The War on Drugs

The war on Drugs has miss-placed priorities. Our courts are clogged prosecuting small-time users and sending them to over-crowded prisons where their education in crime begins in earnest. Drug pushers use juveniles to peddle their wares because those under 18 will get only a slap on the wrist. The “Mister Bigs” of the trade are better funded than law enforcement agencies and have more sophisticated tools and weapons. The off-shore suppliers are more powerful and better funded than most small governments placing Drug Cartels above the law. Sovereign governments resent interference from first-world agencies where the appetites for drugs fuel the problem in the first place.

All this misses the point that if there is a demand and easy profit to be made someone will seek to fill it. What do people get from these drugs that makes them risk mental, physical, and financial health to take them? We understand alcoholism and drug addiction and many of these drugs are instantly addictive. The affects are artificial elation, numbing, and altered reality—hallucinations. So what is missing from people's lives that they seek these artificial means of escape?

Let's look at the causes of most crime and racism:

Poverty

Malnutrition and poor diet

Disease

Suicide

Lack of education

            employment

           self-worth

           feelings of accomplishment, self-fulfillment.

If we want to stem the flow of drugs we have to start looking at the reasons people feel the need to escape the realities of their lives. Unfortunately these issues are not confined to the lower class—middle and upper income types are just better at hiding the problem.

It starts with how we run our governments and other institutions. How we build our cities. Schools that meet the needs of their students. How we fund our schools, the arts, recreational facilities. Rethinking our capitalistic system. Is it right that CEO's make hundreds of times the wage of their lowest paid employees. Minimum wages, the administration of welfare, guaranteed annual income. Should sports be about defining winners and losers or opportunities for recreation and camaraderie?

A world where it is more profitable to grow drug crops like poppies than food to feed starving people. Where third world countries grow consumer crops to pay off IMF Loans rather than food. Where the price of food goes up because corn is used to make gasohol. Where the arms industry and the wars it supports and feeds is more profitable than foreign aid to better people's lives. Should the rich live in gated communities where they lobby for greater law enforcement and tougher laws on crime or should we tackle crime at its source?