The Drug Problem - A Rational Answer

It's obvious to most anyone in the US, unless he or she lived in a cave for the past 20 years, that the drug problem is out-of-control. Federal and state governments pour billions into the "War on Drugs" each year, yet problems get worse. Despite seizing tons of drugs, arresting and jailing millions of people, anyone can easily buy anything they want, most anywhere in the US. Young people are being shot and killed due to drug-related violence—in some areas parents are afraid to let their children outside. Faced with the choice of making minimum wage at McDonald's or thousands of dollars selling recreational drugs makes the lure of dealing attractive. It's the US government's policies that keep prices high.

DEA planes spray powerful herbicides over Colombian coca fields not only killing coca, but everything else it their path, that has led to the loss of two million acres of irreplaceable rain forest. Yet cocaine is easily available on street corners in nearly every city and suburb across America. The US now spends $10 million a week in Columbia trying to stop drug production and 'drug terrorists.'

Supply and demand keeps drug prices artificially high. Pot, a weed that grows practically anywhere and used to cost $20 an ounce, now goes for nearly as much per ounce as gold! This leads to more crime since the high costs force poor people to steal to pay for drugs. The prestigious Smithsonian magazine stated that the major causes of crime are drugs and poverty. Drug prohibition keeps feeding this cycle of high prices and crime.

What adults, or minors under adult supervision, consume in the privacy of their own homes should be nobody's, especially the government's, business!

Urine analysis should be prohibited, except in extraordinary circumstances. The 4th Amendment guarantees the right to privacy of our person, papers and effects and is supposed to protect against unlawful searches and seizures. Both UAs and property seizure laws are unconstitutional (taking property without due process of law) and contrary to our innocent until proven guilty judicial system.

Government propaganda

Based on questionable studies and half-truths the Office of National Drug Control Policy, in cohorts with the media, mounted a national campaign producing TV commercials employing scare tactics and propaganda. A recent study concluded that young people don't take them seriously and, in fact, increased pot use. It's just an updated version of Reefer Madness.

We've already been through this before: During alcohol prohibition a black market was created, controlled by violent gangs. Alcohol was made in stills and sold in illicit speakeasies. The bloody St. Valentine's massacre precipitated the end of prohibition and the demise of black market violence and crime.

Obviously, prohibition didn't work then and isn't working now. Some European governments realize this, particularly the Netherlands (their government seems to take a more rational view on most things). Though pot isn't totally legal the police, for the most part, ignore the many cafes that openly sell marijuana. Portugal has taken the lead with legalizing all drugs and Spain has legalized some drugs.

Would legalization cause even more problems?

A popular claim by those opposing legalization is that it would increase drug use. I don't see how drug use could be more prevalent and drugs more available, from schools to streets to prisons. In the Netherlands, government statistics show marijuana use hasn't increased since legalization and the criminal element has reduced substantially. Despite having some of the strictest drug laws the US has one of the highest per-capita drug consumption in the world.

Another reason espoused by those opposing legalization is it would give government approval of drugs. Alcohol and tobacco, that kill more people than all illicit drugs combined, are legal. Does that mean government approves of them? There have been government-mandated warnings on cigarette packages for years and their use kills over 400,000 poeple a year, while government subsidizes the tobacco industry, employing a double-standard. Alcohol sale and use is regulated (just as recreational drugs should be) to adults.

But for argument's sake let's look at their claim with the following senario:

Suppose government decided to criminalize tobacco. Within a short period of time tobacco smuggling would develop as people who used to buy them in stores would have to resort to the black market. Clandestine tobacco growing operations would spring up in isolated areas and inside people's homes. Smokers would have to buy from dealers on the street and in school yards; tobacco prices would increase substantially due to supply and demand as law enforcement tried to stop its use, production, importation and sale. Politicians would rant at how tobacco is a menace, destroying people's lives, increasing crime and violence. The "War on Tobacco" has begun.

Is this the solution to stopping tobacco use? All that's been accomplished is the creation of a black market, over-inflated prices, increased crime and the criminalizing of millions of otherwise law-abiding people. Is this a better scenario than when it was legal? Obviously not. As with drug prohibition, tobacco prohibition wouldn't stop its use.

From the Deja vu Department!

Drug Policy Alliance / Zogby Poll Finds 45 Percent Support Making Cigarettes Illegal!

"Drug Policy Alliance warns that criminalizing cigarettes would have disastrous consequences: Including black market violence, filling prisons with millions of smokers. Surprisingly, the strongest support for making cigarettes illegal is among 18 to 29-year-olds, with 57 percent in favor of criminalizing cigarette smokers."

