As
a libertarian writer, I am obligated to devote at least one
column every six months to the monstrously ineffective drug war
(they take away my merit badges and decoder ring otherwise). I
have been slow to do this because, in effect, I was slow to come
to terms with the concept of drug legalization. It was an idea
that just wouldn't click with me.
When I was younger, I was quite the party boy (was?). I did more
than my share of underage drinking and had fun experimenting
with different illicit drugs. I was not a hard drug user, but I
was a frequent user of so-called social drugs. I would say the
strongest drug I had used was cocaine. Cocaine is an amazing
drug. It is a drug, when first used, that one could immediately
understand how people could become addicted to it.
The first time I drank alcohol, I drained my lunch all over my
self. The first time I smoked a cigarette I coughed like crazy.
The first time I tried marijuana I got incredibly sleepy and
took a long nap. The first time I tried LSD I freaked out for
nine hours straight. Cocaine was definitely different, upon my
first use I wanted to feel that way forever.
So, I continued doing it. For a good six months I had convinced
myself that I was 'just a weekend user.' I would tell myself
that 'it was just a social drug,' and that 'it didn't impair my
abilities' yadda, yadda, yadda. I was in denial, plain and
simple. Upon realizing my denial, I walked away and quit using
it. Was I a hard-core cokehead? No, but I can tell you that the
mere typing of the word cocaine above, made me long for the
taste of post nasal drip. That's quite a residual effect from a
six month habit from 10 years ago.
The crowd that I associated with resembled that of a police
lineup. Kids from broken homes that lived in dilapidated little
houses that smelled like a cross between cat urine and a VD
clinic. Their mothers were seldom home and when they were
there it usually involved a lot of yelling and beatings. I had
seen many of these kids destroy themselves by moving on to
harder drugs. Several ended up being arrested for robbery and
most of them are probably still in jail for some other offense.
I heard recently that a couple of them have discovered that they
are HIV positive from sharing heroin needles. I have seen the
dangers of drugs first hand and it ain't pretty.
I was more fortunate. My parents were married, we had a nice
house and nice things. They were on me everyday to cut my hair
and to improve my grades (I did neither), and they were there
when I needed them. I was able to walk away, but I often
wondered how I, a kid with a good stable foundation, came so
close to the same fate as the cat urine/VD kids. This to me was
the danger of drugs, and this is why I supported the war on
drugs. It was the typical "if it could happen to me, it
could happen to anyone" argument.
So
what changed? As I have gotten older I've come to realize that
while my personal experiences may provide me with guidance and
wisdom, they are anecdotal to everyone else. Where before
I believed that I got involved with drugs in spite of my good
upbringing, I now understand that I avoided the pitfalls of drug
use because of it. My upbringing couldn't shield me from the
exposure to drugs, but it did give me the sense of
responsibility and the judgment to walk away. The cat urine kids
had no such virtues. The drugs didn't do them in, it was their
upbringing. If it wasn't an illegal drug it would have been
alcohol, if it wasn't alcohol it would have been glue sniffing.
Drugs aren't the disease for these kids, it's just a symptom of
a much larger problem.
Uncle Sam cannot legislate that you must love your kids. Often,
they try to do the next best thing and try to make parenting
easier by passing laws that try to decrease the availability of
drugs, alcohol, tobacco etc. With drugs, as with everything
else, they fail miserably. Look, I was a 14 year old snot nosed
punk in the suburbs with no car and I was able to find dope
anytime I wanted it. If I had any money I could guarantee a
score. Despite National Drug Awareness Month PR campaigns,
police raiding homes and the umpteen gazillion laws against drug
use and sales and I was still able to walk two blocks and get
what I wanted. It was just that easy.
I have read that the war on drugs costs Americans as much as $40
billion per year. The bulk of this money goes to stopping
supply. While some may think it's admirable to try to prevent
people from destroying themselves, most reasonable people
understand that you cannot treat drug abuse on the supply end.
One only needs to look at a controlled environment like a
prison. Here you have fences, watchtowers, guards, random drug
searches and X-ray scanners checking the mail supply and you
know what? Drugs are everywhere. They can't stop them.
Now I am sure that someone, somewhere is penning off an email to
me telling me how some kid in my exact same circumstances and
will go on to explain how this kid didn't manage to get out.
Telling me how this kid had the picture perfect upbringing and
ended up a serial killer or some other kind of delinquent.
Again, I will have to ask them how the government can fix this.
They can't keep the drugs out, they can't lock up everyone who
uses or sells drugs (and boy do they try). The only thing I can
see them doing to help stop tragedies like this would be to
reduce the tax burden to a point that most families could rely
on one income. Parental influence has been shown to be the main
factor for those kids who avoid drugs. Positive parental
influence only will increase when exposure to your child
increases. That's hard to do with 80+ working hours between the
parents. Here's a $40 billion dollar tax relief package that's
ready to go...it's not enough, but it's a start.
Ultimately it has taken me far too long to see the folly of the
drug war, but I can proudly say that I am now against it. The
government has proven to me, once again, how inefficient and how
off base it can be. Whenever the feds decide to protect you from
yourself it often involves huge amounts of wasted taxpayer
money, major violations of rights and accomplishes very little.
Government was, is and always will be a poor replacement for
good old fashioned parenting. It's a shame that it costs us $40
billion a year while we are trying to figure that out.
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