The War On Drugs
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln
Clearly, the war on drugs is a war on us - a denial of who we are.
The desire for mood-altering substances is powerful. In fact, humans are not the only creatures that crave drugs. In addition, this desire exists in nearly every animal group examined, from anteaters to zebras.
Elephants are among the most dedicated animal drunkards. They prefer the fermented fruit equivalent of strong ale. They will growl, stagger, wrap their trunks around themselves, and even become aggressive with one another.
Consider how laughing children spin around to make themselves dizzy. In the same way, the rituals of religious groups involve mood-altering dances; the Mevlevi order (Sufi mystics or whirling dervishes) spin round and round, inducing a state of altered consciousness.
Potent powders extracted from coca leaf and opium poppy provides a high for which thousands die. Caffeine concentrated into pills and energy drinks stimulate us. We manipulate the tobacco plant to produce more nicotine, and addict millions. A millennium ago, we learned how to distill low-level alcohols into 150-proof liquor.
Mood-altering chemicals have brought families and cultures together throughout the world, whether betel in Asia, kava in Pacific Ocean cultures, khat in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, mescaline by Native Americans, or cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco everywhere else - this alone makes mood-altering chemicals worthy of investigation. Then, along came Westerners, who extract and concentrate the psychoactive chemicals from native products, thereby boosting their potency - resulting in substances that devastate, rather than enhance, millions of lives. Lastly, we have synthetic mood enhancers like LSD and MDMA (ecstasy), which are both far less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco.
We have no choice but to accept this drive of humans and animals to alter their consciousness with chemicals- a drive that ranks close with hunger, sex, and thirst.
Singapore imposes, for the sale of illegal drugs, the death penalty. Nonetheless, it still has drug abuse. The underground, party drug scene among the rich in Singapore is thriving, and mandatory death by hanging (for trafficking) does little to stop it.
Effective anti-drug programs tell the truth: people take drugs because they work - they effectively relieve low moods, boredom, or whatever - it is just that simple. Even though they tend to pay them back later on, people take drugs to feel good. Effective programs also focus on intervention for young people at risk.
Why are cigarettes legal, if our politicians, many of whom are paid by the tobacco industry, say they are so horrible? Why is alcohol legal, while there are so many substances that, if we use them, we will be locked up? This is the kind of double standard that, in the future, people will look back and regard this era as another dark age. We will look stupid, and our magnificent technology and electronic devices will be ignored.
The hardened protector of morality, more than anything else, cares about what we do with our lives, particularly behind closed doors. Caught in a cartoon world, where everything is pretty and peaceful, hardened protector of decency offer no insights on sexuality, or even what it is that drives us to want to have sex to begin with. Their main concern of is what they see as our lapse in morals, as if they themselves were pure.
A defendant is on trial for drug violations. The jury recesses to the back room to deliberate. Having already made up their minds in favor of a guilty verdict, the jurors exchange prescription drugs for anxiety and nervous tension.
The 1950s utopian mindset lives on in the war on drugs. Hard-core drug warriors want poor saps busted on possession and prosecuted - as the liquor and cigarette companies turn a profit. So effective and far-reaching was early drug-war propaganda that older generations are, decades later, still under its control. Together, these hardened drug warriors have managed to stop scientists from developing effective, whole-drug inhalers and patches.
__________________
Sources:
Lincoln's speech to the Illinois House of Representatives. December 18, 1840.
Columbia University, National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. January, 2008
The Relationship between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug-Testing Policies. University of Michigan, R Yamaguchi, LD Johnston, PM O'Malley - J Sch Health, 2003
Drug Testing in Schools: Policies, Practices, and Association with Student Drug Use. R Yamaguchi, LD Johnston, PM O'Malley - J Sch Health, 2003
