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Portugal abandons hard line on drugs

Lisbon: Portugal has forced back the frontiers of drug liberalisation in Europe with a law which, at a stroke, decriminalises the use of all previously banned narcotics, from cannabis to crack cocaine.

The new law, which came into effect on July 1, takes a socially conservative country far ahead of much of northern Europe in treating drug abuse as a social and health problem rather than a criminal one.

Vitalino Canas, the drug tsar appointed by the Prime Minister, Antonio Guterres, to steer the law into place, said on Thursday it made more sense to change the law than ignore it, as police forces do in The Netherlands and now experimentally in the Brixton area of south London.

"Why not change the law to recognise that consuming drugs can be an illness or the route to illness?" Mr Canas said. "America has spent billions on enforcement but it has got nowhere. We view drug users as people who need help and care."

He admitted that Mr Guterres was taking a risk, but said Portugal had no real choice. The police had stopped arresting suspects and the courts were dismissing cases against users rather than apply legislation that sent them to prison for up to three years.

Addict Margarida Costa, 35, who has found a home at a drug treatment hostel, said jail never helped her. "In fact, I started taking drugs there," she said.

She is lucky, having escaped from Casal Ventoso, Europe's worst drugs ghetto, where until recently 800 addicts lived rough and up to 5,000 poured in daily to buy their fix. The Government is now bulldozing the ghetto.

Luis Patricio, the psychologist who led the campaign to treat Casal Ventoso as a public health problem, said most countries had the relationship between drugs, crime and jail the wrong way around.

However, the right-wing opposition is predicting a boom in drug consumption and the sudden arrival of thousands of hardened addicts and thrill-seekers from around Europe.

But Mr Canas insisted he was not turning Portugal into Europe's drug paradise.

"We are still fighting a war against drugs."

The police have been been ordered to turn their attention to the drug mafias.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 21, 2001

Answers

Over a period of several years, this policy should give incite on what would happen if the US were to do the same thing. Of course Portugal is not the US but if this policy results in, say, 20% of the Portuguese population becoming totally drug addicted then IMO it should not be tried here. If it results in 1% of the population becoming addicted then it should be seriously considered.

Anyone hiring former DEA agents?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 21, 2001.

"America has spent billions on enforcement but it has got nowhere"

How long do you think it will be before you hear such honesty from a highly placed American official? The cows already came home and I'm still waiting.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), July 21, 2001.

Why are drugs always treated as a special case? Looking at the burden they currently place on society from "functional" and not-so- functional users they certainly aren't a "victimless" crime! Boy it'd sure be funny to see the following in Little Nipper's world:

"Child Pornography/ Molesting: America has spent billions on enforcement but it has got nowhere" Legalize!

"Murder/ Robbery: America has spent billions on enforcement but it has got nowhere" Legalize these too! Both happen EVERY DAY in spite of all our efforts, therefore the people want them and they should be legalized. We can't stop them, why even try! Get on board, legalize robbery!

See the point? Why is it only a crime some people WANT to legalize is suddenly unstoppable hence not worth the effort? I'd take you morons more seriously if you said we should legalize EVERY crime we haven't been able to control.

-- Batch (o@morons.over.in.europe.that's.why.we.left.mad.cow.motherfuckers.corrupt.our.youth.with.their.rock.and.roll), July 21, 2001.

Batch, TAX it!

-- helen (and@lower.my.other.taxes.too), July 21, 2001.

"Why are drugs always treated as a special case?"

Maybe because they are a special case. You compared buying drugs and taking them to child molestation and robbery. Since each of those crimes has an obvious victim, how do you think they compare?

Every effect of drug use that has a victim is already illegal.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), July 21, 2001.

Alcohol Is a drug.

-- Enlightenment (gone@away.now), July 21, 2001.

LN--

Do you deny at least the possibility of large-scale addiction if drugs are legalized? Do you not agree that large-scale addiction (if it happens) would constitute a massive social problem, even if it is "legal"?

Let's see what happens in Portugal before we open the doors for R.J. Reynolds Acapulco Golds and Merck Crackerjack crack.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 21, 2001.

Lars:

To hold that decriminalization would lead to massive drug addiction problems, you must first assume that we have massive numbers of people prevented from indulging in drugs through either sheer force of good character (hah!) or lack of ready drug availability (hah!).

Maybe you personally know a whole lot of incipient drug addicts deterred from destroying their lives solely because of the marginal inconvenience our drug war has created? From my experience, this sounds highly unlikely. I live in a nice, comfortable upper middle class neighborhood of mostly engineers and policemen, and I don't even need to leave my own short block to buy whatever drug my heart might desire.

