THE DRUG CRISIS

Few people are aware that before World War I, a 9-year-old girl could
walk into a drug store and buy heroin.

That's right - heroin. She didn't need a doctor's prescription or a
note from her parents. She could buy it right off the shelf. Bayer
and other large drug companies sold heroin as a pain-reliever and
sedative in measured doses - just the way aspirin is sold today.
Cocaine, opium, and marijuana were readily available as well. No Drug
Enforcement Agency, no undercover cops, no "Parents - the Anti-Drug"
commercials. Just people going about their own business is whatever
way they chose.

Seeing today's never-ending crisis of teenagers using drugs, you can
imagine how bad it must have been when there were no laws to stop
children - or adults - from using drugs. But, in fact, there was no
drug crisis at all. A few people were addicted to heroin or cocaine,
just as a few people today are addicted to sleeping pills or Big
Macs, but there was no national uproar about it. Such people, if they
wanted to break their habits, could freely consult doctors without
fear of being sent to prison.

There were no black-market drug dealers preying on school children.
There were no gang wars over drug profits, because there were no drug
gangs. After all, who would buy dangerous drugs from a gangster at
outrageous prices when he could buy safe drugs made by a reputable
drug company at modest prices?

Americans got a taste of what a Drug War might be like when they
endorsed the 18th Amendment invoking alcohol Prohibition in 1919. The
result was gang warfare, people dying from drinking bathtub gin,
corruption in police departments, and non-violent citizens sent to
prison for indulging in a vice that was strictly personal. Most
Americans rejoiced when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. The
chances of them supporting another such Constitutional amendment
within the next 50 years were slim to none.

So the federal government didn't dare try amending the Constitution
when politicians and bureaucrats decided to reinstate all the
trappings of Prohibition in a new Drug War. This War That Will Never
End was begun in stages - probably starting with the rarely-enforced
Harrison Act of 1914. In my recollection, the Drug War as we know it
today began during the 1960s, moved into second and third gears
during the Nixon administration of 1969-1974, and shifted into
overdrive during the Reagan administration of 1981-1989.

The Drug War has been easily the greatest cause of violent crime in
American history: Gangs fighting over monopoly territories, children
killed in drive-by shootings, families in the inner city living with
the constant sound of gunfire outside their doors, police killing
innocent people in misguided drug raids, crooked cops helping to
spread poisonous drugs, non-violent citizens sent to prison to be
terrorized by violent prisoners - none of which would exist in the
absence of the federal drug laws.

There is nothing that could make our cities safer than repealing the
drug laws - all of them.

Does the idea of heroin, cocaine, and opium being sold over the
counter sound too ludicrous to be true? You can check it out for
yourself. A marvelous website, maintained by the University of
Buffalo's Addiction Research Unit, shows the actual labels and ads
from patent medicines of the 19th and early-20th centuries. You can
see the claims made, the ingredients used, and the acceptance of what
so many Americans fear today.

That era of innocence didn't end because America was threatened by a
drug crisis. It was ended in the traditional way - by politicians
looking for new worlds to conquer, politicians who have no interest
in examining dispassionately the chaos they cause, and who will never
face a single personal consequence for the lives they have ruined.