TRYING TO THINK ABOUT DRUGS

LET US SAY only what we know. The citizens of the United States are
still troubled by a knot of problems usually collected under the
rubric ``drugs.'' Citizens are frustrated by the lack of progress in
solving the problem of ``drugs,'' and therefore by the nature of the
solutions themselves.

Those who care about traditional values are concerned that the use of
illegal drugs continues largely unabated. Seventeen years after the
Reagan Revolution changed much of America's perception of itself,
citizens are still just saying yes to drugs. Amber waves of marijuana
continue to carpet the fruited plains; tons of cocaine move across our
borders daily despite billions spent on interdiction.

Those concerned with personal freedoms point to escalating assaults on
privacy, due process and private property created by laws passed to
support the war on drugs. The property of people still innocent in the
eyes of the law has been seized, their homes have been invaded, their
personal behavior, no matter how nonviolent or socially harmless, has
resulted in serious prison time.

People who see public issues in terms of the inequities of class and
race note that the war on drugs has somehow turned into yet another
aspect of the war against the poor. More prisons are being built at
the expense of other social programs, and these prisons are being
filled with the usual suspects--
poor whites, Latinos, African Americans.

Even worse: All of these trends are happening in an atmosphere of
misplaced piety and rampant hypocrisy. The usual counterbalances to
abusive government power -- the press, the polemicists, the opposition
parties -- have been largely silent on these issues.

No one wants to be seen as pro-drug. There are too many other worthy
causes. Think of the children.

On the other hand: Think of the children of the people in
jail.

THE HYPOCRISY STARTS in the very definitions of the crime. The most
dangerous recreational drug in America is alcohol, and yet it is legal
- -- indeed, it is hardly regulated. There are more warning labels on
diet soft drinks than on bourbon.

Rich people can get doctors to write them prescriptions for the
narcotics they want. Poor people have to buy their drugs on the
street. Getting the money to buy the drugs often involves criminal
behavior, of which the easiest and least violent is selling the drugs.
Selling drugs is a felony. Selling drugs means hard time.

Hollywood has long taken up the cause of unpopular men. Loathsome
murderers (``Dead Man Walking'') turn into Sean Penn; IRA terrorists
(``The Devil's Own'') turn into Brad Pitt. But where are the gentle
dealers of marijuana, the morally conflicted crack addicts? These
people exist in real life, but Hollywood won't touch people who touch
drugs, probably because too many people in Hollywood have touched too
many drugs.

There are more people in prison all the time, and those incremental
humans often don't belong there. If you have 2 million people in
prison, and the next year you have 3 million, where has the extra
million come from? Not from hard-core murderers and sociopaths --
they're already inside. They're easy to catch.

It's the fringe players, addicts, rebels, nutballs, vets who never
made it home and kids who never made it at all -- the people who, in a
less obsessed society, are taken care of in discreet, private and
inexpensive ways.

Meanwhile, because of the distortion of justice promoted by the war on
drugs, villains walk free. A man who beats a woman is sent to a
diversion program; a man who sells pot to that same woman is sent to
prison.

Because we have zero tolerance. And tiny brains.

I THINK AMERICA is a swell idea for a country, and I think the war on
drugs is the moral equivalent of terrorism against the
Constitution.

I think we start afresh. We've been looking the other way too long. I
have some ideas. Tomorrow.

Runnin' around, robbing banks all whacked out.

It's the elephant in the living room, and someone should mention
it.

Checked-by: trikydik@inil.com (trikydik)