I agree we should keep our eye on Portugal's experience. I'd have to say right now that their new approach can't possibly be more socially harmful than their old one (or than ours). I know I wouldn't buy crack if it were sold cheap at the local convenience store, and I doubt if you would either. Hell, they sell booze there, but the number of people falling down drunk is smaller now than at the height of prohibition. Something to think about.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 21, 2001.

Got any teenage kids Flint? Legalization is society's tacit approval. I know the kids can get it now, but there might be some deterrence value in not sanctioning it legally. I don't know. I think the results in Portugal will be important.

On the other hand, if we legalize it and then tax it, think of all the bucks the gov can grab from the addict class.

I didn't think you were still around here. Glad to see you.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 22, 2001.

Lars,

Earlier on, I launched a boatload of stinky pizza-filled teens out into the night. In the wayback days, as a serious cogitating teen, I was extremely in favor of across-the-board dicriminalization. As a young paranoid mommy, I faltered for a spell. Now I find myself back into familiar territory. Legalize it. Ease organized crime & the government out of the Business.

I suspect that for us, the most effective cautionary tales are not of the punishment that may befall one, but the devastation that has already wreaked havok on an easily found example within the family circle.

-- flora (***@__._), July 22, 2001.

Nip

"Why are drugs always treated as a special case?" Maybe because they are a special case. You compared buying drugs and taking them to child molestation and robbery. Since each of those crimes has an obvious victim, how do you think they compare?

Please. Go to an inner city hospital and look at the effects of drugs. Neglected children, AIDS spread (especially with crack ((and no, I don't mean use as an IV drug))), REAL, lifelong attention deficit disorder in kids, kids addicted at birth, lost work hours, how many do you need? Like the guy said, alcohol is a drug, and look at how many drunk drivers die every year (or more importantly their innocent victims). Want to add an equal number of cokeheads on the street? I'd rather you move to Portugal than that society come here.

Every effect of drug use that has a victim is already illegal.

Hahahaha right, nip, drugs are illegal, BUT, you say enforcing the laws doesn't work. If (as an example) use escalates dramatically when legalized, how long are these spin off crimes going to be prosecuted? Not very I bet, just too expensive, and will mostly affect the poor.

OTOH, Let's see what happens in Portugal. There's no rush to change. With 20 years worth of their experience to evaluate, we can see what the best system is

-- Move (them@on.over.across.the.sea.let.my.darling.stay.here.with.me.doo.wah), July 22, 2001.

Cripes, Move, you make me feel like an old fogey. Don't you think if we {idealistically} got the Grande Economy out of it, that it might lighten up as the scourge of the inner city?

-- flora (***@__._), July 22, 2001.

Maybe flora, but OTOH it IS a real source of incoming cash to the inner city. Lots of frat boys buy their drugs from the poor. If corporate markets sold the drugs, how much of that income would go back into the ghetto? Probably none.

BUT the ghetto users would remain, and so would their despair, problems, and societal costs. Maybe portugal will tell us the right answer.

-- In (any@case.better.to.experiment.on.them.than.us.hard.to.stop.a.moving.train), July 22, 2001.

bamdaid's & more bandaid's.----never getting to the=ROOT.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), July 22, 2001.

Please. Go to an inner city hospital and look at the effects of drugs. Neglected children, AIDS spread (especially with crack ((and no, I don't mean use as an IV drug))), REAL, lifelong attention deficit disorder in kids, kids addicted at birth, lost work hours, how many do you need?

Oh, so that's how you determine what a "crime" is. In that case we had better make driving a car illegal. Just go to any hospital and look at the effects of car accidents.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), July 22, 2001.

BTW, the results of this policy in Portugal WILL be skewed by "the sudden arrival of thousands of hardened addicts and thrill-seekers from around Europe." and thus will NOT be a realistic model of what might happen if drug de-criminalization were to be the norm, rather than the exception.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), July 22, 2001.

"...a socially conservative country far ahead of much of northern Europe in treating drug abuse as a social and health problem rather than a criminal one."

"Why not change the law to recognise that consuming drugs can be an illness or the route to illness?"

There is a difference between use and abuse. This is a simple truth. Why are we not getting it in this country?

""We are still fighting a war against drugs."

"The police have been been ordered to turn their attention to the drug mafias."

It doesn't say in this article - how does one go about getting these drugs in Portugal, the Netherlands and south London? Is the sale of them regulated like alcohol or are people selling them to one another?

-- Debra (Thisis@it.com), July 22, 2001.

