The War On Drugs

 As anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for a while knows I am an addict in recovery. I have been clean in Narcotics Anonymous for a little over 28 years.

I am NOT any type of spokesperson for NA or any other way of recovery. I am now, and forever, only speaking for myself. It is my thoughts, experience, and opinions that I speak, write, or in any other way share.

Having said all of that I think that I have a voice, a voice that is completely missing from this topic, in what is going on in drug policy, and especially the so called "War On Drugs", in the country and world.

A little bit of a back story. I grew up in a small town in New England that was, quite literally, the back end of nowhere. And in this town growing up, mostly in the 1970's, you could get pretty much any drug you wanted. Same as in the big cities. It might be stomped on a little harder, and there might be "supply chain issues", IE a dealer busted, that might temporarily cause a shortage or even an absence for a short amount of time. It never once stopped the flow of these substances into town.

For a short time at the end of the 1970's into the beginning of the 1980's they did manage to slow down, and almost completely stop, the importation of Marijuana from Mexico and Columbia. So local people started growing it themselves. And, within a short amount of time, were growing much better stuff than the imported stuff.

No matter what Law Enforcement did there was never any long lasting effect to the supply of illegal drugs in this little town.

And, over time, I have seen that same thing to be true everywhere that I have been. No matter how much time, money, people, etc that they throw at the problem there is never any real effect. And, when one talks to law enforcement with the cameras off, they will often admit that this is true.

And we keep throwing Money, Time, and People at this failed way of doing things.

I am reminded of a game we played in American History class in 8th grade set in Colonial times America not long before the Revolution. The premise was 2 teams. People smuggling in Tea and those trying to Stop the smuggling of Tea. And that game showed that the people trying to interdict smuggling are ALWAYS the losers. Without fail.

And we do this despite many examples in other places of better ways to deal with this. Portugal is the best example of this. There are many others.

And we could do this also. Stop trying to interdict and punish our way out of this. Admit that this is not working.

What we have to do is Declare Victory in the "War on Drugs" and stop fighting it. We can have Peace and then Effective action on reducing the flow of and consumption of drugs.

In order to do this we would have to re-examine our national attitudes on how we do many different things.

For one, we would have to stop being a nation of Punishment. We have the largest per capita incarcerated population in the world. That does not even count the people who are in the system in other ways. Probation and Parole etc. Just counting the actual Incarcerated Population.

To begin with we need to finally face our national shame. Race Based Slavery and the Racism attached to it which is baked into the very code of our existence. Race Based Slavery and everything that followed it is what drives our attitudes on crime and punishment. Especially punishment. The "War on Drugs" was conceived by Nixon as a way to divide the Black and White Hippie Communities from each other. It is, at it's heart, Racist as all get out. Always has been.

So, we need to examine ourselves. And that is never a comfortable process. The deep look inward, whether as an individual, a nation, an over all society, or whatever it is that chooses that deep inward look, will be uncomfortable. It will mean looking at aspects of ourselves that are not really nice. That are, in fact, rather reprehensible.

And it will also mean that we will have to admit that we, as a nation, have accepted some things that are just not true. Or decent.

We have accepted that rich white people are not as culpable for their crimes as poor white people, and definitely not as culpable as people of color. In fact culpability in this country goes up depending on the amount of melanin in your skin. The deeper the tone the more culpable you are. And the steeper the punishment.

We have accepted that some lives are more valuable than others. And again, this starts with color. It continues with bank balance, place of origin, religious practices, language, etc. We think that a variety of different factors determine the value of someone as a human being. Or even if they are truly human.

We have accepted that the most rapacious people on the planet are going to look out for us. That they will, somehow, after decades of being incredibly selfish and self serving to gather immense wealth to themselves, develop a social conscious and share the wealth. IE, Trickle it down to the rest of Us.

We have accepted that workers standing up for themselves and organizing for better pay, benefits, safer work conditions, etc will somehow ruin the economy. That they are the drain on our society. The reality that Workers are the Economic Drivers of our Country and World. When workers have money they spend and invest creating demand. When rich people get money they sock away into derivatives and other such devices that lock money away. Workers circulate money creating more money. Rich people get it out of circulation thus freezing money.

