Legalize Drugs Now 5-2010

 [I procrastinated typing up this one. Reading ahead, I gritted my teeth, bothered by how I was writing. I definitely shot my mouth on this on. Which does not mean I disavow what I was trying to say. My experience before my arrest with the crackheads of Muncie and my criminal defendant clients lay under what I wrote in 2010., What I read of the opioid crisis while in prison, and what I have seen in Muncie of the aftereffects of that crisis, reinforces my older opinion. America does its drug problem wrong in every way possible. sch 10/22/22.]

I premise what follows on American drug use causing what looks like a Mexican civil war. American money flows south through Mexico to Colombia or Peru. So much for the War on Drugs.

Couple all that violence with the possibility that drug trade money helped keep banks afloat last year. That means lots and lots of money.

I am sure some will say - but we need to get tougher. Tougher how? Shoot users to cut demand? You do understand how that will decrease illegal drug use?

 I will tell you why the War on Drugs will never end and never succeed: money.

[I should have written two reasons, not one. More aobut that below. sch 10/22.]

See, too much money gets paid out to local prosecutors and police departments from federal and forfeiture funds. (Consider what is going on with Delaware County's Prosecutor Mark McKinney [This story remains online here. sch 10/22/22.]) . How many people work for law enforcement (local, state, federal) in this War on Drugs who would be otherwise unemployed? How many politicians would be back in the private sphere, but for their work in the War on Drugs?

That is one side of the money triangle, then there are the criminals. That is pretty obvious.

The third leg consists of all those people and businesses receiving money from law enforcement and from the criminals - from bars and grocery stores and gun makers to breeders of dogs and department stores and banks.

The Tea Partiers moan about government spending and corruption. I bet they do not flinch in paying out money to law enforcement. Ah, the sweet smell of hypocrisy and/or groupthink.

Even if money will not allow a change in our drug laws, I give you a proposal for change. First off, marijuana gets decriminalized and treated the same as alcohol. Indiana has the crime of Operating While Intoxicated, this covers a bit more than drunk driving. TCH has no toxic level. Therefore, no rational reason exists for treating marijuana differently from alcohol [Alcohol does have a toxic level and I ought to have raised that fact back in 2010.] It also provides a tax source.

Secondly, our other controlled substances get sold through a state licensed facility upon presentation of a doctor's statement that it will not kill you. Possession without the statement becomes a criminal offense. Selling by an individual becomes a crime. Yes, there is a tax.

Since most of the people I met smoking crack were hellbent on self-destruction [or in anesthetizing themselves against the pains and terrors of existence], they are not going to worry about the health effects or moral effects of their behavior. They would be happier to buy from a source trusted on size and quality.

[The preceding paragraph I would rewrite not to change anything, but to expand and explain a bit better.]

What I hope to accomplish is remove the profit motive of the traffickers. Take all seized drugs and use them for resale.

With drug profits down and no need for smuggling, where does that leave the Mexican cartels? Or the other traffickers? Will they start sending money to tough on crime candidates?

Will this not make us an immoral country? This country has committed enough immoral acts that the people asking this ought to shut up. I assert that keeping on as we are is immoral. About 20,000 people have died in Mexico. Go ask the families of the dead about the morality of our drug laws. I suggest the proper thing to do is letting the law be rational rather than warped by religious appeals. I also suggest that the proper action would be standing outside the places dispensing drugs praying and offering rehabilitation rather than relying on the State for promoting a religious program.

No, too many interests stand against a rational drug law policy, but I just cannot keep my mouth any longer.

I also want to say I love Willaimn James, but I want to kick his ass for writing the "Moral Equivalent of War." The politicians adopting his language for their nefarious purposes ought to have their communal asses kicked, too. And enough of quoting Emerson's "Self-Reliance" without reading the essay. 

And enough of unconditional surrenders, as brought into our national psyche by U.S. Grant. Wars did not end in unconditional surrender until after our Civil War. Which means Americans must wrap their minds around that they cannot annihilate all that opposes them. Crime and evil have been with us always and shall remain with us all our days. We must fight them without thinking we can defeat evil. That strikes me as blasphemous. With illegal drugs, we need to rethink our attack.

And I say the real attack requires all of us to ask why so many of us are so self-destructive. Perhaps avoiding that question truly explains our vociferous defense of our War on Drugs.

[I thought I had not put in the preceding paragraph. This is the second reason I mentioned above as the cause for drugs - call it the consumer side. Traffickers being the supply side. We never discuss the consumer side.]

We need to do more thinking than what can be done on a bumper sticker. We need to do so because our politicians cannot think in more detail than a bumper sticker. We must question any politician who lacks the abilities to think in depth on any subject. We must distrust anyone wanting to limit us to thinking only in slogans. Make those shouting slogans explain those slogans.

Whatever one may think of my proposals, we need to rethink wholly our drug laws so that public safety is preserved without being a fraud sucking in tax dollars and creating even more misery in the world.

sch

[I left out one thought that I am sure that I had about this time - I certainly have had it since - that American drug laws made the Colombian and Mexican drug cartel and gangs like the Crips and Bloods what they are nowadays. A drug bust tightens supply, increases profitability by raising profit margins, and makes the trade even more lucrative. I heard this first hanging around crackheads just as I saw over time how prices rose on smaller quantities. The money made by the suppliers was made possible by our War on Drugs. 

Considering the rise in Fentanyl and its partner death, I  think change is needed still.

I probably sound like a drug fiend. I was never entranced by intoxication. Can a fiend be a dilettante? I was a dilettante about drugs, but even in my dabbling I saw enough to write what I have. So why do the experts on the law enforcement side never say what I have written. I know no one on the supply side will say a thing - they need to protect their profits, which law enforcement keeps at a steady or increasing level. sch 10/22/22.]