I said alcohol is a drug, before, because I fail to see why it is legal and other drugs are not. The carnage that is a result of the drug trade is not much different then the carnage during prohibition.

The overall damage to society of alcoholism is HUGE compared to any other single class of drugs. Outside the obvious drunk driving tragedies, the broken homes full of emotional and physical abuse often go overlooked.

Those who say we should be fighting a war on addiction are on the right track. Treatment is essential-not incarceration. I do not share the fear of many that legalizing drugs will lead to an epidemic of drug abuse; if anything, it will mimic the drinking patterns observed when prohibition was lifted.

-- Enlightenment (gone@away.now), July 22, 2001.

While we should watch Portugal's experience, we've also been watching our own for many decades. The evidence is very clear -- we have not reduced the number of drug users. We have made organized criminals so wealthy they have moneybins like Scrooge McDuck and are buying their own banks to launder it. (And these same criminals are a major source of funding for anti-drug politicians. They know what makes them rich.)

In the process, we have driven the price of drugs beyond any rational market value, we have spent untold billions making the mafia rich, we have the largest percentage of our population in prison of any society in recorded history, we have lost any control over the quality of those drugs or any ability to tax them. The street price of criminalized drugs is estimated at 100-300 times any genuine market value, forcing addicts into crime unnecessarily.

And what have we gained by paying all of these incredibly damaging costs? Well, Lars thinks that *maybe* his teen-agers *might* make a fine moral distinction between illegal or "tacitly approved" drugs, and be more susceptible to them! THAT'S what we've gained.

Basically, this is a moral war, and no amount of life or money is too great to destroy or waste, to maintain our rectitude.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 22, 2001.

Don't legalize it. Just decriminalize it. Make it a misdemeanor offense. Then cancel the fools' insurances and welfare benefits and student loans and licences and professional certifications. Tell the kids they can have it, but they can't have anything else. If they cause an accident while stoned, cancel their eyeballs and tell them they can do all the drugs they want if they can get a ride to the convenience store and hope the clerk doesn't sell them vitamins as a joke. (Hey, a solution to drunk driving too.)

Run commercials of unattractive stoned people sitting around nude talking about how cool their yucky-looking friends are, and get close up shots of the friends' rotting teeth. Make drugs look like the recreational choice of geriatrics. Make addicts look like geeks who couldn't get a date and couldn't get it up if they had a date. Marketing manipulates millions everyday, this is just another matter of presentation.

Or we could kill all the addicts like China did, and reduce the demand. But what's an addict, really? Half the kids in this county's public school system are taking Ritalin daily. We run a dozen commercials an hour about taking this or that OTC med at the slightest hint of pain or stuffiness or cough or constipation. We run commercials telling people to ask their doctors for drugs whose purpose is not defined. We got pills for fat people, tired people, bald people, menopausal people, depressed people, sleepless people, and people who can't have sex.

We're not talking about illegal drugs really, we're talking about irresponsible behavior while under the influence of drugs. Responsible behavior cannot be legislated.

-- helen may be suffering from post-traumatic-parental-pre-menopausal-got-teenage-drivers syndrome..talk to your doctor (ranting@too.often), July 22, 2001.

Teen-age drivers? Probably the thing that has aged me the most. Especially those first few months.

-- Debra (Thisis@it.com), July 22, 2001.

Inanimate Objects by michael dare Let's say there are two rocks, one of which is used to hold down papers on someone's desk, the other of which is used to bash someone's head in. Which is the "good" rock and which is the "bad" rock? Stupid question, right? There are no such things as good rocks or bad rocks. Rocks don't have morals. Rocks are inanimate objects that just sit there until an animate object such as a human being comes along and does something with it.

What someone does with a rock can be judged good or bad because actions, and only actions, involve morals. Everyone who is animate is capable of doing good or bad things with whatever inanimate objects happen to be lying around. You may bash in someone's head with a rock, a trashcan lid, or a jar of facial cleanser, and the head will still end up equally bashed.

It's not the rock's fault the head got bashed in, the trashcan lid is entirely innocent, and as far as the jar of facial cleanser is concerned, it was all in a night's work of just sitting there until someone came along and did something with it.

Let's say we want to stop this horrible wave of people getting their heads bashed in. Would we go on a crusade against rocks? Round up people in possession of trashcan lids? Give mandatory minimum sentences to those found guilty of selling jars of facial cleanser?

