KWhite

To save the children.

Well, here I am again, sitting before my keyboard wondering which thing is bugging me the most at the moment, there are a lot of them, but I think I can single one out.

Today, I think, it has to be the assembled cries of-

“Save our children from the evils of drugs!”

Well, that seems a fairly easy and obvious one, I suppose that we all want the best for all of our children.
We, even marijuana users, see them as our future, so yes, they should be nurtured, protected, encouraged to grow straight, strong and true, guided to become independent and caring citizens one day.
Because, I really believe you do not raise children.
You raise children to become responsible adults, the end product; any thing else leads to an immature population.

Now, why am I going on about such an obvious thing?
Well, we are bound to hear that cry from our political opponents this year; we hear it every time any prohibitionist individual deigns to debate the issue with us.

We hear it when they decline a debate, that happens often, it is even policy among such interest groups as the D.E.A and the O.N.D.C.P., which would make this battle cry of theirs seem a rather one sided polemic, not allowing us a chance to rebut seems a very effective way of always seeming to be right in your arguments.

Now, why would the prohibition of some drugs not be a healthy thing for our little ones?
We have seen and continue to see the ravages of street drugs all across the world, never mind America alone. It does seem to have a certain sort of logical appeal, if the drugs are not there, the little ones cannot get them.

I suppose, no, I know, the difference in viewpoint is the cause behind that terrible meat grinder that is the drug market, as it exists today.

The prohibitionists are content to ban some drugs, thereby, if we accede to their logical assumptions, making them inaccessible to our kids, keeping our progeny safe, pure, and wondrously clean.

We keep that terrible monster from the shores of America through a combination of interdiction of foreign sources of drugs, a hard policy meant to deal with domestic producers, the incarceration of users and a steady flow of scary “truths” about drugs that should keep any kid with sense off of those terrible things.
This then allows everyone to feel good and sit back, nodding sagely whilst patting their collective backs.

Nevertheless, kids do not always use good sense, not always.

The war is won, the children are protected and everything vibrates with a naturally induced high, a colourful glow of accomplishment shines over America.

I disagree.

I disagree strongly, because I have to trust the evidence presented by reality.

Drug use is at an all time high in 2004.

Oh, yes, I know, a recent study now extant shows that usage among some teens went backward a little bit. However, binge drinking is gaining in popularity, a shame that, it sure is a lucky thing that we do not prohibit that substance, just think of all the people who would be criminals.

I wish they had based that backward trend against nineteen-fourteen figures as opposed to more recent ones.
You see, at the start of this crazy ride called the drug war, the drug problem was nonexistent.

To get the thing rolling at all, it was necessary to use racial bias and emotionally laden scare tactics. This was the case with the “Harrison Act” which prohibited opium and it was the case with the nineteen thirty-seven-marijuana tax act.

The single convention on narcotics also has no basis in solid fact; pushed through the United Nations with pressure politics by America, following an agenda of, again, racism and intolerance. Pushed through the U.N, with the sole purpose of making law reform back home nearly impossible, we see this now every time some politician tells us that even if we wished to reform the drug laws, our treaty with the U.N. will not allow it.

International treaties become the law of the land, you see, this was the reasoning behind the whole mess.

Set up the game and write the rules so only you win, huh? That convention has provisions that allow a six-month opt out period, and states that the constitutions of the member states are supreme over the convention. Therefore, a change in the laws of a member state, insofar as it is constitutional according to its own constitution takes precedence over that treaty. Mr. Anslinger was a wily old cuss; the sin is in the omission, and they always omit that little fact.


But, in the interest of a fair look at the mess, let us suppose that my simplistic view is wrong, that view being that the prohibition of some drugs, when coupled with idiotic lies that any kid with the smarts to get a c+ in English can see through, has stopped any child from trying drugs.

I cannot say that.

I will not argue on too little data, as our opponents seem to do.

What I can say is that the evidence I am seeing says this approach is fallacious, has failed, is being kept going out of a combination of factors that, to coin a phrase-

“Stinks!”

