The Truth About the War on Drugs; Our Wars at Home Part II

The War on drugs has been raging on in this country since Nancy Reagan first declared; "Just say no". Many believe that this is a good thing. However, what price do we pay for this war on drugs? How many billions of tax payers' dollars? How many lives have been ruined? Are there any possibly better solutions?

Not everyone believes in this costly war, but it is being waged anyway. The reason, like with most things on the governmental level, has mostly to do with money. Whose money, you ask? Well, our money, for starters, and of course, the big drug companies and our wonderful politicians. See most people figure that if you legalize drugs than the world will fall into another dark age.

This dark-age would be filled with millions of people walking the streets, high on drugs, committing violent crimes. But does this really make sense? Aren't there already millions of people walking the streets high on drugs? Of course there are. Aren't they already committing violent crimes? Well, yes. So what would be so different?

First of all, it is highly unlikely that given drugs were made legal the number of drug users would increase by any significant amount. I haven't met too many, if any, people who have said that they would start using drugs if they were legalized. Second, most violent crimes attributed to drug use are related to the illegal sale of such drugs. Finally, this country would save millions, if not billions, of dollars fighting this war on drugs.

Let's look deeper into this. How many people, and you make take a poll of your acquaintances, do you know who would start using illegal drugs that they are not currently using, if they were legalized?

How many times has your friend Bob said; "I would love to smoke some crack cocaine, if only it were legal"?

People who use drugs, use drugs, that's all there is to it. Just like alcoholics were not made alcoholics by the legalization of the substance itself.

At this point, let us look at violent crimes related to drugs. The majority of these crimes are associated with the buying, selling, and transportation of these substances. Deals gone bad, people looking for the money to buy said drugs, and the evasion of getting arrested for their habits are the foremost causes of drug related violent crimes. Citizens who use drugs would prefer that they didn't have their friends, family, jobs, and lives taken away simply because they chose to smoke a joint after work so they could unwind. A good number even consider it less dangerous to smoke a joint at home than to go out to a bar and consume large amounts of alcohol.

Moreover, I have known, and given advice to, many people who have used, or are currently using, an extensive variety of illegal drugs; and I too have also had some familiarity with this. I have, however established that most people, given the chance, can lead perfectly 'normal' lives while maintaining a drug habit. Millions of people live with legal drug habits everyday. I have also gotten to know quite a few people who have either given up, or continued to use, illegal drugs while taking legal prescription drugs. This seems to be common among people who suffer from any kind of chronic pain, which affects people emotionally as well as physically. Regrettably, it seems that prescription medications are more costly, harder to get, and have more disabling side effects than do their illicit counter parts. Consequently, most users eventually end up returning to their illegitimate drug of preference.

Numerous other people use these illegal drugs to self medicate. Although I don't automatically condone the use of illegal drugs to self medicate, I have known several people who have been quite successful at doing so. The most common self medication I have seen is the use of marijuana as an anti depressant. Given that this is a naturally occurring substance which seems to do a good job, and has few side effects, one of which is increased appetite, I don't feel compelled to tell people to quit. I will suggest quitting to anyone who has a family or children, however, due to the chance that these people can be taken away from you if you are caught.

This war, along with the war on terror, affects all of us in a plethora of ways. It's not entirely the war on drugs, it's that, it's also the war on terror; it's every move the government has made since September 11^th. Our rights are being taken away, ironically enough, in the name of spreading freedom.

John Staton reports in his article Drugs, the CIA and Faustian Alliances;

"The FBI's Office of International Operations, in conjunction with the CIA and the US State Department counter-narcotics section, the United Kingdom's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Pakistan's ISI, the US DEA, Turkey's MIT, and the governments and intelligence agencies of dozens of nations, were in one way or another involved in the illicit drug trade either trying to stop it or benefit from it. What can be surmised from the public record is that from 1998 to September 10, 2001, the War on Drugs kept bumping into the nascent War on Terror and new directions in US foreign policy."-Global Research, June 28, 2004

And yet it seems other countries are beginning to look at this in a fresh light as well. Great Brittan is already making the move toward a more logical solution to their "drug problem".

Bruce Mirken Reported in his article Will a New Study Force Changes in Drug Law?

"Indeed, it would be a fine start if Americans could simply begin the sort of rational, thoughtful debate on drug policy that the British seem to be having. If we could manage such a thing, we might start changing illogical and unscientific laws that now lead to more U.S. arrests for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined."-AlterNet, March 27, 2007

Even worse yet, we aren't even being told the truth about the harmfulness of these substances, or how they compare to legal prescription drugs. It's this kind of intentional manipulation that robs us as a people of our right to make an informed decision.

Bruce Mirken went on in his article to write;

"Based on scientific evaluations of physical harms (e.g., acute and chronic toxicity), likelihood of dependence, and social harms (including damage done to others, health care costs, etc.), Nutt and Blakemore ranked 20 different classes of drugs, both legal and illegal. Not surprisingly, heroin was at the top of the harm scale, followed by cocaine and barbiturates. Alcohol and tobacco were rated as significantly more harmful than marijuana and several other illegal substances." AlterNet, 3/27/07

Hence what importance does this kind of information have to us as consumers? We, as well as our government, would be more appropriately equipped to make reasonable decisions regarding particular substances and how they should be controlled. Yet again, the British are way ahead of us.

Finally, why are we spending millions of dollars a year finding, busting, and imprisoning thousands of people on mostly harmless drug charges when we seemingly don't have the resources to find our lost children. Personally I would rather hear a report that the government is going to spend millions of dollars a year trying to catch and imprison child predators rather than spending it to apprehend the local pot head.

Thus far it seems that throwing money away isn't fixing the problem. The government spends millions upon millions of dollars a year trying to assure people that their lies, and their way of living are the only way to go. I recently read an article by Paul Armentano, Millions More for a Failed Anti Drug Propaganda Campaign? Ridiculous!, which truly astonished me. In it Paul states;

"If you've had access to a television or a newspaper over the past few years, you're probably familiar with the federal ad campaign. It's the one that's spent over $2 billion since 1998 to produce public-service announcements implying that smoking pot supports al-Qaida and may make you pregnant, among other dubious anti-drug messages. So dubious, in fact, that the campaign has flopped miserably among its target audience. Of course, this fact matters not to the White House, which recently demanded $130 million to run the ads through 2008 -- a 31 percent increase over current funding levels." AlterNet.org March 27, 2007

I also find it a bit satirical that a person can spend more time behind bars for possession of cocaine than one does for attempted murder or sexual assault. Where are the priorities of a country where one is more likely to get a job or find a place to live if he/she is a child predator than if one were convicted of drug possession? Why is it that we will spend $40,000 a year to keep a drug user in prison, but won't spend that same $40,000 to keep a child rapist off the streets?