Such is the war on drugs. Drugs are inanimate objects. There is no such thing as a "good" drug. There is no such thing as a "bad" drug. Until an animate object comes along and does something with a drug, the drug will just sit there. Drugs, like the rocks and plants they come from, have no morals. The central lie of the war on drugs is that there are such things as good or bad drugs. There is no such thing as a "Schedule A" drug. All drugs are exactly the same. They are nouns, not verbs, subjects without predicates. They don't do anything until they are modified. All nouns are good if used wisely. All nouns are bad if used stupidly. All drugs are good if used rationally. All drugs are bad if used to excess.

Inanimate objects have no agenda. If your child is killed by a moron in a car, you can join a campaign to ban all cars, or you can join a campaign to stop morons from driving cars. If your mother is crushed by a grand piano dropped from the 40th floor of an office building, you can picket Carnegie Hall to stop performances of Mozart piano sonatas, or you can devote your life to keeping idiots out of the piano moving industry. If your husband dies of alcoholism, you can send bombers to destroy the wine fields at Chateau Mouton Rothschild, or you can teach people to drink responsibly.

And likewise, if anyone you know is killed or is ruining their life with illegal drugs, declaring war on the inanimate object involved is a hopelessly misguided activity. Your totally justifiable scorn must focus on the misuse of the inanimate object - be it guns, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, cars, pianos, bathtubs, jars of facial cleanser, or any other potential instrument of death.

Every year an average of five people fall to their deaths while posing for pictures at the Grand Canyon. The canyon is obviously dangerous, but only to people who are stupid enough to climb out to the edge. This particular national park is of absolutely no danger to those of us who, upon gazing at a mammoth hole in the ground, are seized by no impulse whatsoever to walk to the very edge.

Those dead tourists don't purposely plummet to their deaths, though they are well aware of the danger they put themselves into when they climb out onto those overhangs. They certainly don't get what they deserve; nobody deserves a painful death due to a minor lapse in judgment. But no one else is to blame, least of all the Grand Canyon itself.

Most drug deaths are accidents too, which means they are no one's fault but the victim. To blame the drugs themselves for these accidents is like blaming the Grand Canyon for the deaths of those tourists. The vast majority of tourists do not fall off the edge, and the vast majority of drug users live to tell the tale.

It has been extremely frustrating for me to watch the current drug debate, which is being conducted by so-called experts who have never bought, sold, or used drugs. In the past, I've engaged in all three of these activities. The pundits are all basing their opinions upon second hand information, delivered by those whose beliefs are polluted by political agendas. I'm basing my opinions upon personal experience.

There are many arguments against current drug policy that no one is making, perhaps because hard-liners find it particularly hard to face certain truths. The establishment has put so much time and effort into their massive propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the public that drugs are evil, that they now find it impossible to backtrack.

Their propaganda machine has drilled into our heads the bad things that can happen if you find yourself doing endless hits of crack, heroin, LSD, speed, cocaine, ecstasy, or marijuana. They've got a point. Anyone who finds themselves addicted to any drug should probably seek medical help.

What the drug war propaganda machine has failed to mention is that every drinker is not an alcoholic and every drug user is not a drug addict. In fact, the vast majority of drinkers and drug users do so responsibly. Some drinkers swill down scotch every day, beat their kids, and then go out drunk driving; others have an occasional glass of Bordeaux with their Caesar salad or an occasional Bud with their hot dog. Some pot users smoke up a storm and go out to rob drug stores; others have a small hit so they can stay home and giggle through an episode of Mad TV. Some cocaine users blast off the tops of their skulls with endless hits of crack, doing damage to themselves and their unborn babies; others, whose stomachs can't stand coffee, inhale a small line in order to stay up late for work.

Products like Haagen Dazs ice cream kill overweight people with heart disease every day, but there's no pending legislation to make it illegal. Ice cream is addictive and has absolutely no legitimate use other than it tastes good and it helped Robert DeNiro gain weight for Raging Bull. Nobody needs the threat of a jail sentence not to make pigs of ourselves.

If every action deserves an equal and opposite reaction, then the drug war list of all the bad things drugs can do needs to be countered by a list of all the good things drugs can do. Here's a bit of the information the drug war is leaving out of its propaganda.

COCAINE

Ever notice that none of those toothache medicines on the market are worth a damn? That's because they don't contain cocaine, which is an infinitely superior local anesthetic to any on the market. The next time you have a toothache, you can thank the war on drugs that there's not an un- smokable, un-snortable salve on the market that will totally make the pain go away.

Want a stomachache medicine that puts all others to shame? Make some very weak tea out of dried coca leaves.

Break your nose? Mix a small amount of cocaine in water and put it in a nasal sprayer. A couple of squirts and the pain's all gone.

