Part 1: What is the Drug Problem?
Everyone talks about the drug problem, but what exactly is the problem? We all know the symptoms.
Symptoms of the Drug Problem
Screwed up drug policy. Extremely dangerous drugs can be bought in the grocery store (e.g. nutmeg) while comparatively benign drugs can land you in prison (i.e. marijuana).
Driving Under the Influence. Driving while impaired kills thousands each year. Oh sure, you can argue that it’s not the drug, it’s the idiot who doesn’t know his limits, but when drugs like alcohol impair your judgment…
Risk Blood Diseases. Using unclean needles to inject drugs like heroin can spread blood-borne pathogens such as Hepatitis B and HIV.
Addiction. Psychological and physical addiction to various drugs, especially “hard” drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, destroy families, turn people into thieves, and can lead to social isolation. I’m not going to cite statistics here because the statistics available are questionable at best. Rather, I’m speaking from personal experience. If you don’t think addiction can screw up the life of the addict and his or her family, then you haven’t met enough addicts.
Organized Crime. The profitability of drug smuggling has bankrolled organized crime groups for years, financed gang wars, and contributed to “low-intensity conflict” (which doesn’t seem very low-intensity when it’s you who’s getting raped, robbed and murdered) in drug producing countries like Colombia.
Unknown Composition of Street Drugs. When someone buys some weed from the local dealer, thinking ‘hey, this is one of the safe drugs,’ s/he can’t readily tell whether it’s laced with something more dangerous.
Health Implications. The fact is that many drugs can and do screw you up bad. Tobacco causes cancer and heart disease. Alcohol causes liver disease and cancer (with heavy abuse). Cocaine increases your risk of heart attack, can cause depression, degrade cartilage, and seriously fuck up your brain chemistry. LSD can cause psychosis. Marijuana has been linked to psychosis. Ecstasy can cause dehydration, hypothermia, depression, anxiety and seriously screw up your memory. Heroin… well heroin just kills you if you accidentally take too much. People like to pretend their drug of choice is safe, but the best evidence we have points to the contrary.
Separating the Symptoms from the Disease
Yet, these are just symptoms. The essence of the drug problem is no single effect at either the individual or societal level. The real problem is a conflict among:
This is the real drug problem – not drugs themselves, but the conflict among our rights and responsibilities, combined with the pragmatic effects of drug use. Now that I’ve established what the drug problem really is, it will be easier to see why current solutions don’t work (part 2) and how the problem might be addressed (part 3).
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You sure you’re not a Ron Paul supporter?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IHB2I83_N_k
I’m curious how anyone would be able to succinctly develop an argument for freedom to do oneself harm. I would assert quite strongly that the freedom to make choices for oneself only exists so far as one does not harm oneself in so doing and, once that line has been crossed, it is the state’s responsibility, not simply its right, I repeat, its responsibility, to impose the safe-treatment of the self on such an individual.
You have me hooked, eagerly awaiting part 2!
Jeremy wants a nanny state. Ever heard of the concept of self-responsibility?
There are lots of things that someone can harm themselves doing. Not just drugs. If every activity that could potentially cause harm to the one doing it (with that’s one’s consent and knowledge of the risks) we would have a very boring, police state world.
Bringing harm or threatening harm to OTHERS or others property is all the government has any right to intervene on. Anything else is bullshit.
and so what if he is a Ron Paul supporter? To put it bluntly, anyone who is against Ron Paul is against freedom and the constitution.
Hi H-
Let’s not overestimate how much thought goes into comments like Jeremy’s. Puking up the “protection from oneself” litany is a lot like putting a patriotic bumper sticker on your car. Do we really care about “protecting” drug users or “supporting” our troops?
Or do we simply want to give the appearance that we care, while excusing ourselves from actually doing so?
clearly you Ron Paul fanboys didn’t read this post: http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/09/14/ronpaul/
And as to this “anyone who is against Ron Paul is against freedom and the constitution,” this is the kind of critical-thinking killing bullshit that has gotten the US into it’s current boondoggle. If you’d try to think for yourself you might be able to help your country out of this mess before the American Imperial Empire goes the some way as the Roman Empire.
If you say it then it MUST be true.
[...] The War On Bullshit Take No Prisoners « Bring me Hookers and Blow! A Novel Solution to the Drug Problem [...]
Hello, I am the leader of the
Canadian Marijuana Party …
I will comment on your part I.
Of course I agree with your view that
… “prohibition does not stop drug use but
it does provide the impetus and financial basis
for organized crime.”
I think that prohibition is intended to do that.
I also agree with your critique of Libertarianism.
People need information to make good choices.
I agree with your view of current education:
“{drug education’ is a euphemism for an
incompetent, politicized, horribly biased,
farcical attempt at brainwashing our children.”
Again, I think that is deliberately being done.
The rest of your post indicates
how much you must hate pot.
I point out that there is no necessary connection
between marijuana and SMOKING marijuana …
Smoking is the worst way to consume cannabis.
The idea that people should SMOKE marijuana
is one of the side-effects of pot’s prohibition.
Good vaporizer machines
are many times better …
Eating cannabis cooking is good.
Also, there are the facts that
marijuana seeds provide the
single best source of food as
protein and oil, for humans,
and the fact that marijuana stalks
are a high quality fiber, as well as
a good source of annual biomass.
That marijuana is fun is actually
less important overall than the
facts that is would be a good
source of food and fiber too.
That marijuana is also good medicine
for some people is also significant too.
As for the Marijuana Party “whining”
about jurisdiction, I do think that is
a fair way to describe the real facts.
IF marijuana was not a Federal crime in Canada,
then it would automatically come under control
by provinces, and under that, municipalities …
That is the way the Canadian constitution IS.
The Federal Marijuana Party does not need
any policy about what provinces should do.
As the article you links to explains,
IF marijuana was not illegal, then,
the only thing the Federal power
could do is spend money within
the provincial and municipal
schemes to subsidize pot.
Now, for the bigger picture.
Your entire Web site is about
The War on Bullshit …
I think you should wade through
a lot more my blah, blah, blah,
about that in posting on our
forum, & party leader part
of our current Web site:
http://www.marijuanaparty.ca
I think you shall find a much deeper
understanding of the war on bullhsit,
[...] the first post in this series, I discussed the essence of the drug problem, and determined that the real problem [...]
[...] post continues the series on solving the drug problem, which begins here. The most recent segment differentiated between drug uses that affect surrounding people, such as [...]
Great post, thanks for the info… last part makes the most sense though