If you fear that I’ll grow tired of railing against the failed and incredibly destructive War on Drugs then you can rest easy. The War on Drugs has been a total disaster for the vast majority of people in the world and I’m going to tell you why yet again. I’ll also use a news story that is in all the headlines to illustrate my point.
The War on Drugs was designed to stop illegal drug use and make illegal drugs harder to get. From a purely practical perspective it has failed completely. More people use drugs than ever before and they are more readily available than ever before despite flashy news stories about huge drug busts.
Our government has locked up huge numbers of adults for voluntarily purchasing drugs or selling drugs to an eager and willing market. Meanwhile doctors and pharmaceutical companies are doing exactly the same thing and making millions, nah, billions of dollars. More people die overdosing prescriptions drugs than illegal drugs.
Our police officers have been turned from heroes of the community into jackbooted thugs because of The War on Drugs. They tear families apart and terrorize the citizens of their communities. They degrade themselves. They subject themselves to horrible dangers and not infrequently die or suffer terrible injuries that need never have happened. The War on Drugs has not only torn apart the community but the entire police force. The police are forced by City Hall to rely on seized money to fund themselves. This too is a product of the War on Drugs. Police officers no longer say they “Protect and Serve” but merely they “Uphold the Law”. That’s bad for the community and horrible for the officers.
I speak out against the War on Drugs on the behalf of officers. If only they could go back to Protecting and Serving. They would be all the better and so would we.
And while all this horror is going on the doctors and pharmaceutical companies get rich. Rich! Stinking rich. Doing what? Selling drugs that are exactly the same chemically as those arbitrarily made illegal and sold at a huge markup to willing and eager customers. I want law enforcement officers to think about that. You police officers out there who are inclined to get angry at me for my rantings against the War on Drugs. Think about that. The government is using you to suppress competition for doctors and pharmaceutical companies from cheap alternatives to their cash cows. And it’s killing you. Killing your friends. Killing them!
While you’re risking your life to increase the profit of a pharmaceutical company the executives are dining at fancy restaurants and laughing at you. Ask yourself, brave and dedicated officers, why aren’t you busting doctors for selling far more of the exact same drug than any street dealer you will ever encounter? Why are you risking your life for them? Because only when we the people, and that includes you officers, decide that enough is enough will it stop.
We must end the War on Drugs. What an adult does with her or his body is up to them. Perhaps it is detrimental. Perhaps it is stupid. Perhaps it is deadly. But it is their decision.
There is no justification for what is happening and this story illustrates the point yet again.
Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Gray Horn
Next Release: For the Gray