The True Profiteers of Pain: A Look at Alcohol, Tobacco, War and Prisons

"Pain-Profiteering" is not illegal, but it is licensed, regulated, controlled and taxed. After the truly ignoble "Noble Experiment" of alcohol prohibition ended, rules and rates of taxation were again formulated. The virtual "pie" depicted in so many graphs and diagrams was divided for the benefit of all who stood to profit from this age-old, respectable, and newly rehabilitated industry - namely the manufacture and sale of alcohol for human consumption.

To even begin to list the "evils" of alcohol abuse and addiction here would be a ridiculous, redundant waste of time. Almost everyone knows already what this industrial solvent/drug can do to a human body and brain, both instantly, and over a period of extended use. I find that when I discuss this issue with individuals taking a legalistic and moralistic stance on the issue of substance abuse, that many have a hard time coming up with reasons that alcohol abuse in and of itself should be punished (notwithstanding its behavioral fallout like DUIs and vehicular homicide, domestic violence, sexual offenses that may not have occurred without alcohol's assistance in repression of internal controls, etc...), I believe because alcohol abuse is punishment. Overindulgence in alcohol carries with it a swift and usually painful kick in the pants of some kind. One early definition of the term "alcoholic," -one which I like- goes sort of like this:

"The alcoholic is an individual who has the ability to take pleasure, repeatedly, in toxic doses of alcohol."

That "The Drunk" as has become the archetypal image and model of addiction in America and many (but far from all) of the western industrial and post-industrial nations is truly tragic. The image that the drunk presents us with (primarily in the protestant dominated cultures), passed out in his or her own vomit, filthy, homeless, begging, freezing to death on the street due to a state of anesthesia that removes all motivation to seek shelter, is horrible, real, tragic, age-old, and unfortunately, not a fair or accurate picture of addiction in general. What has, however, seemingly been established beyond a reasonable doubt in law, and in mainstream morality, is that adult Americans have the right to use, and abuse if they so choose, alcohol. The cautions placed near the end of televised advertisements for alcoholic beverages, by conscience-ridden alcohol dealers to "drink responsibly" are usually quite reasonable; don't drink to an excess, but if you do drink to an excess, or even if you drink enough to "feel it" and have a good time, to "party" as the very happy young men and women in the ads seem to be doing, then for heaven's sake don't drive. Feeling the hot breath of a large, loud, and politically powerful minority (the self appointed arbiters of social morality), on their necks, and sensing the closeness of their potentially lethal incisors, the alcohol industry puts its best foot forward, and presents itself as a conservative, "pro social" and constructive member of the business community.

TOBACCO

Tobacco companies have had a harder time of it than the manufacturers and dealers of alcohol. Although they have supported conservative causes and politicians for a very long time now, the fact that there is in this culture almost no safe and responsible method of nicotine use has become impossible to ignore. The horrifying spectacle of the once mighty dinosaur of the political right "Big Tobacco" struggling desperately for its very life by suddenly (albeit under court order) and releasing damning information about its products that it had for years tried to make light of and suppress, has inspired many in the corporate community to "clean up their act." In terms of "the people," vs. "big government" and "big business," Big Tobacco presented a soft target. It was easy to direct the anger of rebel youth, and their often liberal parents at this first cousin to the alcohol industry. Huge, arrogant, blundering, and historically conservative in its image and political affinities, it made an ideal target for mildly disruptive and anarchic acts of guerilla theater ready made for the corporate media's camera. All of a sudden it was not smoking that was hip and rebellious. At least on TV, attacking Big Tobacco became cool. I do not see a similar attack on the alcohol industry coming anytime soon, although we continue to be informed with perfectly valid precautions against underage drinking and drunk driving funded by the "responsible" drug dealers of our time. Soon however, the age for legal drinking must again become the same as the legal age for military service (Colorado "neo-con" Pete Coors had this is part of his failed senatorial campaign platform). There is something fundamentally obscene about protecting individuals destined to cross paths with suicide bombers, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, sniper fire, and beheadings, from the potential danger carried in a ritually consumed shot of booze. Once again, the suffering and death of the individual is not at issue. The commodity -the life, suffering and death of the soldier- must remain controlled by its lawful claimant to the very end. Heaven forbid that a soldier's life could end with self inflicted alcohol poisoning before that life could be profitably extracted and sacrificed on an oilfield.

