Another victim of the war on drugs.

Here is a story which I think you will be hearing more about in the near future.

Just a little while ago I got a phone call from the Rev. Ronald Carson of Michigan. What started as a business call developed very quickly into something else when Rev. Carson mentioned something that had happened to him and his wife. And I thought I’d share his story here.

Rev. Carson is a local gospel preacher in not far outside Detroit. He can be heard preaching every Sunday morning on the local gospel radio station. Normally Rev. Carson and I wouldn’t have much in common, me being the horrible atheist that I am. But Rev. Carson was a victim as well and my natural inclination is to want to defend the victims of the world. Hell, that’s why I’m a libertarian -- protecting people from the biggest victimizer of them all -- the state.

And it was Big Brother that victimized Rev. Carson. Like many ministers Rev. Carson doesn’t rely on the income from his preaching alone. He has a sideline. He and his wife own a pharmacy. Of course they hire a licensed pharmacist to operate it.

One day, around two years ago, the Drug Enforcement Agency strong-armed their way in the pharmacy and into Rev. Carson’s home. They were investigating a local physician. The DEA alleges the physician was doing something wrong. The Carson-owned pharmacy had merely filled a prescription they were given. The prescription itself was valid in every way. It was not forged by sent to them by a licensed physician. It was verified as legitimate with the physician.

But the DEA contends the physician shouldn’t have given it out. Gee, aren’t we lucky to have DEA agents who are also physicians and experts in their fields with the ability to override physicians and save us from ourselves. The pharmacy’s involvement in all this was filling prescriptions and nothing more.

But the DEA gestapo raided the pharmacy and Rev. Carson’s home. His home was raided because he owned the pharmacy which filled the legitimate prescription issued by a licensed physician. And the DEA decided to help themselves to Rev. Carson’s assets. They emptied personal and business bank accounts and walked off with around $500,000.

Rev. Carson was shocked. He didn’t do anything wrong. And apparently the DEA agrees since no charges of any kind have been filed against Rev. Carson or against this pharmacy. Certainly in the last two years the DEA had plenty of times to file charges if they had any reason to do so. But nothing. On the other hand, just because they haven’t filed charges doesn’t mean they want to return the money they stole out of Carson’s bank account. Not at all, that they are still attempting to keep.

Along the way they told Rev. Carson that he might also be guilty of “money laundering”. Money laundering is another one of those federal crimes that is vague and meaningless thus allowing government to file ludicrous charges against for doing virtually nothing. In Rev. Carson’s case he was told he might be guilty of this crime because he moved some funds from one of his bank accounts, that was earning almost no interest, to another one of his bank accounts where the interest was higher. Merely moving funds from one account to another brought the ominous threat of “money laundering” against the Minister.

Until today Rev. Carson hasn’t said much about the case. He seems to have believed that since he didn’t do anything wrong that the government would eventually see the light and give him his money back. Rev. Carson is stuck in a time-warp, he still holds the forgotten ideal of an honest government which wouldn’t hurt innocent people. The war on drugs, among many other programs, has smashed that ideal.

Rev. Carson is another victim of the puritanical zeal of the Drug Warriors. And while I don’t cotton much to the use of drugs, especially the illegal kinds, I have no sympathy for the destructive, violent war on drugs. What ever problems drugs cause the war on drugs makes them worse. Rev. Carson became a victim of the war on drugs, another one of many. But it wasn’t drug dealers who victimized him but drug warriors. Drug usage may harm those who choose to use them (usually not, but it’s possible). The war on drugs doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t inflict its harm merely on the “guilty”. It harms innocent people as well, and Rev. Carson is one of those people.

I hope his story gets more play. And if I have anything to say about it, it will. I’ve passed the story on to others who can report on it and I’m hoping that, with some negative publicity for the thugs in the DEA, the DEA might actually admit they overacted and return Rev. Carson’s money. But I wouldn’t count on it. Drugs are bad, but the DEA is worse.

They made an offer he couldn't refuse.

One of the great legal tragedies in recent years has been the subtle, often blatant, reversal of the burden of proof which power hungry politicians have pushed through. Burden of proof in criminal cases means you are not required to prove your innocence but that the state has to prove your guilt. Well, that along with numerous constitutional rights, has been jettisoned by the bipartisan war on liberty that has been going on for decades.

A blatant case of this is Luther Ricks Sr. and his wife Meredith, both worked at Ohio Steel Foundry. They never had a bank account. They kept a safe in the house and all their savings were deposited in the safe. Over a lifetime, between them, they saved around $400,000.

In June two men broke into the Ricks home and found Ricks and his son there. The men attacked. Ricks’ son was stabbed. Ricks managed to get free of the men and grabbed a gun he had for protection. He shot the one man killing him. Then he made a mistake. He called the police.

The police arrived on the scene to investigate. They searched the house and discovered a small amount of marijuana which Ricks says he uses periodically due to pain brought on my arthritis, shingles and hip replacement that he had. In the end no criminal charges were filed against him. The shooting was clearly self defense and the amount of pot was so trivial that it wasn’t worth worrying about (as if any amount is). But the presence of even a minute amount of pot means the police can act in criminal ways. I say criminal not because it violates the law but because it violates the rights of others.

The police had Ricks open his safe and they emptied out his life savings and walked off with it. Under the draconian, authoritarian asset forfeiture laws the police can claim that funds are the result of criminal activity. Presumably they will argue the presence of a tiny amount of pot is sufficient grounds to claim Ricks was involved with a criminal conspiracy.

The police are not required to prove it. They need not bring any charges against Mr. Ricks. They don’t have to any substantial evidence except their say so. At this point the law says to Ricks that he is required to prove that every dollar he saved was earned legitimately. Can he do it? Not likely? Who would be able to.

Ricks could show that he’s earned far more than was confiscated and so did his wife. But that doesn’t mean the money he earned and the money in the safe is the same money. In essence he will never be able to prove that the funds were honestly earned. Consider the cash in your wallet for a second. Can you provide a paper trail showing precisely where it came from?

If you kept a receipt when you cash your paycheck would that work? Not really. It might show you got $1000 and maybe you have $500 in your pocket. But couldn’t you have also have spent $2000 and have earned $1500 illegally? It’s possible. The $500 you have left could be change from illegal activities not change from legal ones. And you can’t prove otherwise.

Under asset forfeiture the police are encouraged to become common thieves. What they steal they normally get to keep for their own budget and that can mean nice pay increases for the thugs in uniform. Of course sometimes bigger thieves come along and that is what happened here. The feds got involved. The FBI showed up and claimed the money for themselves.

So the Lima, Ohio police had to give the $400,000 they stole to the big boys from The Feds gang. Of course the Limo cops can fight for the money. But what is unlikely is that Mr. Ricks will ever get his life savings back. He’d like to hire an attorney but the cops walked off with all his savings.

Now remember why we have government. It is there to protect us from criminals who would violate our lives, liberty or property. The only problem is that criminals these days are downright kind compared to The Feds. Now and then I remind myself that I was once mugged. And that is supposed to remind me that having government there to protect us is such a good idea.

The only problem is that when I compare being robbed to being governed I keep finding robbery to be the better deal. The muggers don’t come around as often. They don’t take as much. And they don’t try to persuade me that they are doing it for my own good. In the case of Mr. Ricks it was pretty much the same thing. He was attacked by robbers and he defended himself. Then his “protectors” protected him out of his life savings and there isn’t a hell of a lot he can do about it. The gang that has the money is far too big and powerful. And if he protests too loudly they will start calling his home a “compound” and eventually it will come to a tragic end.