What Are The Moral Obligations Of Citizens To Stop Governmental Action?

A reader takes me to task for opposing the gross overuse of no-knock warrants, the militarization of police, and the other consequences of the "War on Drugs" without supporting repeal of the drug laws:

You are willing to accept the certain death of innocents (and a great deal of other damage) as a consequence of prosecuting an un-winnable war which purpose is the prevention of an un-quantifiable amount of damage from the use of pot. 

Claiming that you don't agree with the methods used does not in my opionion leave you off the hook as to "accepting" the collateral damage. You know the methods will still be used and you know that innocent deaths will occur. Therefor you are willing to "accept" the collateral comage.

I don't find that a morally defensible position. Quite frankly I can't think of a better word than "cavalier" to describe it. You certainly seem absolutely un-moved as to be un-willing to entertain the only measure which will actually stop the deaths of innocents.

This raises an interesting question: at what point does a citizen have a moral obligation to forcibly oppose his government's immoral actions?  As I pointed out in a Shotgun News article a long time ago, there are circumstances and events so horrible that the government loses all legitimacy, and if citizens rise up against it, they are morally right.  But as the Declaration of Independence points out:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

There are plenty of incredibly stupid, corrupt things that our government does: stealing from people who work and giving to billionaires.  There are some actions that they take that are not intrinsically wrong (the use of drone strikes against terrorists) but that sometimes have very questionable consequences (when innocent bystanders get killed).  There are actions that make my blood run cold, such as execution of people where there are questions as to whether they got the right guy.  (My blood runs cold at every execution, but when the evidence is overwhelmingly, or the prisoner admits his guilt, I am not as bothered.)

The whole question of attempts to restrict intoxicants (whether alcohol, marijuana, meth, heroin, cocaine) is necessarily a difficult issue.  The reason that these laws exist is there is a widespread perception, well supported by evidence, that some people do incredibly destructive and stupid things because of these intoxicants.  Many people handle intoxicants in a responsible manner, but just about everyone knows at least one person who is a perfect counterexample, leaving a debris trail of injured people behind them.  That's why these laws exist.

There needs to be appropriate limits on what we as a society are prepared to do to enforce such laws.  Part of why marijuana possession went from felony to misdemeanor, then to infraction, and in some states, to nothing, is that there was a popular perception that the harm from marijuana was not enough to justify the consequences that the laws imposed.  The inverse of that was that by reducing penalties, at least some people who might have held back from use decided that it was not such a big deal, and they were prepared to take that risk.

There are consequences to making marijuana possession legally less severe, and one of them was the development of a substantial subculture that regards marijuana as perfectly okay -- but that considers tobacco an evil that much be suppressed, such as the various California ordinances that prohibit smoking in one's own home, but that exempt marijuana.  (Clearly not libertarians; just people that believe something else needs discouragement.)

There are certainly some very bad things being done in the name of the War on Drugs, and we as citizens should demand our government stop them -- but that would require turning off Entertainment Tonight, putting down the joint or the beer, and composing a letter to our state legislators or Congressmen.  I rather doubt that is going to happen.  Much of the sometimes horrendous damage done today as part of the War on Drugs not attempts to interdict marijuana, but trying to stop meth and crack, both of which have very negative images to the vast majority of Americans, and with good reason.

At what point do citizens rise up and demand their government stop these abuses?  Unless you have a pretty large minority who are prepared to risk life, liberty and property by direct resistance, resistance is futile.  And if you have that large a minority, you are probably capable of influencing legislators to rein in the most absurd parts of the War on Drugs.  But a population that spends much of its time loaded isn't going to be doing either, is it?