WARS AND PRISONS

Soldiers are killed, or taken prisoner in wars, and all too often prisoners of war are subjected to unspeakable tortures, sometimes for the purpose of intelligence gathering but often for no other reason than simple sadism and a chance to get revenge on "the enemy." The Geneva Convention is ignored more often than not, it seems, by most states at war, but the Bush-II administration had the audacity to announce to the world that it would be ignoring it when dealing with suspected terrorists. Although "legitimate" governments, i.e. states fighting wars are by far the most prolific practitioners of terrorism, the term "terrorist" is usually applied to advocates and practitioners of small-group military actions, undertaken without the support or blessing of any recognized government. Similarly, the "common criminal" in America has acted against the state and its laws, and while the American citizen for now still enjoys some constitutional liberties and due-process protections that the suspected terrorist does not, once convicted and incarcerated in the American Gulag, the American citizen in prison does not even enjoy the level of protection that in theory is afforded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. The "War on Drugs" has placed millions of Americans either behind bars, or under the direct supervision of the "Criminal Justice System," and a Therapeutic State self-empowered with a massive leverage by "embedding" itself in correctional institutions and parole and probation supervision practices, thus curtailing their individual rights as much as prison does, or more so.

If drug prohibition was ever intended to stop or even reduce drug abuse in America, it can only be viewed as an absolute failure when viewed as a whole, taking into account all the little ups and downs of eighty-plus years. However, if the creation of a police state and a ready-made slave population of millions of men and women are now the actual goals, then the state is winning the war. The War on Drugs is actually a war on drug users, as well as street-level to mid-level dealers, and as such, a war against people; it is a de facto civil war. The disgusting torture of Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison was condemned and denounced publicly by leaders hurriedly trying to distance themselves from the conduct of their subordinates, but it appears that these violations of the Geneva Convention took place under the supervision of prison guards whose experience up until that point had been in the handling of inmates in American prisons. While there is no such thing as a typical prison in America, and conditions vary greatly from one state to state and even from one facility to the next within a single state, every state prison system and county jail, as well as the massive federal system, The US Bureau of Prisons (BOP), has its share of documented human rights abuses, that would be condemned as war crimes in a combat zone. Arranged fights, beatings, sexual assaults arranged by guards placing vulnerable prisoners in cells with known rapists, the systematic denial of medical treatment and pain medication to seriously and terminally ill prisoners are commonplace, although to be fair, in some of the facilities I did time in, staff took a fairly enlightened and humane view of baseline human rights and compassionate treatment of prisoners. Viewed as a whole however, the War on Drugs and the American Gulag qualify as massive crimes against humanity, on the level of slavery and the holocaust. And indeed, while American politicians point accusing fingers to various third-world nations, and not without cause, leveling charges of slavery and genocide, these same righteous accusers spare America's strategic allies, and the American Gulag from these indictments.

PROFITEERING

All wars have profiteers, some premeditated in their actions, others opportunistic, but all stand to do well as others suffer. The trafficking in living human flesh through camps and prisons, combat zones and killing fields, factories and white-collar day-prisons filled with tiny cubicles containing computer work stations and their human components, continues to be the main business of state and capital. In this process of transport and manufacturing, certain "by-products" come into being, and create demand for relief. Boredom and despair, misery and terror, "PTSD", and "burnout" are but a few of myriad ills visited upon the serving elements of the hierarchical society. Alcohol use/abuse had been established, --in essence culturally institutionalized- as a form of self medication for the mood disorders experienced by workers trapped in an unending cycle of alienated labor punctuated by ever-diminishing periods of time officially set aside for state/corporate sanctioned "fun."

"Business as Usual" has casualties, this much is clear. I will avoid blaming "Capitalism" and other simplistic leftist clichés, because the corporatist ideology is essentially totalitarian in nature and as well suited to capitalist societies as to authoritarian leftist dictatorships. All the arguments for continuing the "War on Drugs" conveniently ignore the licensed profiteers of pain. The merger of state and corporate power has brought about a situation in which the micro-management of individual suffering, and the relief thereof, is possible.