HEROIN

Why do they ask you if you're allergic to penicillin before they give you a shot? Because if you are allergic, the drug could kill you. Why don't they ask if you're allergic to morphine before they give you a shot? Because there's no such thing as an allergic reaction to the opiates, including heroin. They are the safest painkillers known to man. The only possible way to die of opiates is to overdose by taking too much, or to go through withdrawal by taking too little. Dosage is everything. Properly administered, opiates save lives and save people from pain. All we need is regulation so that every opiate on the market is properly labeled concerning its strength. Did you know you have to do heroin for two weeks before you're addicted? Stop after one week and you don't go through withdrawal. Shouldn't the label mention that?

LSD

If everybody on earth respected everybody else and their stuff, there would be no need for gun control laws. We would know that all guns were only being used for sport or recreation since the whole idea of trying to hurt someone or take their stuff would be inconceivable.

Want to reduce crime? Teach people to respect each other and their property. Then it doesn't matter what weapons are at their disposal. If everyone were moral, everyone would be safe.

Sound like a fantasy? Not with LSD. That's what it was invented for, brainwashing. In one of the only legal experiments ever performed with the drug, prisoners were given LSD and positive programming aimed at teaching them to respect other people, sort of the opposite of what they did to Alex in Clockwork Orange. These prisoners left prison determined to do good, not out of fear of punishment, which is the current agenda, but out of actual morality. They learned their lesson. They were determined not to steal from or hurt others. The rate of recidivism plummeted.

Then, in a typical knee-jerk reaction, the drug was made illegal before more tests could be done. The program ended prematurely, though it seemed to prove that no other drug has the potential for changing society as much as the prudent and well-controlled use of LSD therapy upon the sociopaths among us.

Nobody has ever died from LSD. Nobody. People have died because of things they did on LSD, but the drug itself seems to be safe. There is no such thing as a fatal overdose.

One of the simpler effects of the drug is the displacement of your sense of perspective and depth perception. Things far away look in arm's reach while things up close look light years away. Because of this, driving a car, standing at the top of a building, wandering around the lip of the Grand Canyon, or simply crossing the street are not good activities for tripping on LSD. The best activity for tripping on LSD is just lying on your back somewhere looking at the stars. If the law allowed tripping with supervision under professional guidance, whatever problem the drug may or may not have ever posed is solved.

SPEED

Ever drive on the interstate late at night? Want those truck drivers pulling thousands of pounds past you at breakneck speed to be tired or wide awake? Good. I'm glad you agree that speed should be legal, and not that crap they sell at 7/11 checkout counters but the actual thing, Methamphetamine, the ultimate focus puller. Some drugs, like pot and LSD, expand what you are conscious of, spreading your focus to include everything from the smallest atom to the ends of the universe. Other drugs, like coke and speed, contract what you are conscious of, narrowing your focus to one thing only. If you've got to do an endless repetitive task, try speed, not LSD.

Speed freaks act nuts, causing people to think that speed makes people go nuts, but the drug isn't to blame, lack of sleep is. It doesn't matter WHAT you use to keep yourself up for days, speed or Gestapo with bright lights, lack of sleep alone makes people psychotic. Every dose of speed has to have a label saying DON'T STAY UP FOR DAYS OR YOU WILL GET PSYCHOTIC. A couple of nights, max, while you're driving that truck or cramming for that exam.

ECSTASY

In the right company, ecstasy is just that, relaxing and euphoric, like a Quaalude with a dash of peyote. It's not a good mixer, however, which has led to some incredibly asinine legislation.

Let's say that Herb slips an aspirin into Jackie's drink without Jackie's knowledge, and Jackie turns out to be allergic to aspirin and dies. Herb would probably be set free because aspirin is legal and Jackie told him she had a headache, which was actually just an excuse not to fuck him. Nobody would be going on a crusade against aspirin, arresting anyone in possession of it. The last aspirins I saw showed no inclination whatsoever to jump out of their bottle into someone's drink. It's not aspirin's fault that Herb accidentally killed Jackie. Quite the opposite. Aspirin did its best to alert him to the problem with a very extensive warning on the label.

One of the drugs commonly sold as ecstasy is GHB, also known as Liquid X. When GHB was legal, just a few years ago, it was sold in health food stores with a label warning against its use with alcohol or caffeine. Because of the drug war, and only because of the drug war, GHB is now sold without labels. A student at a party recently slipped a girl some GHB without her knowledge and she died because it was mixed with alcohol. The student went to prison. How was this kid to know that the drug was lethal under those circumstances when the government very specifically decided not to warn him?