Imagine that! Making ciggies illegal would create all that! Amazing! Fortunately, we don't have anything like that going on already!

Recreational drugs used to be legal and were used as medicines

In the US, cocaine and opium were used as medicines and openly advertised. The history of marijuana prohibition is particularly interesting. It was first introduced in America by Mexican immigrants and quickly spread to jazz musicians. The Mexicans were fun-loving and liked to have loud parties. This irritated the staid, conservative upper class who complained to the government. There had to be some way to stop all this wild, pot-smoking fun!

Since the Mexicans weren't breaking any laws and sending them back to Mexico would be met with outrage, they decided to get to them through marijuana. The job of accomplishing this was given to John Anslinger who rejected it at first. "How can you make a weed illegal?" he asked. However, under continued political pressure he introduced the Marijuana Stamp Tax Act of 1937, which was passed by Congress. This act required anyone possessing pot to purchase a marijuana stamp (you had to have pot to get the stamp). But possessing pot without a stamp was illegal. This Catch-22 situation effectively outlawed marijuana until 1968 when Timothy Leary presented this contradiction to the Supreme Court who agreed, rescinding the Stamp Act. From 1968 to 1970 pot was legal in the US, but was short-lived. Congress enacted laws prohibiting the possession and distribution of marijuana, probably for much the same reasons. This was, after all, the height of hippies, free love and distrust of government and the "establishment." The alcohol businesses don't want pot legal, either - during the 60s liquor sales went down.

Besides being one of the least dangerous drugs, far less harmful than legal drugs - alcohol and nicotine - pot has many medicinal properties. Such as relief from pain, nausea, depression, migraines, insomnia, lowering interoccular pressure in people with glaucoma, stimulating appetite in people with AIDS, or receiving cancer treatments; reducing epileptic seizures, and relieving painful muscle spasms and tremors in people with MS (multiple sclerosis).

I know from experience of its pain-relieving properties (I had two-level disk fusion surgery), with none of the side-effects and addictive properties of prescription painkillers. Yet our idiotic federal government takes a dim view of this, claiming there are no medical uses of marijuana and shuts down clinics that provide medicinal cannabis and arrest people who need it. For example, our wonderful government (DEA) arrested a quadriplegic man in California (paid for by your taxes) who grew medicinal pot. Perhaps he grew more than state law allowed, but don't they have better things to do like going after real criminals instead of arresting a quadriplegic who uses medicinal pot and hundreds of thousands who use and/or sold cannabis?

Hallucinogenic drugs have apparently been used throughout mankind's history

Hallucinogenic and psychoactive drugs have been used by various cultures for centuries. There's evidence that as far back as 250,000 years ago stone age humans used the psychoactive plant Belladonna to induce altered states of consciousness. Andrew Weil in his book, The Natural Mind, says the human mind has a natural need to alter consciousness. The makes sense: when we go to a movie, become immersed in a good book or just get lost in a day dream, we lose track of time and even where we are. This could certainly contribute to why no attempts to stop the use of psychoactive drugs has ever been successful.

To stop drug crime, drugs need to be taken out of crime

However you feel about drugs, it's obvious our current system isn't working. There has to be another way. The rational answer is to legalize, tax and regulate recreational drugs, like alcohol and tobacco. This would virtually eliminate the black market and drug-related crime and violence which would, in turn, free up billions of dollars as well as police, and government, resources and help stop overcrowding in our prisons (40% of people in prison are in for low-level drug offenses). The drug problem should be treated and funded as a health problem, not a criminal problem!

Legalization would most likely reduce drug use since they would be regulated by the government, like tobacco and alcohol. Those under 21, obviously, would still try to purchase recreational drugs, as they do now with alcohol and cigarettes, but legalization would virtually eliminate the school yard and street dealers.

With the terrorist network using drugs to finance its operations the importance of legalizing drugs, not only in the US, but around the world is imperative. Get drugs off the black market and the huge profits made from their sales is substantially reduced.

Drug prohibition is a tiger chasing its own tail. By criminalizing recreational drug users and sellers the government is causing the creation of a black market with the resulting crime and violence, thereby perpetuating the problems they're trying to stop!

"The human cost of the Drug War is hidden behind a massive wall of statistics and political propaganda. The reality is that real people, families, whole communities and entire nations have become victims of a system that challenges our most fundamental understandings of rights, freedoms and expectations as citizens of a free society." The Marijuana Stories

Bush's War on Medical Cannabis - plus more links
Severity Of Pot Laws Doesn't Influence Marijuana Use

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