because "the safety of the public is at stake here."
Winter, however,
suggested that "the sanity of the politicians" is at stake here.
"Just when you think
the politicians can't get any more preposterous, they launch a
War on Urine," he said. "With foolish proposals like this, states
are definitely the lavatories of democracy."
But bathroom humor
aside, Winter said the bill actually demonstrates a very serious
point: That every government program or law eventually
requires another program or law to try to make it work.
And when that follow-up
program or law doesn't work either, the politicians will expand
it even further, he said -- adding more rules, more penalties, more surveillance,
more bureaucrats to administer it, and so on, ad absurdum.
"For example,
who would have guessed that the War on Drugs would lead to the War
on Urine?" asked Winter. "But it makes logical sense...
"First, the government
makes drugs against the law. But, unlike with crimes of violence,
drug use is a consensual crime -- so there is no victim to file a complaint
with the police. So how does the government catch these so-called
criminals?
"It's easy: The government
starts mandating more drug tests to trap the offenders. But people
who are threatened by these laws make it their business to know the regulations
and how to circumvent them. So people quickly figure out ways to get around
drug tests, and businesses quickly crop up to cater to them.
"What happens next?
The same thing that always happens: Politicians propose still more
laws. In this case, it's a law against bootleg urine. And so the cycle
continues."
Unfortunately, said
Winter, ordinary citizens pay the price for this escalating frenzy
of new programs and laws.
"With every
new law they pass, the government gains more power, the penalties
get more severe, the jails get more crowded, and the intrusions into your
private life grow ever greater," he said. "That's the true cost of giving
the government the power to prosecute victimless crimes."
And that's why the
proposed urine law -- as silly as it sounds -- is a serious issue,
said Winter.
"It's easy
to make jokes about this, but the only ones laughing are politicians,
who are busy figuring out how to post a cop at every urinal to flush away
more of our liberties. By every measure, this bill fails the urine test
-- and should be rejected."