We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

Aside from the fact that this statement never was meant to include African Americans, Native Americans, or women, many Americans nowadays believe that the United States lives up to these ideals, especially this time of year. But when one considers the Declaration of Independence, signed 230 years ago today, in light of the war on drugs, it is clear that our government has made a mockery of its hallowed principles.

The war on drugs is the latest incarnation of a long history of racial oppression. Despite formal equality, African Americans, Latinos, and other minority groups are unfairly targeted and discriminated against during every stage of the law enforcement process--particularly in drug control--from profiling leading up to arrest, to sentencing, to collateral consequences upon release. We should be ashamed that we observe Independence Day while our government wages a war on communities of color that makes the Declaration worth less than the hemp paper on which it was written.

Furthermore, prohibition violates the inalienable rights our founders thought so self-evident:

How many lives have been lost to the drug war? How many preventable deaths from HIV/AIDS and other diseases, or overdose, have the intolerance and ignorance of US drug laws caused? How many patients have been denied potentially life-saving medicines, including marijuana? How many lives could have been saved with treatment instead of incarceration?

The war on drugs not only denies our right to life, but it robs us of our right to liberty. Over a million US citizens have been deprived of their physical liberty as inmates in US prisons and jails because of nonviolent drug offenses. Many have had their freedom taken for years as a result of mandatory minimum sentences that can only be called tyrannical.

And what of our personal liberty-- the freedom from search, seizure, and surveillance? The war on drugs denies countless US citizens liberty over their homes, property, belongings, even their own bodies and bodily fluids. What could be more inviolable than the sovereignty over our own bodies?

This brings us to the pursuit of happiness, which for many involves the recreational ingestion of psychoactive substances. If not causing harm to others, this idea of happiness is entirely consistent with the vision for this country which inspired the Declaration. Besides, how can a government be so arrogant as to choose the kind of fun that mature adult citizens can have, especially when the recreational drugs it has chosen to allow--alcohol and tobacco--are so much more destructive than many (if not most) illicit drugs.

If more of my fellow citizens view prohibition in light of the solemn responsibility we have inherited in the Declaration of Independence, then we might begin to live up to its promises and eventually throw off the yoke of drug war tyranny.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government and provide new Guards for their future security.