The baby with the bath water

Have you ever used drugs? I don't mean Advil, you know drugs that make you high or alter your conscienceness. The kind sold by young men wearing baggy pants and hoodies standing on a corner in just about any inner city in this country. It is easier to find a drug dealer than it is to find A Radio Shack. Meth, crack, pot, cocaine and just about any uppers, downers or screamers you might desire. So why do you think that is? It is after all illegal to buy, sell, use or even possess. The penalties are very stiff. Depending on quantity and type we are talking days, months and years of prison time. Fines in the hundreds to the many thousands of dollars. In some situations you can loose your bank account, your car and even your house. So again, why ?

You probably already know the answer. In fact any high school economics student could answer the question ( I can answer it and I only got a D) I am not sure what the flaw is in the human brain that creates a desire in us hairless apes to expand or alter our perceptions, but the need or want is real. Some of will even at the detriment of our health or well being fulfill those needs. So there you have a market, throw in addiction into the mix and you have a marketers dream, an ongoing inexhaustible market for a profitable consumable. A market exists and if there is no legal supply chain, well let's just say that like nature, economics abhors a vacuum.

I remember back in high school one of my favorite books Stranger in a Strange Land was officially banned. Never mind that it was a great read, but there were people that read it simply because someone told them they couldn't. I'm sure there is some of that going on amongst casual drug users. They are just doing drugs for the thrill of being rebellious. Just like some people during Prohibition that hadn't had a drink in years suddenly got a mighty thirst. Of course casual users aren't really the problem. Addicts that commit crimes to feed habits and drug dealers that use violence to protect their turf and use drug profits to corrupt law enforcement are the biggest problems. And of course the problem goes right down the line all the way sometimes to some dirt poor peasant in Central America trying to keep food on the table by becoming a virtual serf to the drug lords. There you have an entirely new set of corrupted law enforcement and political officials.

So what's the point to all this. The point is that prohibition is not working. Housing a whole generation of disadvantaged youths in over crowded jails is not working (disproportionately African Americans by the way). Spending billions of dollars to interdict shipments on the sea,air or ground isn't working. Huge wasteful bureaucracies that control largely ineffective anti drug government agencies doesn't work. So what do you think? About time for a different approach wouldn't you say? Let's try decriminalizing drugs. All of them.


Sign me:

Emoose also known as Mr. Common sense