Papaver said:

America, a city on a hill?* Not quite yet. There's a small problem...

The simple fact of the matter is, that the so-called "War on Drugs" is both immoral in principle and unworkable in practice. It is a war, which is largely waged by an out-of-control, authoritarian, state bureaucracy against this nation's own citizens; most of whom, otherwise, would be non-violent, law-abiding, and productive citizens of this country.

This "war" has created a prohibition-era mentality, where millions of, otherwise, law-abiding citizens find themselves having to break the law, and be in conflict with their own government, simply because they want to relax with a joint on the weekend or sniff a line of cocaine at party. In other words, they have to break the law, in order to engage in natural activities, which have been largely legal in most parts of the world for thousands and thousands of years.

This "war" has created a horrific environment, in which we have an ever-growing prison-industrial complex, which has been put at the throat of hundreds of thousands of, otherwise, law abiding citizens, who are arrested and incarcerated each year. An event which, for many, permanently damages their lives, their livelihoods, and their families.

This so-called "war" has also given rise to a huge underground economy, and has created artificially high-prices, both of which have been a major windfall for criminal organizations and narco-terrorists. Not to mention, the purity problems and health risks that come, as the consequence, of having criminals in charge of distributing substances that are to be consumed by millions of Americans each year.

The very best claim, that the United States government can make for this, ill-conceived skirmish with their own citizens is, that they are statistically breaking even against the tide of drug use sweeping over this country. Unfortunately, this is not the case; when you consider, that since the early-1970s, our per-capita incarceration rates have swelled to become the highest in the world; creating a permanent and marginalized class of non-violent felons, who would have otherwise been law-abiding citizens, participating in society, and pursuing the normal American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No, the only thing this "War on Drugs" has done, is ruin lives of hundreds of thousands of truly innocent poeple, and, in so doing, has become the true "cancer" on our society -- In my opinion, this "war" has done more damage to our society than the drugs themselves ever could have.

The Bottom Line:

At issue, is something that is largely a private and personal matter, like one's sexual preference, one's religion, or one's political beliefs, and this so-called "War on Drugs" has become our time's most arbitrary form of moralist intrusion on an individual by a state power.

There are many who feel, that this "War on Drugs" is flatly unconstitutional, and if seen in this light, becomes clearly a form of civil war instigated by the government itself. Most of the offenses in this so-called war, weren't even crimes 100 years ago, and when one looks into the history of how, many of, these relatively recent laws came into existence, one sees a trail of racial prejudice and election-year politics, which should be a shame on the conscience of all good Americans.

We're not talking about the rights of underage children to "Tr1p b4llz," and get "m4d fUxx0red." As with alcohol, that is a matter for families to work out. We are talking about the fundamental right of an adult citizen of this nation to relax, meditate, recreate, and/or medicate themselves, in the privacy of their own home without a vicious intrusion on their privacy, and often their liberty, by the law enforcement arm of a big-brother-style police-state.

Solutions:

The de-criminalization drugs in America would not result in tying the arms of law enforcement, and reducing their ability to protect the rights and privileges of law-abiding citizens from those who would seek to harm their persons, take their property, or infringe on their rights. If anything, I believe the case could be argued, that de-criminalizing drugs would free-up law enforcement to fight real crime more effectively.

It would also help clarify matters, by eliminating a whole area of murky and unconstitutional law, whose presence has only helped blur the lines of distinction that help define what is real crime (actual crimes against person, property, rights and liberties) in the mind of the citizen, as opposed to the made-up, nonsense crime of cheap third-world dictators. When you have a great country, such as ours, telling it's citizens that millions of them are criminals simply because: they'd rather smoke a joint than have a budweiser on the weekend, or because they took their medical pain-management into their own hands -- then you are setting up a very dangerous point of confusion, contention, and contempt, in the minds of the populace (e.g. "if they are so clearly wrong about this issue, then what else are they wrong about?").

Unfortunately, this "War on Drugs" is going to be very hard to reverse. Years of bureaucracy-building, and propaganda, not to mention the livelihoods now at stake in the prison-industrial complex, are going to make change in this area very difficult indeed. Politically, this "war," like all wars, has become an effective tool of election-year politics, especially in the two-party, business-as-usual, politics of America -- with one party wanting to prohibit drugs on so-called "moral" grounds, and the other party wanting to prohibit drugs in an effort protect the weak and ignorant citizen from themselves. It is also an effective tool for the local candidates of both parties; when election time rolls around, they can use the swollen crime-statistics, this silly war generates, to help instill fear in the electorate, and sway votes, by promising to "get tough on crime." The reality is, that if you truly want to reduce crime, it's very simple. All you have to do is...

Eliminate the laws, which have artificially made millions of our citizens criminals, and doubled our incarceration rates, for purely personal choices.

Eliminate the laws, which have created an enormous underground economy; whose funds arm street gangs and third-world narco-terrorists.

Eliminate the laws, which have forced many of the minority, and fringe, hardcore drug-addicts into a life of crime in order to support a habit that prohibition has made artificially expensive.

Eliminate the laws, which have created a situation where all of us -- through the loss of theft and higher insurance premiums -- have come to subsidize the artificially expensive habits of a small minority of hardcore drug-addicts, and therefor have come to accept higher crime rates as fact of life, when they are really the byproduct of an ill-conceived prohibition.

Eliminate the laws, which have made it close to impossible for the marginalized, hardcore drug-addict to come forward, and then find reasonably priced treatment for their problem; treatment which doesn't involve the punitive actions of the criminal justice system, whose forms and methods of so-called "treatment" have long proven themselves to ineffective, if not counter-productive.

Eliminate the laws, which blur the distinction between true crime and nonsense crime in the minds of the public. Laws which have come to make a mockery of real law and real crimes.

Eliminate the laws which make drugs an attractive form of rebellion for teenagers.

Eliminate the laws which have created a silent Civil War in this country. And have produced a state of permanent fear and loathing for millions.

--Papaver

*Note: I am fully aware of the irony implied by referencing John Winthrop's phrase "as a city upon a hill," from his famous shipboard sermon to his fellow Puritans, en route to the North American continent. I, however, like many politically-minded Americans have taken this phrase as an emblem, which means far more than the mere Abrahamic concerns of the Puritans founding a religious colony. To me, this phrase has come to mean, simply, that we as a country should be striving to better ourselves, and to be an shining "example" to others in the world. Leadership by example, not by police and military tactics.

I wish "The W," and many others in politics, were able to read the wonderful religious writings in our world history as poetry and not prose. These are texts which best speak to our spirits, and our better-selves, through symbol -- they are not assembly instructions for some Japanese toy on Christmas morning.

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