"Criminal Justice," "Treatment" "Medication" "Containment" "Community-based Corrections" and experts on "Zero Tolerance Policing" among other phenomena, and all those whose livelihoods depend on these things, are profiteers, every bit as much so as the corner crack dealer or the small to mid-level "drug kingpin" but unlike the aforementioned criminals, functionaries in the "Drug War Industry," and "Addictions Industry" may operate with impunity ("drug lords" at the highest level can and do operate with impunity too, with the exception of those who do not assist the United States in its foreign policy objectives; the Bush cartel has little patience for these miscreants).

Claims of moral superiority are made by the lawful profiteers regularly. For instance Sheriff John Bunnell on his TV program screamed out in a moment of excitement "We're fighting death here!" as he chased down a pathetic cocaine addict/dealer. With a zeal surpassed only by Al Quaida and similar radical Islamist groups, the anti-drug fanatics venture forth into the fray, beating and choking dealers so that they can't swallow their balloons full of product, taking doors out with metal battering rams, and even arresting physicians for over-prescription of pain medications, contributing to the ongoing under-treatment of pain by American medicine. The black gang banger is roughed up and beaten into submission, read his rights, cuffed, and taken to jail. The malnourished crack whores and skinny white suburbanite kids who have ventured down into the projects to feed their escalating heroin habits are told to "get some help." As they are arrested, the cops feign compassion, and the weak, hopeless, helpless addict, male or female, will often break down and cry. These images come from watching "Cops" in the county jail. It's a favorite of county jail inmates, and a surprising number of state prisoners too. I hate it, yet I watch with fascination. I screamed out through the bars at one point "The War on Drugs Is a Lie!" and also "F--- The Po-Lice" (like a normal inmate might). A few murmurs of assent are heard, but most don't care anymore. We are already in a dungeon and there are more drugs in there then there are out on the corner. We know it's a vicious lie, a farce, presented in the context of TV programming that gradually desensitizes its audience to the use of force by police and fostering the belief that police brutality is normal and acceptable when applied to drug users and dealers. We're fighting death here! And the human, when fully under the spell of these devil-drugs, is lost, he has become vermin, loathsome and worm-ridden, to be exterminated. Respectable authors lead the rush to the final solution, and "liberals" counter with "Treatment, not prison!" of course, with prison existing as the only alternative to treatment; when the most thorough and intensive treatment may be found within the confines of the state prison system, politicians (like former Colorado governor Bill Owens, for instance) will say 'Send them to prison for treatment!"

Experts of all stripes and backgrounds crowd in at the public trough, tusks glistening, as a huge, but still finite amount of money is poured in, not from the state's coffers, but from the "feds" themselves. Every related philosophy, ideology, treatment or correctional rationale that can be found now contains the message "Give the money to us, not them; we know what's best and they don't!" and inconclusive data does battle with "Get Tough on Crime" political grandstanding. There is so much pain, so much degraded human flesh, still living but no longer regarded as entirely human, ready to be bought and sold, and ultimately, the group that gains the most warm bodies gets the most cash; the toughest, oldest, and most experienced of the profiteers move in for the "lion's share."

Where are the laws now? These most noble constructs, are agreements between citizens and their governing bodies and each other, that the basic rights of person and property will be respected by contract of mutual and consenting coercion. By affirming his own criminality, the possessor, seller and/or user of illegal drugs surrenders his right to own, and dispose of as he chooses, two forms of property, the drugs, and his own body. The soldier surrenders the ownership of his body and life when he volunteers for military service, and if he is drafted, these things are simply taken by the state. Our willingness to be protected from ourselves, and from exaggerated or imaginary external threats removes these basic rights from us all.

References:

The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry
Daniel Burton-Rose, Ed.
1998, Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine

Dineen, Dr. Tana
Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People, 1996,
Westmount, Quebec, Canada,
Robert Davies

Foucault, Michel
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1977,
New York, NY Random House/Vintage

Thomas Szasz:
Our Right to Drugs: The case for a Free Market, 1992
Published by Syracuse University Press, Syracuse NY

Insanity, the Idea and its Consequences1997,
Syracuse NY, Syracuse University Press