WAR ON DRUGS DOOMED TO FAILURE

Someone once told me that the true definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again while expecting a different result each time. If
you accept this definition, how then can you categorize the War on Drugs as
anything but total insanity?

During the past 30 years over one trillion dollars have been spent on the
War on Drugs without achieving even a small reduction in drug trafficking
or drug abuse. Traffickers have continued success, now garnering around
$450 billion per year.

Drugs on the street are of higher quality and are more plentiful than ever
before. And 25 percent of high school seniors admit to using illicit drugs
regularly.

Of course, if the result the Drug Czar and his troops wanted was the
incarceration of over 1.7 million U.S. citizens, many of these non-violent
drug offenders, the majority of these minority men; if the result they
wanted was a more powerful, better armed criminal class; if the result they
wanted was justification to invade the privacy of the citizens of this
nation, all in the name of a drug-free society, then maybe it's not so
crazy after all.

But a drug-free society?

Who's kidding who?

Frankly, I believe that anyone who claims that the War on Drugs is about
establishing a drug-free society is either asleep at the wheel or a
shameless liar.

Even if it were possible to interdict every kilogram of cocaine, heroin,
marijuana and other illegal drugs at our borders, even if we found and
destroyed every pot farm in the U.S., even if we closed every illegal drug
lab in the country, we would be far from drug-free. All you have to do is
drive to the nearest mini-mart to purchase the two drugs that cause more
deaths annually than all the others combined-tobacco and alcohol. In fact,
each year 500,000 deaths are attributed to tobacco and alcohol, as compared
to 8,000 to 14,000 deaths from illegal drugs.

And don't get me started on the pharmaceutical companies that last year
spent $1.7 billion to hawk prescription drugs like soap or underarm deodorant.

But we Americans like the quick fix. Here, take this pill for
obesity/sadness/cholesterol/whatever and you can bypass the tougher choices
that might bring the undesired condition under control without using drugs
at all.

Yet I believe that there's an even deeper issue here.

I believe that much of the abuse of mind-altering drugs takes place because
of unconscious negative beliefs that many of us have about ourselves and
about life, beliefs like "I'm a loser" or "Life is hard and then you die."

We use the drugs for a few moments of respite from the psychic pain that
results from such beliefs.

The only problem is that the angst comes roaring back with even greater
intensity when the drugs wear off.

In my youth I partook of various legal and illegal drugs (Yes, I did inhale.).

And I can tell you that the primary reason I did it was to feel comfortable
in my skin, if only for a few hours.

It was not until I had the courage to confront the limiting beliefs about
myself-that I was weak and needed to be cared for-and, then deal with these
beliefs, that I was willing to cast aside the emotional crutch that drugs
provided and begin to live with more purpose and passion.

This, I believe, is the work that must be done.

If we are to help anyone to truly be free from the deleterious effects of
drugs (or TV or sugar or consumerism), if we are to be free ourselves, we
must support one another to awaken, to get in touch with who we really are
and to live out of that reality.

Happiness, excitement and, yes, even joy can be ours without the need to
smoke, snort, ingest or shoot anything.

The War on Drugs, like Prohibition, was doomed to failure even before it
began. Perhaps we'll get it this time.

Readers may write to Bruce c/o the Asheville Citizen-Times, P.O. Box 2090,
Asheville, 28802.