The War On Drugs.
Clear Deception: "Just say no." - Nancy Reagan, Spokesperson for President Ronald Reagan's anti-drug campaign, 1982 in Oakland, California.
Issue:
Do you just say no, or do you make your own choices?
The use of drugs, legal and illicit is integral to most human societies. The United States has long taken a combative approach to illicit drug use by conducting its "war on drugs", spending billions of taxpayer dollars annually on an effort that yields no success in its goal of stopping - or even inhibiting - the drug trade and drug use.
Deception:
Those who support the nation's "war on drugs" make numerous claims to justify the criminalization of both drug use and the various activities that support it, the monumental expense of enforcement and the cost of the campaigns to keep contraband drugs from becoming legal. All of their arguments are deception. The "war on drugs" is, in reality, a war on our people, a war on our public treasury, a war on justice and a war on the people of other countries.
Reality:
Drug use is an inextricable aspect of human existence. Everything we ingest acts as a drug in that it affects our physiology, which in turn affects our mind. Effects vary wildly from the unapparent to the mildly stimulating to the psychedelic. The challenge for many societies is to determine which drugs affect users so dramatically as to constitute a legitimate public health and safety concern.
The United States takes a hard line on drug use, but only for some. We give wide latitude to the use of prescription drugs, commonly referred to as medications, even while many of them lack adequate testing, cause serious side effects, lead to damaging addictions and cause death. We accept the use of alcohol in beverages, a drug that causes widespread suffering and death when used irresponsibly. We accept the use of caffeine as a daily stimulant to facilitate work, even as it causes subtle behavioral stimulation that can sometimes interfere with calm and reasoned human interaction, a condition to which we are so accustomed as to be inured. We accept the use of nicotine despite its considerable health hazards. Yet with many other drugs - both recreational and therapeutic - we have taken an extremely harsh and punitive approach to their manufacture, distribution, sale, possession and use.
This approach is a failure. It serves nobody well, save for those who make a profit or living off the enforcement of anti-drug laws and the legal drug industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals, alcohol and tobacco) that fear the competition that legalization of other drugs would foster. The "war on drugs" has not, and cannot, achieve its mission; instead it costs our country dearly.
We need only look at this nation's past failure in its misguided prohibition of alcoholic beverages stretching from 1920 until the cause was readily and gleefully abandoned in 1933. Commonly referred to as "Prohibition", this effort failed because it disregarded the inherent ability of humans to make good choices and countered it with a draconian measure more suited to a police state than a democracy, one so preposterous in its attempt to control an ages-old human beverage as to be impossible to enforce. It initially inhibited alcohol consumption, then drove it underground, then saw it return openly if illegally with a vengeance that led to a level of use equal to or exceeding pre-Prohibition levels. It gave rise to a potent criminal force in the form of bootleggers-turned-mafia and led to the sickness and deaths of many through their consumption of illegal - and therefore unregulated and often toxic - moonshine alcohol.
Despite the failures of Prohibition we continue to employ its tactics against a host of recreational drugs both natural and synthetic. As with Prohibition, the "war on drugs" fails to eliminate these drugs from society and instead consigns them to the unregulated world of the underground economy - and in so doing It saps the public treasury, spawns black-market crime and taxes our law enforcement agencies. The "war on drugs" inhibits those who need or want help with their drug use from seeking help through legal channels. It places enormous burdens on those who are ensnared by uneven, racist, draconian and corrupt prosecutions for victimless offenses - and tears apart their families and communities. The "war on drugs" creates unimaginable human suffering in the countries that supply our illegal drug trade.
Perhaps most damaging of all, the "war on drugs" perpetuates the use of militaristic approaches to social issues in a democracy that has far more humane and productive solutions at hand. The efficacy of the "war on drugs" is as much a fantasy as that of the purported "war on Christmas".
Resolution:
Civil society operates primarily on the principles of personal responsibility, respect and trust. The use of laws to affect human activity work best when they serve to compliment this approach, rather than override it.
