Driving home from the gym I saw a man, presumably a student by his age, who appeared to have drugs in his vehicle. The man, in handcuffs, stood on the side of the road looking rather distraught as the officer talked to him with a stern look upon his face. All this was a short glimpse, yet to him will surely result in an addition to his criminal record.
So I write this article, not justifying selling or using drugs, but to point out that the war on drugs is possibly the most corrupt, disgusting, authoritarian movement present in the nation. I know now that my article will gain support from the Cannabis Reform Coalition, however many are probably still concerned over what the legalization of other substances would imply.
To answer that question, it would imply less of our tax dollars to keep the teenager who sold marijuana to his high school friends in jail. It would mean that I can keep more of my paycheck instead of it going to lock up a woman who tried to purchase cocaine to feed her addiction. While the characters who are affected by this government scheme vary, it all results in the same notion; our jails are overcrowded and we are paying for it. So while it may often seem a liberal view to lower or abolish a penalty on drugs, it is economically very conservative. Just how economically conservative would it be to legalize drugs? According to a recent study, we would save about $37 billion per year as a matter of fact. The abolition of the war on drugs should be supported by all citizens who have any sense of individual freedom.
There are not, however, only implications of economic fault or individual freedom: this “war on drugs” has been detrimental to racial equality. Drug use has been tied to those who are below the poverty line, and since Caucasians only make up approximately eight percent of Americans in poverty, we are imprisoning larger numbers of minorities than ever before in our nation’s history. This is leading to record numbers of prisoners, increased generational poverty, and worst of all, it is propagating racial stereotypes in our culture.
One may find it curious that the war on drugs was not started for the safety of the people. In fact, marijuana was first prohibited by law for two reasons. In the 1930s ignorant Southwestern states concluded that “All Mexicans are crazy and this stuff (marijuana) is what makes them crazy.” The second reason was that marijuana was what they called a gateway drug, which has since been debunked. As for opiates, sources claim that Chinese men were using opiates to seduce white women in the late 19th century, so that stuff had to be outlawed quickly.
Yet I will grant the opposing side this argument; let us assume marijuana leads to further drug abuse. Who does the government think it is to lock us up for what we decide to put in our body? It is a disgraceful abuse of power. Should it not also be noted that alcohol is far more dangerous than most legal prescription or recreational drugs on the market? In fact, alcohol is the only drug proven to bring about aggressive behaviors without a pre-existing psychosis. Yet it is one of the most profitable commodities for college students, so let’s stock those shelves, gentlemen.
I don’t want anyone to think that I advocate drug use and abuse. I am what most would consider straight-edge, or someone who uses no recreational drugs, aside from my light social use of alcohol.
Yet it doesn’t take someone who abuses drugs to see through the corruption of the “war on drugs.” The fact is, it is not a war on drugs, but a war against citizens. What is even more pathetic is that this war has not succeeded in its proclaimed main function: to eliminate drug use. In fact, national drug use is up among many substances, such as marijuana and cocaine. What we do see, however, is a decrease in violent crimes across the nation. Perhaps before we decide that recreational drug users are a hazard to others around them, we should look more closely at these kinds of statistics.
If you are very against drugs, let that be a wise choice for yourself; for it is also that any drug, prescription or recreational, is in some fashion altering the chemical functions of the body. However, do not take it upon yourself to say that a government therefore has the right to imprison those in poverty, those with an addiction problem, or even those who just made wrong decisions in life. Let it be our own moral standards that dictate what we do with our bodies, as well as the subsequent consequences.
Shane Nickserson is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
Curious • Apr 2, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I just marvel at the audacity (insanity) of a government that thinks it can ever successfully prevent people from using a substance that they can grow in their own closets…
Name • Apr 1, 2010 at 8:48 am
Christians just love to imprison as many citizens as possible. It’s for jebus after all.
Bill Harris • Apr 1, 2010 at 7:19 am
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to the ongoing open season on hippies, commies, and non-whites in the war on drugs. Cops get good performance reviews for shooting fish in a barrel. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for helping American farmers reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot.
The CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnates Al Capone, endangers homeland security, and throws good money after bad. Fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies, but he underestimated Schafer’s integrity. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use. Former U.K. chief drugs advisor Prof. Nutt was sacked for revealing that non-smoked cannabis intake is scientifically healthy.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. God’s children’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with their maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law holds that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration. Liberty is prerequisite for tracking drug-use intentions and outcomes.
Tom Degan • Apr 1, 2010 at 7:17 am
Nearly three-quarters-of-a-century after it was made illegal; half-a-century after it was proven to be practically harmless – why is it still a crime to possess and smoke marijuana?
Here is a list of ten famous people who died as a result of nicotine abuse:
Humphrey Bogart
Edward R. Murrow
Nat King Cole
George Harrison
John Huston
Noel Coward
Betty Grable
Walt Disney
Gary Cooper
Peter Jennings
Here is another list. Ten famous people who died from alcoholism:
Billie Holiday
Jack Kerouac
Truman Capote
Lorenz Hart
Veronica Lake
Bix Beiderbecke
Montgomery Clift
Dylan Thomas
John Barrymore
Errol Flynn
Now I’m going to ask you to name for me one celebrity who has died from too much grass.
Go on, I’m waiting….
Couldn’t do it, could you? Don’t feel bad. Neither could I. Not only am I not aware of anyone ever dying in that manner, I am not aware of it happening in all recorded human history. If someone can come up with one example I’ll shut up forever on the subject. Is it a “gateway drug” as they never tire of reminding us? An argument may be made that it is. But so is Pabst Blue Ribbon. Also, ciggies and booze have absolutely no medicinal value. Marijuana has. Think about it.
Do I advocate its use? I don’t. I haven’t smoked pot in over twenty years and have no intention to take up the habit again any time soon. But at the dawn of the second decade of the twenty-first century the question is screaming to be asked: Why are we still having this stupid conversation?
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
malcolm kyle • Apr 1, 2010 at 3:58 am
Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.
Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
By its very nature prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.
Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco –two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant and irrational minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.
There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection, then maybe you’re using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody ‘halfway bright’ and who’s not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding, that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem; it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
“A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
Abraham Lincoln
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!
Someone who agrees. • Apr 1, 2010 at 1:03 am
I agree with the article. Except you are not straight edge. Straight Edge does not mean you don’t do illegal drugs, it means you abstain from alcohol, drugs, smoking, and casual sex.