SAME OLD SAME OLD ON ILLEGAL DRUGS
Walter Russell Mead writing last week at the American Interest website and excerpted in the Wall Street Journal as “Notable and Quotable”:
There is no commercial product widely consumed in the United States whose production, sale and distribution does more harm than the illegal drug industry. I am not referring to the harm that drug users do to themselves, or even the harm that the drug dependencies that so often grow from the use of illegal drugs do to the family and friends of the drug user.
I am referring to the social devastation that the illegal drug industry does in countries like Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan. I am talking about the consequences of putting money into the hands of murderers and thugs whose greed and unscrupulous behavior makes your standard multinational oil company look like Mother Theresa. I am talking about the violence and the culture of violence that wreaks such terrible havoc in urban areas all around the world. . . .
And the blood is only part of the cost. The corruption that the illegal drug trade causes erodes the credibility and capability of government in dozens of countries today. . . . Why would any good and decent person want to have anything to do with the world's most horrible industry?
There is probably nothing that the average young person could do that would make a bigger positive difference in the world than to fight the illegal drug industry out of solidarity with the Third World victims of the violence.
MY COMMENT:
Walter Russell Meade’s exhortation to “fight the illegal drug industry” embodies the definition of insanity: repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result. Fighting the illegal drug industry for decades has failed abysmally to stop the illegal drug trade and, by adding a substantial risk premium to the value of illegal drugs, has empowered the drug underworld to escalate the very predations Meade bemoans in Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan.
If you really want to show “solidarity with the Third World victims” and end drug-related violence, havoc, corruption and social devastation, legalize the damn stuff and be done with it. Restrain abuse the same way we do alcohol, by punishing intoxicated behavior in public and the workplace. Handle the consequences of drug use with education and rehabilitation.
In fairness to Meade, he made the following comment about legalization (duly omitted by the Wall Street Journal, ever eager to promote the corporate interests supplying the law enforcement and penal systems):
"I am not sure what I think about drug legalization. It’s clear that what we are doing now gets us the worst of both worlds: we have high levels of drug use and dependency and the curse of an organized illegal drug industry. It is also clear that draconian drug laws condemn an unconscionable number of young people to long prison terms where in too many cases they are raped and brutalized in ways that cast serious doubt on our society’s commitment to basic legal and moral values. This is wrong, and it needs to change."
OTHER INSIGHTFUL COMMENTS TAKEN FROM MEADE'S BLOG:
(http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/10/11/the-boycott-we-need/#comments)
Thoughtful, moral people already do boycott illegal drugs and their dealers. It’s not enough, and never will be. The problem is not with the drugs nor the addicts, it’s with the immense amounts of money generated by the illicit drug trade. There is one clear way to get the money out. This is a lesson we have learned before but refuse now to recall. What lesson? Alcohol prohibition managed by repeal of the 17th Amendment. Legalizing, regulating, taxing drugs will not make addiction disappear. But, it will take the profit out of the business and reduce the threat to civil order. (Comment by Bobclyde)
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” – Broadcast talk 6-11-35 G. K. Chesterton (Comment by RKV)
After 4 to 5 decades of “boycotting” certain drugs with legal prohibition, we could reduce the US to a police state and not eradicate the use of these drugs.
We’re already living with the militarization of local police departments, no-knock raids that kill innocents every year, and the state’s seizure of cash and property without being found guilty of any crime.
Prohibition has been so successful, smart well intentioned folks like Mr. Mead are reduced to begging for a boycott. Sad.
It is time to try something else. (Comment by Tim Gee)
Boycott the laws penalizing those who choose their own lives. You are chasing second-order issues. Sure users choose to traffic with the dealer, but it’s John Law who made the sale illegal, thus driving moral nice people from the supply side of the market.
Remember, it’s not ‘legalize it’, it’s RE-legalize it. your great-grandparents got along fine with all those nasty drugs – laudanum (opium), coca-cola (cocaine), marihuana (early spelling) – even alcohol! Are we not men? We need no nanny. (Comment by Bill Johnson)
There is no perfect solution. Stop pretending that there may be one, somewhere, somehow. Human nature makes certain that we will always have problems.
The challenge is not to make them worse than they need to be. The war on drugs makes this problem worse than it needs to be. So does the demonizing of drug users by ordinary people.
Everything we consume is a drug. Our foods, beverages, even the air we breathe — all drugs. Everything that grows in the earth or seas has evolved to produce drugs of one type or another, including micro-organisms.
Time for humans to grow up. (Comment by Alice Finkel)