In fact, GHB is one of the safest mood-elevators and sleep inducers known to man. If you overdose on GHB, uncontrollable vomiting removes any potentially lethal doses from the body. Every single known case of death due to GHB involves mixing it with alcohol or caffeine. Yet there is currently a bill before congress that not only increases the penalty against giving someone ecstasy, but makes it a crime to dispense any information concerning safe use of the drug. (If you feel like forwarding the information in this e-mail, do it now. It could soon be illegal)

This is a bill that's going to kill people as surely as the law against marijuana killed Peter McWilliams. Doesn't it make a bit more sense to make it illegal to sell ecstasy without a label that clearly states "WARNING: Do not mix with alcohol or caffeine!" Isn't THAT what would make the world a safer place? Both alcohol and ecstasy are very relaxing and completely safe when taken separately in small doses. They're only potentially lethal when mixed. Warning people not to mix these two drugs seems to demand too much common sense. Making it illegal to pass around the information that these two drugs shouldn't be mixed is not just moronic but lethal. It's clearly the exact opposite of what needs to be done.

Which leads us to the gateway drug.

MARIJUANA

Pot gives you the munchies. Anyone wanna argue with that? It doesn't take years of study to determine that pot gives you the munchies, any more than it takes years of study to determine that water quenches thirst. It's a given. And it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that anything that gives you the munchies would be pretty useful to those who can't keep down food or medicine.

50% of all pesticides on this planet are used in the cultivation of cotton. There is no cotton product that cannot also be made from hemp. There isn't a bug on earth that eats hemp. Want to reduce the amount of pesticides poisoning our planet? Start making clothing out of hemp, just as all our ancestors did before the invention of the cotton gin.

I agree that violins need to be made from trees, but there is no paper product that cannot be made just as well from hemp. Why are we wiping our asses on trees? Why are we cleaning up our spills and blowing our noses on trees that take decades to grow back instead of a weed that grows back in months? At the very least, all toilet paper, Kleenex, and paper towels should be made from hemp instead of wood.

Before prohibition, hempseed oil was used as a binding agent in 90% of all prescription drugs approved by the AMA. And we're declaring war against it?

We knew we'd won W.W.II when Japan and Germany surrendered. We knew we'd won the Gulf War when Hussein retreated from Kuwait. How will we know when we've won the war on drugs?

We won't. It can't be won. Not on any front. It will just go on and on and on. This is commerce for products that are easy to make and that people want. Making laws against them can't possibly do any good. It's like Napster. It can't be stopped. The best you can hope for is decent regulation.

In fact, there is no current drug problem that cannot be solved by regulation rather than prohibition. People are against legalization because they can't picture it. They have no working model to compare it to. They somehow imagine that making drugs legal will make these items more available.

Dynamite is legal. Do they sell it at the 7/11? No. Why? IT'S REGULATED. Anybody can't get it. You need permission and you've got to use it right. Why can't drugs work that way? That's the whole idea behind prescriptions. Instead of busting people, why don't we give them permission to use drugs right, and only punish them if they use drugs wrong? When alcohol prohibition ended, it did not become available to everybody. You still need to show proper ID. You can only purchase it between certain hours. You can't use it and operate a motor vehicle. And the product itself is a hell of a lot more safe because they don't make it in bathtubs anymore. Alcohol isn't illegal but drunken behavior is. People who can't handle it should lose their permission. The same with everything.

Under the current drug madness, the people handling the commerce for the most potentially dangerous drugs are the only ones who DON'T have to abide by any regulations. Illegal drugs are available on the black market to anybody, of any age, at any time, day or night, all sold in the same handy Ziplock bags without labels. Wouldn't it be an improvement if just the regulations that currently apply to alcohol were to be applied to all drugs? How many people do you see trying to sell Chardonney on street corners to children? Regulation would make it more difficult for children to get access to drugs, not less, because no more dope peddlers would be standing on street corners. They have to go inside to purchase it. At the very least they'd have to get fake ID or notes from their doctor. Please let little Suzie have her crack, signed Dr. Seuss.

Though I can't help making jokes, the drug war isn't funny any more. The drug war is stopping dying people from getting the drugs they need to stay alive. It is the same as the war in Vietnam. It is immoral, un- winnable, and it must be stopped. The only reason the anti-drug war movement hasn't mobilized as strongly as the anti-Vietnam War movement did in the 60s is because we're all a bunch of fucking zombies who have somehow been brainwashed into believing the non-stop propaganda against products we actually want and deserve. We don't even complain when the US government steps in and tries to influence the drug content of our film and television with the same fervor that McCarthy used to outlaw communism in our film and television. When's the last time you saw someone use drugs in a studio movie without any bad consequences? Remember Dudley Moore and Bo Derek running on the beach in "10?" Remember that they were passing a joint back and forth? Subsequently they not only weren't struck by a truck, they just fucked. Couldn't happen today. The blacklist in Hollywood against rational drug use in movies is just as pervasive and immoral as the commie blacklist in the 50s.