First, we created criminals who would not be criminals save for a set of bad laws, then we created a class of dealers to cater to this new and exotic need, actually, that piece of the puzzle was not too hard to find. There were a lot of rum runners out of work once the prohibition on alcohol fell, they simply changed their method, went from hidden wet tanks in their cars to hidden compartments and kept selling.
And the mafia had to have been relieved, they were suddenly back to oppressing corner store owners and making illegal bets, the prohibition of some drugs must have seemed a godsend to them.

A prohibition black market at its finest.

This also provides much room for bureaucratic growth. Have to have resources to bust all of those criminals.

These entrepreneurs soon found out that children and adults liked what they were selling, apparently, the lust for the huge profits that an illegal commodity brings short circuited their “Save the children” fuse box, they saw only market share where we see the future. The method is well known to us, the tobacco companies used the same approach for a very long time.

Get ‘em hooked young and you have a customer for life.

That is, oddly enough, one of the reasons that marijuana has never rally been favored by these people as a commodity. Much too bulky for easy transport and not addictive, but if the authorities are benign enough to leave it illegal, they may as well sell it too.

Money is, after all, money.

And today we have what? If we take a real look at the numbers involved what do we get?
What should we expect out of the current prohibitions?
Where do we stand as a society?

No child should be using any drug in America, the prohibition of some drugs has been in place since nineteen-fourteen, and ergo, there are no immature drug users in America.

Not anywhere, they do not exist.

This, by concatenation, means that there are no adult drug users either; we stopped any desire for illegal drugs among the populous at the childhood stage.

I do not exist.

Prohibition has been a resounding success, then, hasn’t it.


Hasn’t it?

Do I sound sarcastic? If so, I meant to, I personally started my first drug use, nicotine, at the age of nine, I am now 39, and have given that one up, I have not smoked a cigarette in nearly three years, and that change in my life had nothing to do with the prohibition of tobacco.

It had much to do with real information.

The thing our children do not get, real and fact based information.

At eleven, despite being told I would grow breasts, be a lazy bum, lose any chance of ever having children and a plethora of other “Truths”, I smoked my first joint. Aside from my time in the military, I have never stopped.

The “Truths” were easily put up against my friends who had smoked, did smoke, experiences. Their parents who used marijuana were looked at and eventually my own experiences were added, an opinion formed. The “Truths” were shown to be a very large and very odious helping of what the bull left on the field.

I have never liked being treated as gullible or stupid, it makes me simply discredit everything else I get from that source.
I cannot imagine the kids of today being much different in that aspect.

I suppose, if I truly believed their line, that a prohibition and the resulting criminalization of whole generations of Americans were working, that I would bow to the obvious and give up my less than popular views.
However, I cannot, I cannot close my eyes to the obvious disparity in their argument that they are saving the children.
Because, they are not, if they are, then I beg of them, make the results public, without lies of omission or commission.
Show me where this place is where prohibition has been successful.

We are accomplishing several things though, that bother me, with our war on some drug users
In the prosecution of it, we are making our children insensitive to such fun things as illegal searches granted a faux legality by judges who should know better. Insensitive to families ripped apart because the parents are “Drug users” while alcohol using parents are good Joes, as long as they can function and keep their use out of the “danger zone.“
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An acceptance of assumed guilt based on race, age, color or some other person’s view is being taught to our future voters, and I find that personally reprehensible.

“And you best be able to show your innocence stoner, or you will never get out of the jail”

We are teaching them to bow their heads to get along, because compliance is the only way you will make it to college, or get a good job, you have to pee in the cup, shut up and comply or starve.

I have to ask, is this a good lesson for the children we are trying to save?

I will close this diatribe with a comment and a question.

The comment concerns Holland, where despite a lack of prohibition, the use of any drugs among young people has declined and is, indeed, markedly lower than that of America, or Sweden, to name another nation with similar prohibitionist policies.

The question is to our politicians.

When are we going to really start saving the children?

Kelly.