Forum: Close to Home
Topic: Viewpoints - Should illegal drugs be decriminalized?
Topic Posted by: Close To HomeDate Posted: Wed Mar 18 15:22:22 1998
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Posted by: Alve
Organization:none
Date posted: Tue Mar 24 13:57:26 1998
Subject: Legalization
Message:
The War on Drugs is simply a War Against Our Sinful Selves. Against our Humanness. Our Baseness. It a Witchhunt pure and simple. The very fact that we have a drug-czar at all who babbles about a Drug Free America demonstrates how completely unrealistic and irrational this campaign really is. That is like saying we want to forcably and literally rewire the nervous systems of all our citizens. That we think that illicit drug use is first and foremost some mortal SIN to be cut out of the Social Fabric. A Demon to be driven away as an Old Time Preacher would Drive Away the Devil. Never- ever will drug use stop entirely in any society now or in the future -- even under the most Draconian measures. Even when we have people locked up, isolated, under 24-hour guard, illicit drug use florishes -- so how to erase it from a body politc even slightly free? You cannot. That is flatly impossible. Ask any real expert of drug use in the behavioral sciences. It is part of our genetic inheritance. One shared with the Animal Kingdom we ARE part of -- except the "lower" animals haven't the convenience of a corner pusher but have to get theirs in drug tests in labs. We can, however, learn to live with drug misuse, recreational use, and addictions and to minimize these's harmful effects to the society. Understand the most basic facts about drug use. Such as it is NOT the illegal drugs themselves that are the real problem. Rather it is the addictive personalities, the depressed and the terminally bored who seek release from the discomfort of their existence; seek a means to cope with daily existence BY use of the drugs. Most of even the so called "hard drugs" are not themselves harmful. People have lived full and successful careers -- if they can have reasonable access to the drugs -- as have many noted and famous doctors. Heroin, for example, has NO direct effects upon the health of its user. But, and this brings use to the major harmful effect of illegal drug use, when the access to the drug is made so expensive that the addictive personality -- who had found a means of correcting a brain-chemistry imbalance -- has to spend their lives hustling the money for their fixes. Skipping on food and exercise and proper medical care, on shelter and clothing, as they overdose themselves to make up for the long periods (comparitively) they haven't ready access. With a legal means of procurring the drugs at a reasonable price and most , not all, but most can lead productive and normal lifes -- as decades of evidence from Europe show. And as we have shown here in America. As long as we are willing to accept that SOME people will abuse drugs no matter how legal or cheap. As we have with the addictive (and far more physically harmful) drug alcohol. As we do with the caffenine junkers with coffee and chocolate and other means of deliverying caffenine into ourselves available at effectively every grocery and restaurant and vending area in America. But we use medical treatments to deal with the small percentage of the legal drug users who end up abusing them. And make use of legal means as a LAST resort -- when harm has actually been done to persons or property -- not the first! If we got off our moralistic high horses and dealt with the problems in a SANE matter rather than as a War or rather Crusade against the Imperfection (as some see it anyway) of Ourselves, then we could close down prisons instead of building more. Free up the justice system. And get a lot of people back into the mainstream. Just stop Demonizing Drugs. And tear away the dangerous and evil Inquisition we have formed that like a cancer is eating away the soul of the society. For it is the anti-drug warriors that are the far greater danger to the social order than the actual drug abusers. And the free-trade capitalists choosing to make their money in the Underground Economy by exploitation of all sides. We have created far greater monsters than we originally faced. But to acknowledge this we have to look in a mirror and see there the real Demon -- out own pseudo-moralistic intolence. GDGoodman, Ph.D