Haven’t updated this site in a long time…too long. Since the last post, we’ve gained a new president in the United States. The global economy is apparently slipping into a depression…or something. Who knows? I guess it’s a recession until YOU lose YOUR job…then it’s a depression. I’m still working fortunately.
One of the more interesting things to come out of this economic mess has been a sincere dialog opening up about the useless War on Drugs. I don’t think it was acceptable to even bring the subject of legalization up a few years ago. It’s sort of amazing how the moral crusaders shut their traps when their minds are on the bottom line (which is what most of them are really concerned about after all). But the increasing violence on the US-Mexico border has given many people pause. How do you fight something that is intrinsic to human behavior? How can you stop US citizens from wanting to get high? Why should those who wish to use drugs enrich a bunch of blood-thirsty, south-of-the-border thugs? Why do these thugs exist in the first place? Would drug legalization create a new demand for the currently illegal products? Is marijuana use as detrimental or less detrimental than alcohol use? Tobacco use? All questions that a civilized society needs to explore.
I personally believe that drug use — unlike other so-called “victimless” crimes such as prostitution — is genuinely a matter of personal freedom and choice. No one can force you to smoke a joint or pop a pill (unless you’re in a fraternity, I suppose…but that’s another matter). That is something that must be decided on an individual level — unlike prostitution, which could be engaged in a coercive manner, either physically, emotionally or financially. Whatever physical or behavioral harm recreational drug use incurs is argumentally pointless since tobacco use and alcohol use are tolerated and regulated (and taxed) in our society and their pernicious qualities have long been public knowledge.
We can either continue to pump money and effort into a futile attempt to stem the income of illegal drugs into our cities — an effort that really accounts as no more than a band-aid — or we can tackle the root causes of drug use. Treat the symptoms or the cause. In the end there seems to be no point in curtailing personal freedom in the name of the national good while bolstering a gangster black market that trades in human lives. In the process we lose an enormous cash revenue of taxable income. I don’t merely advocate the legalization of marijuana, either. I say, legalize everything — heroin, cocaine. Let the hypocritical religious conservatives froth at the mouth (their churches don’t pay into the system via taxation — we need to make it up somehow…maybe they should be picking up the tab for the Quixotic war on drugs). It’s absolutely ludicrous to believe that a legal heroin market will make drug addicts out of our children. No, drug use and abuse should be a point of education. Much like cigarettes and the current laws prohibiting the use of alcohol should apply to the use of hemp and other drugs (ie. DUI laws, etc).
Let’s cut the bullshit and revolutionize our way of thinking about drugs. You want change? How about changing the way we treat non-violent offenders in our prisons? How about changing the way we deal with Mexican cartels? How about changing the way we bring in taxable income? How about changing the way we view our personal freedom?