Our country has a drug problem - drug prohibition. Alcohol prohibition didn't work last century, so someone decided it was a PR issue and changed the word prohibition to an even more macho phrase - The War on Drugs. I guess they had to just throw in the word War to spice it up a bit. It's becoming clear that the country which we love so dearly loves a good war, even if its a war fought on our own streets against our own people. The issue here isn't just moral and ethical, it's also an issue of freedom. If you live in a free country, you should have the right to put anything you want in your own body. Anything less, is crap.

The new prohibition (read War on Drugs) was launched in 1971, by our good friend and former President Richard Nixon. Politicians needed a moral battle on our own streets to distract voters from a morally questionable war in the rice fields of Vietnam.

This new civil war which started as a $350 million waste of our money has now grown into a $20 billion waste of our money. Since Nixon, this tax revenue leech has become a favorite of every power hungry whack job walking in Nixons random, staggering, insane footsteps. The reason why we buy promises from power junkies is because we know that being a drug junkie can be like the bottom level of hell.

Those poor bastards screwed themselves up with drugs, but does arresting them make anything better? If we start arresting every miserable person due to one bad decision, we need to cuff every teenage girl who bought a Backstreet Boys CD. Even though 82% of Americans want drugs to remain Illegal, 72% believe the war on drugs is failing. But that still leaves a few crazy bastards to say stuff like "the level of cocaine use has dropped by more than 50% in the last 15 years."

I wanted to check those numbers, but its kind of difficult since those people pulled them out of their asses. But lets try and learn a little bit of history since we seem intent on repeating it.

Back in 1919 whack-job Protestant groups decided the Government should enforce their God given right to hate drinking. So to deliver the rest of the country from the sins being commited, they muscled through a constitutional amendment against the manufacture and sale of intoxicating substances in the form of drink.

When you criminalize things that aren't really crimes you create real criminals. What does the government want to do with the criminals they helped create? Tough love? Jail them all? How much is it a political game to declare drugs the scourge of the earth and then go serve perfectly legal cocktails at the white house? By definition alcohol is a mind altering drug. It is the drug - the most popular, lethal and pointless drug in the world. But the freedom to get blind freakin drunk remains every Americans right provided that they don't harm anyone else. And that's the way it should be.

How much spin does it take to make this failed, freedom hating, hypocritical War sound like a good thing? Clearly a hell of a lot. Since 1994 marijuana use has gone up 64% amongst high schoolers. Drug prohibition doesn't show any compassion or give any help to those with drug problems, but maybe the idea is to stop drugs from being available - you know, making it more difficult to purchase drugs.

Heroine in the 1960's cost $30 for a gram for 6% pure heroine. Today heroine is $4 per bag and is 80% - 90% pure. It's more than 600 times cheaper since the war on drugs began. I guess it's hard to pass up on a bargain like that. Heroine is cheaper then a 6 pack and is easier for kids to get since drug dealers aren't exactly checking for ID.

So what are we actually accomplishing? We've created a generation of criminals. We've created a black market. We have violence.

Over 700,000 people are arrested for drug charges each year, and thats just for marijuana. These aren't the Pablo Escobars you hear about on the news, but the idiots smoking the sticky icky in school parking lots. Yes they are stupid, but with manditory sentences, we are filling our prisons with these non violent drug offenders. It costs over $20,000 / year to keep a pothead in prison. Thats a lot more then it costs to let a pothead live on your couch.

Do the moral crusaders care about this? Hell no.

http://www.lonelycanuck.com

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