Hell, as long as we're going to devolve back to another era, don't forget that Al Capone would never have become the world's biggest bootlegger, with gangs of gunslingers and drive-by shootings, if alcohol prohibition had never happened. And all the drug cartels, with gangs of gunslingers and drive-by shootings, would never have existed if drug prohibition had never happened.

Here's news!

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A DRUG BUST, NO MATTER HOW LARGE, THAT HAS EFFECTED THE AVAILABILITY OF DRUGS ON THE STREET IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER!

Destroy every single bottle of Jack Daniels in the country and guess what? Drinkers will switch to Jim Beam. Since the drug trade is currently unregulated, it actually represents the purest form of capitalism in the world. The marketplace is governed by plain old supply and demand, nothing else. Decrease the supply, and demand goes up, along with prices. Quite literally the only effect that drug busts have upon the marketplace is to drive up the price. This effect is not positive, but actually detrimental to the drug problem. Drug addicts need more money, so they commit more crimes. Drug lords end up making more money, not less.

In order to understand this, you simply have to get into the mind of a drug user for a moment. Let's say Fred intends on consuming some illegal substances tonight, and there is absolutely nothing that you or anyone else can do about it. He has heard all the arguments pro and con, and he has made his decision. He is a free man, he feels like getting high, and he knows where to get what he wants. No amount of logical argument, moralizing, or law enforcement will stop him now. He has made his decision.

The question is not should he or shouldn't he; the question is not how can he be stopped. Those questions are already answered. He shouldn't get high and he can't be stopped. Bust his dealer and he'll find another one. Dealers are a dime a dozen. Get rid of his cocaine and he'll just score some speed. Can't find a Quaalude, how about a Dilaudid?

Forget all the current drug rhetoric. There are two choices, only two, as to how to deal with Fred. Do you want him to break into your car or home, steal your stereo, and hock it in order to get the hundred bucks he needs for a fix? Or do you want him to go to the corner drug store and buy a fix for five bucks? The hundred bucks will go straight into the hands of the drug Mafia who will buy more guns and become more powerful. The five bucks would go into the hands of a farmer, an importer, and a pharmacist, with taxes going to the government.

And while we're at it, did you know that.

THE DRUG WAR HAS ACTUALLY CAUSED AN INCREASE IN THE QUALITY OF DRUGS ON THE MARKET!

In order to understand this, you simply have to get into the mind of a smuggler for a moment. Let's say you intend on smuggling some illegal substances into the country. To do this, you are going to try to cram the most drugs you can into the smallest possible space. Just ask yourself these questions: If you were going to risk your life bringing five pounds of marijuana into the country, would you bring in mediocre product worth a hundred an ounce, or super high-grade product worth seven hundred an ounce? If you were going to bring five pounds of heroin or cocaine into the country, would you bring in normal grade product that would bring you a hundred a gram, or the strongest possible product that could net you several hundred a gram?

This was especially true during alcohol prohibition. Before prohibition, people drank predominantly wine and beer, but during prohibition most of what was smuggled into speakeasies was hard liquor. This prompted the invention of the cocktail, hard liquor mixed with sodas and fruit juices making the drinks more palatable to women. As soon as prohibition ended, the ratio of sales of hard liquor to soft immediately flip-flopped, with soft liquor vastly outselling hard.

Today, when people go into a liquor store to buy an alcoholic beverage, do they automatically buy the strongest product available? Of course not. If they did, then 151 proof rum would be the largest selling alcoholic beverage. In fact, the largest selling alcoholic beverages are wine and beer, which are the weakest products on the market. This is how the free marketplace works when consumers are actually given a choice of recreational substances.

But when marijuana or cocaine consumers go to a dealer, they are given no choice but the strongest product available. Since the transaction is illegal and dangerous, most consumers wish to participate in as few transactions as possible, so they are always interested in buying the product that will last them the longest, i.e. the strongest.

Crack is the strongest form of cocaine, and the most dangerous. The reason there was a crack epidemic is because, in most cases, that was the only product available. If there were weaker and cheaper cocaine available, most consumers would go for it, just as alcohol consumers now predominantly purchase wine and beer.

