There's the old saying that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. There are few better places to apply that adage than the drug war. It's time to end it. It's time to restore peace and harmony to Latin America and the United States. It's time to end the failed war on drugs. It's time to legalize drugs.

A minimum-wage law, a law that prevents employers and employees from entering into mutually beneficial economic exchanges, is as far from a free market or free enterprise as one can get. That's why it causes so much damage and destruction, especially to black teenagers and others whose labor, for one reason or another, is valued by employers at less than the government-established minimum wage.

Is there another way? Of course there is. There is a way based on simple moral principles: Everyone keeps his own money. Everyone decides what to do with his own money. No income tax. No IRS. No government grants or assistance to anyone. All charity is voluntary. It's called freedom. It's a peaceful, harmonious way of life, one that Americans once believed in.

From the inception of our nation our American ancestors intended for the United States to operate under a precious-metals monetary system or, more specifically, under a monetary system in which people used gold and silver coins rather than paper money as the media of exchange.

The cult of the omnipotent state has millions of followers in the united States. Americans of today view their government in the same way as Christians view their God; they worship and adore the state and they render their lives and fortunes to it. Statists believe that their lives - their very being - are a privilege that the state has given to them. They believe that everything they do is - and should be - dependent on the consent of the government. Thus, statists support such devices as income taxation, licensing laws, regulations, passports, trade restrictions, and the like.

Every day, IRS agents levy liens on homes, bank accounts, and businesses; they confiscate cars, furniture, boats, and other personal property without the constitutional protections of due notice, hearing, and due process. If a person forcibly resists, government agents kill him for resisting arrest.

Individual freedom and drug laws contradict each other. In a genuinely free society, people are free to ingest whatever they want to ingest, no matter how harmful or destructive. What people ingest is none of the government's business. If drug users or drug addicts wish to get help, a free society provides the means to do so.