Pharmaceutical drugs, despite their sketchy reputation, are accepted for the good they do. Alcohol, despite its sketchy reputation, is enjoyed by most citizens for its taste, its mood-altering effect and its ability to reduce our social inhibitions. Like pharmaceuticals, alcohol's benefits are widely enjoyed when properly used. Like pharmaceuticals, irresponsible alcohol use leads to addiction, familial abuse, broken marriages, life-threatening illness, failed careers and a shocking accumulation of deaths.
Because both are legal we can legally employ various methods to ensure that they are consumed responsibly - through conversation, education, research, therapy, support groups and treatment. At the same time we wisely employ various laws to encourage adherence to their safe use, such as limits on their strength, availability to minors and use in conjunction with the operation of machinery and moving vehicles. We recognize that any attempt to ban their use would meet with no more success than Prohibition, instead driving their use underground and into a world lacking in regulatory control. We are able to deal with these drugs openly and productively because we do not turn their users and providers into criminals.
Why do we not apply the wisdom of this approach to all drugs?
The most glaring example of the folly of drug prohibition may be seen with marijuana, a naturally occurring plant that is less problematic than alcohol in a variety of respects, offers known health benefits and is so widely used that the government is missing out on considerable tax revenue. The following facts illustrate the absurdity of banning marijuana in our society: numerous states have found sensible and effective ways to make it available for medicinal use (for which it has proven benefits); two states have legalized it for recreational use; those places where it has any legal standing have not experienced the problems predicted by the anti-marijuana forces; and millions of people use it daily without damaging their lives or those of others. In the meantime, its continued status under federal law as a contraband substance means that it remains largely in the underground economy - and only because of this illegal status does the marijuana trade contribute to crime and ecological harm.
Until the U.S. accepts that drugs are an integral part of the lives of its citizens and establishes a legal trade in these substances it will continue to be at war with both its own people and other countries. If we have not learned from the failure of Prohibition; if we do not acknowledge and seek to rectify the social and judicial injustices in the drug war, if we refuse to accept responsibility for the impact of our drug war on other nations, then we will continue to suffer the damage wrought by our stubborn refusal to decriminalize and regulate an industry we can only manage, never vanquish.
Issue:
Do you just say no, or do you make your own choices?
The use of drugs, legal and illicit is integral to most human societies. The United States has long taken a combative approach to illicit drug use by conducting its "war on drugs", spending billions of taxpayer dollars annually on an effort that yields no success in its goal of stopping - or even inhibiting - the drug trade and drug use.
Deception:
Those who support the nation's "war on drugs" make numerous claims to justify the criminalization of both drug use and the various activities that support it, the monumental expense of enforcement and the cost of the campaigns to keep contraband drugs from becoming legal. All of their arguments are deception. The "war on drugs" is, in reality, a war on our people, a war on our public treasury, a war on justice and a war on the people of other countries.
Reality:
Drug use is an inextricable aspect of human existence. Everything we ingest acts as a drug in that it affects our physiology, which in turn affects our mind. Effects vary wildly from the unapparent to the mildly stimulating to the psychedelic. The challenge for many societies is to determine which drugs affect users so dramatically as to constitute a legitimate public health and safety concern.
The United States takes a hard line on drug use, but only for some. We give wide latitude to the use of prescription drugs, commonly referred to as medications, even while many of them lack adequate testing, cause serious side effects, lead to damaging addictions and cause death. We accept the use of alcohol in beverages, a drug that causes widespread suffering and death when used irresponsibly. We accept the use of caffeine as a daily stimulant to facilitate work, even as it causes subtle behavioral stimulation that can sometimes interfere with calm and reasoned human interaction, a condition to which we are so accustomed as to be inured. We accept the use of nicotine despite its considerable health hazards. Yet with many other drugs - both recreational and therapeutic - we have taken an extremely harsh and punitive approach to their manufacture, distribution, sale, possession and use.
This approach is a failure. It serves nobody well, save for those who make a profit or living off the enforcement of anti-drug laws and the legal drug industries (e.g. pharmaceuticals, alcohol and tobacco) that fear the competition that legalization of other drugs would foster. The "war on drugs" has not, and cannot, achieve its mission; instead it costs our country dearly.
