Is It Just Me?

Drug War Gone Bad

Yesterday, there were a couple of specials on our local NPR station, one local and one national, about the state of the War on Drugs and how effective it has been over the last 40 years. Predictably, the opinions were all over the map as were the suggestions for the future. For what it's worth, here is my view.

Where there is a market demand, there will be suppliers that will meet that demand. If you criminalize the product, the suppliers will be criminals. At that point, maintaining criminalization will result in four negative conditions: 1) the criminal infrastructure will be strengthened and their coffers enriched. 2) Taxpayers will be charged to persecute the "war" on illegal drugs (a largely futile exercise). 3) Citizens who lead otherwise legal and productive lives are labeled criminals for using drugs other than alcohol to alter their mood. 4) Citizens who seek a drug such as marijuana are forced into contact with a profit motivated and increasingly violent sub-culture to acquire the product. The suppliers encourage the users to try more profitable and perhaps habit forming products (taking cues from the tobacco industry) to ensure a steady cash flow.

In my view, the US government is achieving the exact opposite of its stated objectives. It puts its citizens in the position of dealing with criminals to satisfy a market condition. Those citizens then become criminals themselves. The flow of resources from the market goes to a crime-based economy that does not participate in the support of the US infrastructure (other than through bribes).

The solution (agian in my personal opinion) is to legalize drug use and supply said mood altering products through state owned outlets. At the same time, advertising of such products would be prohibited. Just because it would be legal to purchase beer, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or wine, there is no reason to encourage or manipulate the public into buying. The demand is there already.

Change the flow of money from the illegal suppliers to the legal infrastructure that is already in place. Tax the purchases appropriately. Fund treatment programs for those who need or wish to change their usage patterns. Protect the public at large from inappropriate use of drugs such as driving while intoxicated or other antisocial behavior.

Of course, I don't expect to see this in my lifetime, but I continue to be puzzled that the public at large continues to participate in such a negative and hippocritical process as the "war on drugs" while happily guzzling their favorite lite beer and toking on a tobacco cigarette.

Ta ta.

Copyright ©2003-2007 Phaedrous
posted by Phaedrous @ 5:55 AM