Oklahoma

The “War on Drugs” is a modern echo of the "War on Alcohol,” which turned ordinary citizens into “dealers” and large scale rum runners into ruthless gangsters. And it produces the same results: drugs have become more, not less, available to our children. Streets have become more, not less, dangerous.

And it has produced the same righteous froth and birthed drug warriors with endless tax dollars at their disposal courtesy of a frightened public skillfully manipulated by politicians and media alike.

And so we gave harsher sentences to non-violent “offenders” than to rapists and child molesters. The sentences themselves became a justification for our hunt—why else would someone get 10-20 years unless they were a real threat?

Why else would Larry Yarbrough's third non-violent encounter with the law get this business owner, father of five children, life without parole for selling one (1) ounce of cocaine unless he were the devil incarnate?

Fortunately, after 23 years of imprisonment, tremendous public pressure has let this wheel chair-bound inmate return to his wife and kids.

But locking someone away until they take their last breath can only mean that they are evil beyond redemption; that they have done something so heartlessly cruel, sick and inhuman that they must never again be allowed to walk among us.

Who fits that bill?

How about someone who sold beer during the Alcohol Prohibition? Would that be a suitable punishment for him?

Would any punishment be suitable?

With the benefit of hindsight we would say, of course not. A law breaker, to be sure, but not a sinner. Yarbrough’s actions may well have been illegal. But his only “sin” was that he did them during a period of prohibition.

If we project ourselves a few years into the future and “look back,” we will wonder how we ever managed to convince ourselves that it made sense to imprison and ruin the lives of so many Americans for their involvement with prohibited drugs.

Larry Yarbrough was a model prisoner. Tragically, he was also a model of a prisoner—a hard working American who ran afoul of an un-American policy.

His release is welcomed, not because he kept his head down and not because he’s been confined longer than most murderers, but because he should never have been dragged into the penal system in the first place.

It is time to celebrate his release and seek the release of countless others forced to live empty, unfulfilled lives behind bars for “offenses” that will someday be viewed with the same baffled expression that we reserve for our last Noble Experiment in controlling private passions with state power.

A pardon for someone serving a life sentence for possessing forbidden chemicals or plants, is not a form of forgiveness for the prisoner. It is we who supported and enforced this hysterical policy who will experience grace upon his return to home and family—upon his return to us, a village that has learned and grown.

Behind bars, he helped bring a form of sight to the blind through his work with guide dogs.

May his release bring a form of sight to a policy that has blinded us for decades.