THE WAR ON DRUGS KEEPS KIDS OUT OF COLLEGE

Last week I wrote an article in favor of the legalization of
marijuana in Colorado. My point had to do with the concept that, in
fact some drugs really are not as dangerous as others. Right as the
paper with that article went to print, we got a fax in the office
having to do with students being kept out of universities due to drug
related convictions. This sheds light on a whole other aspect of the
unfair effects that current drug policies have on Americans. Not only
are we not free to make an informed choice about what we put in our
bodies, the government and school systems actually punish users by
making enrollment in universities after drug convictions difficult if
not impossible.

Now, the logic of this does seem somewhat backward, considering the
effects this would have on someone who was attempting to recover from
bad choices they made when they were younger. Essentially the policy
states that if you once made mistakes about how to live your life,
you forever forfeit the right to better yourself. Consider also that
many of our presidents and other elected officials have admitted
publicly that they tried drugs, where would we be if all these people
had never been allowed to attend a university, if they had never
gotten the education that put them where they are today. Every person
has potential to be a constructive part of society, and by punishing
them so severely or what often amounts to youthful indiscretion
(sewing their wild oats as the president would say), what we are
doing is hurting those people substantially and depriving ourselves
of potential productive workers. Instead we force them to stay in the
lowest levels of the job market, where there is high competition for
jobs and low pay.

This is really just a symptom of the drug war in its entirety, since
the mismanagement thereof has led to millions of Americans losing
their freedom over what is really just an economic transaction. Many
of these people were already poor, and their incarceration makes
finding even the lowest level jobs difficult. When they can't make a
living with honest work, the usually go back to drugs. This catch-22
hurts the poorest the hardest, since they're less likely to have good
legal representation, and are less likely to be educated and have
access to the better jobs where there is less competition. Add in the
potential to lose any shot at college degrees and you have a massive
system of economic and civil disenfranchisement, since in most states
convicted felons lose the right to vote.

Now, to be clear, what I am not saying here is that all drugs are
good, and that the government is lying to us just to take away our
good time. Most drugs do have serious potential side effects, but
instead of waging a reasonable campaign to curtail drug use, the
current strategies are, lacking a better word, draconian. This all or
nothing approach is further undermined by the tendency to lump all
drugs together. The campaign against marijuana has resulted in so
many half truths and outright lies that it reflects badly on the rest
of the government's anti-drug efforts. Their assertion that THC,
literally one of the least innocuous intoxicants in the world and
possessing the potential to kill cancer cells, is actually a
dangerous street drug is absurd. When someone then tries the drug and
sees this is not the case, they are less likely to believe what they
are told about other drugs, since the same agency is making all the
claims. Our tax money is paying for all this, and those who are
incarcerated are both taken off the job market and a cost to
government, so what we are doing is essentially sinking massive
amounts of money into a campaign which helps no one, and which
spreads lies and a distrust in government. The only reasonable choice
is policy reform, but politicians wont touch the issue because they
don't want to be seen as weak on crime. Methods like the Colorado
ballot initiative are the only way to make progress on this issue,
and when the people mobilize on their own, eventually elected
officials will understand and and make changes accordingly.