Just imagine how our nation's alcohol problems would increase if the only alcohol available were 151 proof rum. Every drinker would be getting bombed out of his skull instead of just getting a mild buzz from wine or beer. If 151 rum were the only legal alcohol, the obvious way to decrease the problem would be to legalize wine and beer so that drinkers would stop drinking only rum.

The same is true with marijuana and cocaine. Current consumers of marijuana have no choice but to spend hundreds of dollars to get high as a kite on extremely strong sensimilla, because that's all there is available. But give them access to all the other weaker and cheaper forms of marijuana, like they had in the 60s, and they will go for it in a minute. Current consumers of cocaine have little choice but to spend hundreds of dollars to get wired out of their minds on pure cocaine such as crack. But put cocaine back as an ingredient in Coca-Cola like it used to be at the turn of the century, giving adults access to a cheap and mild cocaine high, and crack consumption would undoubtedly plummet.

If you had a drug problem, would you go to a cop or a doctor? Same thing because...

CURRENT LAWS ACTUALLY INCREASE DRUG-RELATED HEALTH PROBLEMS!

When you feel sick from pneumonia, you go to your doctor and he helps you recover. But what if pneumonia were illegal? What if your doctor, rather than helping you, was legally bound to turn you in to the police if you admitted you had pneumonia? What if you were more likely to end up in jail than a hospital? Would you go to a doctor with your pneumonia? Not likely. You'd stay home and hope it went away. You might get worse instead of better, not because of the pneumonia, but because of the laws against pneumonia that stopped you from seeking help.

This is exactly the predicament that millions of drug users find themselves in every day. They have a health problem that is drug related, anything from addiction to paranoia to hepatitis. If they seek medical help, the doctor won't be able to give an accurate diagnosis unless the patient tells the truth about any illegal drug use, and suddenly they are facing jail instead of a hospital. Our jails are overcrowded because they are full of people who need treatment, not incarceration. Fear of jail is keeping people with legitimate health problems from seeking the help they need. They are getting sicker every day.

D.A.R.E. IS HOPELESSLY MISGUIDED

I hate D.A.R.E. and not just because they stole my name. The national D.A.R.E. (Drug Awareness Rehabilitation Education) program has the exact opposite effect that it is trying to achieve. Sending policemen to schools to teach children about drugs is like sending nuns to schools to teach children about sex. In both cases, it is very clear to even the stupidest student that they are dealing with someone who has an agenda other than education.

It is virtually certain that any representative of the Catholic Church is not going to answer the sexual questions most teens might actually have, such as how to have safe sex or whether they will really go blind from masturbation. A nun is just going to repeat the party line and preach abstinence, and most students are just going to tune out and not learn a thing.

It is just as certain that a policeman is not going to answer the drug questions most teens might want to know about, such as how to avoid diseases or how to come down in an emergency. He is going to repeat the party line and preach abstinence. Nobody learns a thing. (There are exceptions. I'm sure there's that one nun in a million who knows everything Monica Lewinsky knows, and that cop who rolls killer joints)

There's a big difference between propaganda and education. Education consists of giving someone all the information necessary for them to make up their own mind about something. Propaganda consists of making up somebody's mind for them and then giving them only the information that backs your conclusion. Students notice what they're not being told as much as they notice what they are being told. Let them discover one single inconsistency between what they are taught and their experiences in the real world, and you will have just taught them that you are not to be trusted. They will do the exact opposite of what they are told.

Virgins shouldn't teach sex education classes and cops shouldn't be teaching drug education classes. If you want to teach children about drugs, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to send a pharmacist? How about a doctor, or even an ex-drug addict? Anyone but a law enforcement officer.

And in the long run.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

Every morning, millions of Americans wake themselves up with a concoction made from the beans of a South American bush. They enjoy stimulants, and are called coffee drinkers. Hard-line addicts use a stronger version called espresso. It destroys their stomachs. Others wake themselves up with a concoction made from the leaves of another very similar South American bush. They enjoy stimulants, and they are called criminals. Hard-line addicts use a stronger version called crack. It destroys their common sense.

Some smoke a weed called tobacco. Some smoke a weed called marijuana. To differentiate between any of these products is clearly hypocritical, like encouraging the consumption of red wine while banning the consumption of white. It makes no sense. There's no difference.

The Garden of Eden was a long time ago, but the apple is still there and it always will be. Giving in to temptation can be disastrous. It can also be enlightening. And if you're an adult, it should be up to you what you consume. You've been warned.

Still harbor the slightest doubt? Let me ask you. How much safer did you really feel when Robert Downey Jr. was in jail?

-- Enough Said (Can you@believe.com), July 23, 2001.