GROUP THERAPY

"It's official," says America's littleknown Libertarian
Party. "The war on drugs is over and the government has
lost."

Although they are called newsgroups, you rarely find
headlinemaking news in them. But the Libertarians are
posting claims in forums such as alt.drugs.culture,
talk.politics.drugs and alt.drugs that the Clinton
administration is about to admit that the " war on drugs
is unwinnable". Quoting from what it says is a draft
National Drug Control Strategy policy statement, the party
claims that even the "war" metaphor is under attack.
Instead, the administration is being urged to "view drugs
as a disease, like cancer".

It's a dramatic about-face if it proves true. But the
Libertarian Party's leader, Steve Dasbach, wants to see
real changes. "If the War on Drugs is really over," he
says, "the government should declare a general amnesty on
all drugs users." It is not called the Libertarian Party
for nothing. "It's time to let them live in peace," he
declares portentously, as if drug use were as fundamental a
human right as free speech. Dasbach also wants to see the
"massive army recruited for this war" to be decommissioned
and sent home, and "all property seized by federal agents
under drugs laws to be returned. There are also the
prisoners of the war . . . the list goes on."

But the Clinton administration is just playing with
words, according to Dasbach. Its new plan still calls for
spending billions on antidrug efforts, as well as
targeting alcohol and tobacco use by minors. "So the
unwinnable War on Drugs will now become the unwinnable
War on Drugs, Alcohol, and Tobacco."

However, although the Libertarian Party was making
plenty of noise, few contributors to the drugs forums
seemed to be taking any notice. Perhaps they have decided
that trying to change the US government's stance on drugs
is the unwinnable war.

Or perhaps they are hoping the US government will
listen to the billionaire financial wizard and
selfappointed global thinker George Soros. Phil the Web
Frog posted this quote from the great man: "We must keep in
mind that stupidity can happen even within wellestablished
democracies and that indeed the ' war on drugs'
initiative can be related to the Vietnam War for its lack
of understanding of the real threats and opportunities . .
." Mmmm. I can't see that comparison going down very well
with US politicians.

But over in rec.drugs.cannabis they don't have time for
drugs politics and libertarian posturing. They are
concerned with more homely matters, such as hash butter.
"High," (sic) begins one such posting. "Do someone know how
much butter should I use per grams of buds or leaves? I
know that it depends how strong is the weed and from how
much strong I would like the butter. Consider that I have a
mediumquality weed and want an extremely strong butter."
This hash butter junkie must have had plenty of that weed
before writing. Unfortunately, no one had responded. Down
the list, another home cook was "looking for a recipe for
Hash Cookies. Can anyone advise?"