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No, but it certainly is tempting to subject our political leaders to the same rampant privacy invasions endured by millions of Americans in the name of the war on drugs:

The S.C. Senate Judiciary Committee last week adopted a proposal that could result in a constitutional amendment requiring candidates to take a drug test before seeking public office. As tempting as it seems on the surface, lawmakers should analyze it carefully before they plow into it. There could be rocky ground ahead.

Many believe that if drug testing is employed widely in business, it should be employed in the government, too. What is good for private citizens should be good for elected officials. The goal is to eliminate the use of illegal drugs from the workplace, where a variety of harms might arise. [Beaufort Gazette]

Ok, I understand that people believe that, but why candidates specifically? Is there any evidence of party-prone politicians bumping blow on the public dime?

The proposal's origin started when former S.C. Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted for possession of cocaine. He awaits sentencing, but shortly after the arrest, he checked into a rehabilitation facility. South Carolinians were embarrassed, and rightly so.

South Carolinians have dealt with tarnished images before. In 1903, Lt. Gov. James Tillman shot and killed N.G. Gonzales, a co-founder of The State newspaper, on Main Street in Columbia. Former Congressman John Jenrette was convicted in Abscam. Many S.C. lawmakers were indicted in Operation Lost Trust. S.C.'s agriculture commissioner was arrested for taking at least $20,000 to protect illegal cock fighting.

Cocaine! Murder! Bribery! Cockfighting! What do all these things have in common? You can't prevent them with drug testing. And yes, that includes cocaine, which only stays in your system for a couple days.

Just pause for one moment and contemplate the collective stupidity of all this. Aside from these presumably non-drug related cock-fighting scandals and whatnot, this pretty much comes down to one guy doing some coke and now everyone wants to drug test candidates for public office even though anyone can blast rails of coke all weekend and just declare their candidacy on a Wednesday.

Once again, the popularity of drug testing thrives on the failure of its proponents to comprehend basic facts about how drug testing works. I'd propose the creation of some sort of website to provide that information, but there are already 12 million of those. And, of course, if anyone on South Carolina's Senate Judiciary Committee comes forth to point out that drug testing isn't really very effective against cocaine to begin with, they inevitably render themselves susceptible to accusations of cocaine use and possibly even cock-fighting.

Via DrugWarRant, Thailand's new prime minister has pledged to continue his nation's shameful quest to maintain the most brutally evil drug policy in the world:

"My government will decisively implement a policy against drug trafficking. Government officials must implement this policy 24 hours a day, but I will not set a target for how many people should die," said Samak Sundaravej, the new prime minister.

The interior minister Chalerm Yubamrung, said: "When we implement a policy that may bring 3,000 to 4,000 bodies, we will do it," [Telegraph]

They've tried it before, but it didn't work, so they're trying it again:

During a three-month killing spree in 2003 as intense as a full-scale armed conflict, thousands named on police "black lists" were shot dead, allegedly on government orders.

Yet the government's narcotics control board concluded that more than half the victims had no involvement in drugs. One couple from north-eastern Thailand were shot dead after coming into unexplained wealth and being added to a black list. They were, in fact, lottery winners.

What can even be said about this? It is just a perfect exhibit of the fact that drug prohibition will still fail even when taken to the greatest heights of inhumanity and totalitarianism.

It is the temptation of any drug warrior to seek the gradual removal of any and all safeguards that impede progress towards purging and destroying the enemy. In America, we raid houses based on unreliable informant testimony, we confiscate property without establishing guilt, we tamper with juries, conceal exculpatory evidence, intimidate witnesses, overvalue seized contraband at trial, and we interpret and/or adjust our laws as needed to ensure that the people we accuse of drug crimes are convicted and punished quickly and severely.

The consequence of all this, ultimately, is that innocent people can't defend themselves from the drug war any better than the guilty. It is for this reason that you'll never hear American drug warriors rise to condemn human rights abuses fueled by foreign drug wars. Our political leaders thoroughly lack the moral standing to preach about the due process of drug prohibition.

Rather than becoming placated by the observation that our own drug war could be far worse, let us ask ourselves what sorts of vicious atrocities await should we ever dare to take our eyes off American drug warriors for even a moment.