In Rome during the last days of the "Republic" there was a man named Marcus Licinius Crassus. He was, by every measure we can come up with, one of the richest people in history. In the terms of his day he would be comparable to any one of the Super Duper rich of today. What made him different from todays Uber Wealthy however was his attitude about wealth. He was always looking for ways to make his money work. He understood something that modern rich seemed to have forgotten. When you keep money circulating then it grows. When you put money away then it stagnates.

And one of the ways that you make money grow is you pay people a Living Wage. You make sure that there is a Social Safety Net so that people can live lives of promise instead of despair. You make sure that there is money to spend on all levels of society. This might cut into ones short term profits a little bit. It will pay off over the long term.

Henry Ford understood this. He was not a nice person. Racist and Anti Semitic as all get out. And definitely Anti Union. And he also instituted a decent days wage for his workers. And when asked why he said that he wanted his employees to be able to afford to buy his cars. And they did. By the millions over the years.

We have accepted the lie that Government is a problem that needs to be "reduced to the size that could be drowned in a bathtub". And that is a Lie. You know who is very glad to have a Government that Governed for all? The people who were given Jobs during the Depression so they could feed their families. The old folks who no longer starved to death by the creation of Social Security. You know who hates "Big Government"? The Corporations who's Rapaciousness is reigned in by the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, by being forced to pay a less that starvation wage. Although that has lapsed badly on the Federal Level.

Corporations and the Uber Wealthy hate Big Government for the People. However, they Love Big Government that Cuts their Taxes while Raising yours and mine, provides Subsidies and Tax Write Offs for already Immensely Profitable businesses. They Love Socialism for the Uber Wealthy and Corporations while making sure that the rest of us live within Capitalist Rugged Individualism. Then they approve of "Big Government".

And, finally, although this is not the whole of it, we have accepted that the Business of Government is Business. That we must run the Government as a Business. That is completely False. The Job of Business is Business. The Job of Government is Governance. Governance for All People. Two very different jobs.

Having said all of that I come to this, we, as in the society of the United States of America, and the whole world, need to create a society that we no longer want to escape from. A society that works for Everyone. No matter the Race, Creed, Religion, lack of Religion, Place of Origin, Sexual Orientation, Sexual Identity, Language of Birth, Bank Balance, or any of the other multitude of ways that we divide each other from each other.

Because what we need to do is stop allowing ourselves to be divided from each other by the Uber Wealthy and their sycophants while they rob us blind. We must follow the words of G'Kar in the preamble to The Declaration of Principles:

"The universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.

It speaks in the language of hope
It speaks in the language of trust
It speaks in the language of strength and the language of compassion
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice
It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us,
And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born
It is the small, still voice that says
We are one
No matter the blood
No matter the skin
No matter the world

We are one
No matter the pain
No matter the darkness
No matter the loss
No matter the fear
We are one

Here, gathered together in common cause, we agree to recognize this
singular truth and this singular rule:
That we must be kind to one another

Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us and each voice lost
diminishes us.
We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire
that will light the way to a better future.
We are one."

(And Yes, I am totally willing to use the words of a fictional character to make a point.)

And that, my Dear Friends, is the only way that we can create a world that we no longer wish to escape from.

It is the only way, getting back to the original intent of this post, that we can diminish the flow of drugs into this country. And into every country. By recognizing our Common Humanity and Everyone's Right To Exist as we are and are not.

I, personally, believe that no matter what we do, Addiction will always be a part of who we are as the Human Race. I also, personally, believe, with a lot of data and examples to back me up in this, that if we stop trying to Interdict and Punish our way out of this, if we pivot to a Public Health and Treatment with Recovery method, that we will do a few very important things:

• Substantially decrease the flow of drugs into our Communities
• Substantially decrease our Incarcerated Population
• Substantially decrease the pressure on our Law Enforcement Agencies
• Substantially decrease the Money flowing into the Criminal Organizations that import the drugs thus decreasing their power and ability to arm themselves

So there you have it. My view on the Problem and the Solution. Facing both of these things as they are and are not is the only way out of this mess. That means we must Stop pointing fingers outward and Start looking inward.

Not only as each and every Person, also as a Society and Nation.

Are you willing to go on this Journey?

I am.

Because Love is the Only Rational Act.

Peace 🙏