I am new to this board, I joined because I have had it with our elected officials. I am a policy wonk, I got into the study of policy due to seeing the effects of the drug war on my hometurf in the Bronx. When I came to Mass, I saw much of the same things, difference was, I met many people who shared me dismay for this “War”.
The United States spends 30 billion dollars on the war on drugs a year. In Massachusetts, we see its effects just by driving our streets. Turn on the local news and every evening you hear the same thing “16 year old shot to death, young black man going to jail for 30 years”. Is it really poverty causing this. To some degree yes, but the war on drugs exacerbates it to the extreme.
Think about it, the prohibition of drugs makes the street price go up substantially. If your looking to make allot of money, you can make allot selling drugs on the street. Its a business like everything else, except this one is deadly and destructive. Most people who become involved in this lifestyle wind up dead young or in jail for a number of years.
If we look at history, we see a similar time where the same thing happened. It was the 1920’s and Alcohol was banned this time. We saw ruthless men like Al Capone rise and inflict his reign of terror on countless people. Still, nobody stopped drinking. Why didn’t they stop drinking. Easy answer is because it made them feel good. Most of these people ended up abusing booze more then years prior because you couldn’t get it. To compound to this, allot of the booze they drank was mixed with other chemicals causing health problems and death. During this time period we saw an increase in gangs, violent crime, addiction and other ills.
Sounds kind of familiar right considering we have been reliving it for the past twenty five years. I for one feel its time for our nation to wake up and take a new approach to the war on drugs. Our command and control international and domestic policies have done more harm then good. Our prison population is skyhigh and were running out of money to enforce these policies.
Why are our elected leaders taking a step back while some are taking a step forward. I encourage people to read what Milton Freedman had to say about the Prohibition of drugs. He argued many of the same thing I said above and actually felt that ending this war would make allot of the problems go away. Instead, we could focus our energy on treatment programs for addicts and education.
We will never stop people from looking for ways to feel good. If we ban X, Y will replace it. If we ban X, people will still get X. We can’t arrest people for wanting to feel good especially considering we allow two of the most destructive substances in the world (Alcohol and Tobbaco) to be legal. I think its time for people in the Progressive community to wake up and demand change in our nations drug policies.
Its not that we support or advocate drug use, in fact its the opposite. We see the negative cost of this war on our streets and feel that the current remedy isn’t working. Numerous scholars have written on the subject and have ideas that will never see the light of day due to our nations command control approach.
There is one thing we can do though now. We can demand our leaders not to vote on House Bill 4434. This bill aims to criminalize two herbs Salvia and Kratom. Problem is this, there is no indication these plants are a problem and most science states these plants are not dangerous. I agree we need to limit the sale to minors, but banning them will add onto the carnage already caused by the war on drugs.
Think about it, if these plants are made illegal a black market will arise. Is it worth spending millions more of tax payers money. How much money will it cost to enforce, how much more will it cost to increase our already crowed prisons. How about this one, if we ban this, does it mean we ban more things. Maybe we should ban girls next because they make boys do silly things and make them mad. Maybe we should ban candy because it can make you fat. Why don’t we ban booze, it kills more people then anything.
The point I am making here is that this bill is that no one knows or cares about these two plants now. Kratom though is a plant that should not be banned if you research it. It is a plant with many health benefits and has been used by many people to ween of alcoholism and harder drugs. Why ban something that has so much potential for the medical community. Why also allow our leaders to regulate morality. If they succeed at this, it opens a door for leaders to ban other things they don’t like. Please read up on this bill and write your leaders telling them that we don’t need to increase the drug war, we need to find other solutions.
laurel says
i’m glad to see another person here that is critical of the war on drugs. but a word to the wise – posting many diaries in succession on essentially the same topic isn’t a very good way to create discussion, and it’s poor net etiquette. one concisely written, well researched diary that contains links to whatever you’re addressing (legislation, analysis, statistics) is best. i for one am not going to read your umpteenth diary on this topic, as i am unlikely to learn anything new that wasn’t in your first the other day.
borisevicius617 says
Sorry, I am new to net blogging and didn’t realize it. Anyways, are you familar with this bill. I wanted to build support against it and am looking for help.