We need only look at this nation's past failure in its misguided prohibition of alcoholic beverages stretching from 1920 until the cause was readily and gleefully abandoned in 1933. Commonly referred to as "Prohibition", this effort failed because it disregarded the inherent ability of humans to make good choices and countered it with a draconian measure more suited to a police state than a democracy, one so preposterous in its attempt to control an ages-old human beverage as to be impossible to enforce. It initially inhibited alcohol consumption, then drove it underground, then saw it return openly if illegally with a vengeance that led to a level of use equal to or exceeding pre-Prohibition levels. It gave rise to a potent criminal force in the form of bootleggers-turned-mafia and led to the sickness and deaths of many through their consumption of illegal - and therefore unregulated and often toxic - moonshine alcohol.
Despite the failures of Prohibition we continue to employ its tactics against a host of recreational drugs both natural and synthetic. As with Prohibition, the "war on drugs" fails to eliminate these drugs from society and instead consigns them to the unregulated world of the underground economy - and in so doing It saps the public treasury, spawns black-market crime and taxes our law enforcement agencies. The "war on drugs" inhibits those who need or want help with their drug use from seeking help through legal channels. It places enormous burdens on those who are ensnared by uneven, racist, draconian and corrupt prosecutions for victimless offenses - and tears apart their families and communities. The "war on drugs" creates unimaginable human suffering in the countries that supply our illegal drug trade.
Perhaps most damaging of all, the "war on drugs" perpetuates the use of militaristic approaches to social issues in a democracy that has far more humane and productive solutions at hand. The efficacy of the "war on drugs" is as much a fantasy as that of the purported "war on Christmas".
Resolution:
Civil society operates primarily on the principles of personal responsibility, respect and trust. The use of laws to affect human activity work best when they serve to compliment this approach, rather than override it.
Pharmaceutical drugs, despite their sketchy reputation, are accepted for the good they do. Alcohol, despite its sketchy reputation, is enjoyed by most citizens for its taste, its mood-altering effect and its ability to reduce our social inhibitions. Like pharmaceuticals, alcohol's benefits are widely enjoyed when properly used. Like pharmaceuticals, irresponsible alcohol use leads to addiction, familial abuse, broken marriages, life-threatening illness, failed careers and a shocking accumulation of deaths.
Because both are legal we can legally employ various methods to ensure that they are consumed responsibly - through conversation, education, research, therapy, support groups and treatment. At the same time we wisely employ various laws to encourage adherence to their safe use, such as limits on their strength, availability to minors and use in conjunction with the operation of machinery and moving vehicles. We recognize that any attempt to ban their use would meet with no more success than Prohibition, instead driving their use underground and into a world lacking in regulatory control. We are able to deal with these drugs openly and productively because we do not turn their users and providers into criminals.
Why do we not apply the wisdom of this approach to all drugs?
The most glaring example of the folly of drug prohibition may be seen with marijuana, a naturally occurring plant that is less problematic than alcohol in a variety of respects, offers known health benefits and is so widely used that the government is missing out on considerable tax revenue. The following facts illustrate the absurdity of banning marijuana in our society: numerous states have found sensible and effective ways to make it available for medicinal use (for which it has proven benefits); two states have legalized it for recreational use; those places where it has any legal standing have not experienced the problems predicted by the anti-marijuana forces; and millions of people use it daily without damaging their lives or those of others. In the meantime, its continued status under federal law as a contraband substance means that it remains largely in the underground economy - and only because of this illegal status does the marijuana trade contribute to crime and ecological harm.
Until the U.S. accepts that drugs are an integral part of the lives of its citizens and establishes a legal trade in these substances it will continue to be at war with both its own people and other countries. If we have not learned from the failure of Prohibition; if we do not acknowledge and seek to rectify the social and judicial injustices in the drug war, if we refuse to accept responsibility for the impact of our drug war on other nations, then we will continue to suffer the damage wrought by our stubborn refusal to decriminalize and regulate an industry we can only manage, never vanquish.