In a hard hitting piece on the progressive blog 'Daily Kos' (www.dailykos.com), the Republican come endemic center-left Democrat Cenk Uygur (jenk Ui-gur) proposed a simple question: Imagine If
We Never Ended the War on Alcohol
"Remember we did have a War on Alcohol.
It was called Prohibition. In fact, we took
that far more seriously than our War on Drugs. We even passed a constitutional amendment about it. Of course, the
gigantic difference is that we realized that
was a mistake and reversed course.", Cenk.
Often in discourse, and none more so than political discussion, esp that which is media/punditry-based, there is a misplaced effort to find an imagined balance, an equivalency, in issues differentiated by nature, in an attempt to define a common solution.
An example of this is the treatment of exploited women of the sex slave industry under immigration protocols. Sex slavery is a crime outside of the purview of immigration and so treating it as an immigration issue is a mistake.
But where such efforts are most often misguided, Mr Uygur provides eloquent rational to bridge the incongruous policies in regard to alcohol and marijuana and shows how a solution from the past is most appropriate to the problem of today.
These days it doesn't seem politically possible to ever change course. If you start a war, the only acceptable answer is to escalate it. We can never surrender, even if we should. So, our War on Drugs must go on forever, no matter how futile, no matter how terrible the results and no matter how counterproductive. It would be weak to ever admit we made a mistake.
One of my favorite truisms is one which then candidate Obama was rather fond of as well, that of repeatedly performing the same action expecting a different result being a sign of insanity. This is no more evident than in the US drug policies over the last century.
For decades resources have been thrown at the 'drug problem' to one increasing evident effect: making it worse. Where most programs are results based, with the scope to include not only the immediate but also the wider impact of policy on the wider issue, the 'war on drugs' is more performance based, focusing only on the immediate results, such as quantity of seizures, and disregarding the wider impact entirely, like the amount of drugs which make it through the system and the growth of the organizations and incomes of the producers and suppliers.
Whether it be the cartels in South America or the gangs in Mexico, or the effect on both the privileged youth of university or the impoverished of the inner-city, the net effect of the 'war on drugs' has been a war on society, the enrichment of the producers and dealers and the aggrandizement of enforcement organizations and personnel. Far from addressing the wider issues, they are exasperated.
And the only solution offered is always the same: more and more money, personnel and equipment for continued escalation in the pursuit of blind principal.
Over the last two years we spent $1.6 billion on the Merida Project, where we asked the Mexican government to escalate their War on Drugs. The result? Over the last three years, nearly 25,000 Mexicans have been killed in the drug wars. This is madness. The amount of drugs entering our country is not appreciably different. We lost, drugs won.
Not only have drugs won, we are not even fighting on the real battlefield: legal over-the-counter and prescription drugs.
It's estimated that as many as 7 million Americans currently abuse prescription drugs, more than the number who are abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, ecstasy and inhalants combined, and that opioid painkillers now cause more overdose deaths each year than cocaine and heroin. And yet prescription drugs are not focused on in a manner representative to their effect on society.
This is demonstrated quite well in the schedules of the Controlled Substances Act, where codeine and hydrocodone are Schedule III, and Darvon (propoxyphene), Talwin (pentazocine hydrochloride), Equanil (Meprobamate), Valium, and Xanax are Schedule IV, while marijuana is Schedule I, along side heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and methaqualone.
One last quote before I ask you to go read the full diary! and spam The Young Turks info *cough*..
Like the War on Terror. Who declares war on a tactic? How do you win that war? Until all of the "terrorists" are dead? Which ones? Until everyone promises not to use that tactic anymore? The reality is it's an excuse to spend huge amounts of money on an endless project that will profit the defense industry for decades to come.
I'm not a religious man, but I'll give that a whopping' AMEN BROTHER! any day!
Now for the obligatory spammage...
Watch The Young Turks Here
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
Become a Fan of The Young Turks on Facebook: www.facebook.com/tytnation
...finish with Cenk's words: We have to end this stupid, senseless war. It's killing us, literally.
Thanks for taking the time to read my Diary :¬)
Comments, TIPs and RECs are accepted gladly