Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Welcome to the Slaughterhouse!: The Drug War!


"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." George Washington

Welcome to the Slaughterhouse, America!!

By Nicholas Meyeres

First of all, for the sake of complete disclosure, I have never done a recreational drug in my life. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t even consume caffeine and I am a vegan. Therefore, I would be just fine on a personal level if all of these things I don’t engage in ceased to exist altogether. Still, it generally isn’t my right or especially the government’s right to dictate what we choose to do to ourselves no matter how harmful it may be, or what we decide to put into our own bodies.



Having said that, if your bad behaviors impede on my well being and welfare or the wellbeing and welfare of others around you, I feel that the government DOES have the right to at least impose restrictions and mandates to those that engage in drug use of any kind. In other words, you shouldn’t be allowed to drive while drinking because others can and often are injured and even killed. Nor should you be allowed to smoke cigarettes in any public setting around anyone else because second hand smoke is not only proven harmful, but it infringes on a person's right to self ownership when they aren't allowed to breath free away from another person's vices.

You should, however, be allowed to smoke in a private business if that business deems it appropriate, and you should be allowed to smoke in the privacy of your own home as long as children are not present. An adult, after all, can choose to leave such a setting, but a child is at the mercy of the person who has ultimate authority over them, and if that person is a smoker, the child is forced to be a party to that behavior.

Furthermore, reality dictates that for a multitude of scientific reasons and otherwise, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are far more addictive and deadlier than marijuana use for instance. Therefore, the hypocrisy and costliness of the drug war needs to be ended immediately; that, or ALL drugs should be banned entirely. And since the latter is highly unlikely given how lucrative the industry is these days, all drugs should be legal within the context of strict (realistic) rules, regulations and punishments put on them all, all the way across the board.

Besides, we have spent nearly five hundred billion dollars on the War on Drugs since the 1970s, and no one in their right mind would say that this was anything short of a complete failure on nearly every single level. Indeed, failures of that magnitude must always be reevaluated gravely in any situation.



HOWEVER, if the sum total of your entire argument is just to end enforcement of all things harmful, that also is a failure of logic in and of itself in my world. After all, nearly 3,000 Americans died as a result of drunk driving in 2009 alone. Meanwhile, around 16,000 Americans are murdered each year, and 1.3 million American women, and 800,000 American men are assaulted by a significant other annually. Most of which are commited while under the influence of some sort of drug or another.

These grim figures have not yet resulted in a chorus of people demanding that drunk driving, murder, and domestic violence be legalized. Indeed, if anything, a spike in the incidence of a certain crime typically leads to demands for a crackdown, and ultimately stiffer penalties for the convicted. So why, then, do Drug War opponents like to point to that aforementioned "failure” of criminalized drug use as an argument for legalization of all drugs?

We simply need a new approach. Legalization on the whole is a poor option, and prohibition is as well. There has to be another way of looking at this issue with fresh eyes.

Perhaps we should start with decriminalizing drugs completely at the FEDERAL LEVEL only. The Feds should have no control over the states in this regard anyway- that’s why the Constitution’s there. In other words, if California wants to legalize medicinal marijuana, that should be allowed. If New York wants to hand out medical crack cocaine, all the power to them. Conversely, if Utah or Kansas want to ban all drugs of any kind- they should have that right as well without the federal government stepping in and stepping on their toes.



It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s a start- and frankly, it has to be better than the current path we’re on.

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3 comments:

  1. I agree with decriminalizing drugs at the federal level, and I sort of agree with having it up to the States, whether or not recreational drug use is legal or not. I would not want them illegal for any reason, and the problem with one state having, say, cigarettes legal when their neighboring state does not is the black market that will create, and the organized crime/cigarette cartels that will create.
    Other countries have decriminalized drugs, and not much changed. In fact, use went down, not up.
    I think if we decriminalized drugs everywhere, but upped education on their effects, and made rehab cheaper and more accessible, through various private charities, it would be better for all involved.

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  2. I think perhaps organized crime/cigarette cartels are a bit of a stretch- but I understand your point, and even agree for the most part. But like I said in the blog post "It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s a start- and frankly, it has to be better than the current path we’re on." And considering the Drug War is unlikely to end any time soon; anything that puts us on that path with a few concessions is probably the best course of action.

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  3. This is an interesting issue and well worth exploring! Thanks for bringing up some options, Nicholas. :)

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