No bathroom joke: South Carolina may make selling urine a felony
WASHINGTON, DC -- A proposed law in South Carolina that would make it a crime to buy or sell urine -- that's right, urine -- shows just how ridiculous the War on Drugs has become, the Libertarian Party said today.
"Politicians have finally figured out the #1 problem in the country: The, ahem, yellow market in illegal urine," said the party's director of communications, Bill Winter. "Are they worried about crime control or bladder control?"
The bill, introduced by State Senator David Thomas (R-Greenville), makes it a felony punishable by five years in jail to buy or sell human urine "with intent to defraud a drug screening test." Thomas argued that the bill is necessary because "the safety of the public is at stake here."
Winter, however, suggested that "the sanity of the politicians" is at stake here.
"Just when you think the politicians can't get any more preposterous, they launch a War on Urine," he said. "With foolish proposals like this, states are definitely the lavatories of democracy."
But bathroom humor aside, Winter said the bill actually demonstrates a very serious point: That every government program or law eventually requires another program or law to try to make it work.
And when that follow-up program or law doesn't work either, the politicians will expand it even further, he said -- adding more rules, more penalties, more surveillance, more bureaucrats to administer it, and so on, ad absurdum.
"For example, who would have guessed that the War on Drugs would lead to the War on Urine?" asked Winter. "But it makes logical sense...
"First, the government makes drugs against the law. But, unlike with crimes of violence, drug use is a consensual crime -- so there is no victim to file a complaint with the police. So how does the government catch these so-called criminals?
"It's easy: The government starts mandating more drug tests to trap the offenders. But people who are threatened by these laws make it their business to know the regulations and how to circumvent them. So people quickly figure out ways to get around drug tests, and businesses quickly crop up to cater to them.
"What happens next? The same thing that always happens: Politicians propose still more laws. In this case, it's a law against bootleg urine. And so the cycle continues."
Unfortunately, said Winter, ordinary citizens pay the price for this escalating frenzy of new programs and laws.
"With every new law they pass, the government gains more power, the penalties get more severe, the jails get more crowded, and the intrusions into your private life grow ever greater," he said. "That's the true cost of giving the government the power to prosecute victimless crimes."
And that's why the proposed urine law -- as silly as it sounds -- is a serious issue, said Winter.
"It's easy to make jokes about this, but the only ones laughing are politicians, who are busy figuring out how to post a cop at every urinal to flush away more of our liberties. By every measure, this bill fails the urine test -- and should be rejected."
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