THE RHETORIC OF FOOLS

At this very moment, a man named John Walters is sneaking around the country on
a mission to find new and unusual ways to disgrace the ideal of civil liberty.
He is cunning, brutally insensitive and wholly opposed to the very freedoms you
and I are supposedly entitled to. He is not, however, an enemy of the state; he
is employed by the state. Mr. Walters works at a little agency named the Office
of National Drug Control Policy - an organization not nearly as innocent as it
sounds. John P. Walters is this nation's "drug czar." I know what you're
thinking: "WTF? America has a czar?" Why yes, yes it does. The best part is
that he even abuses his power with the same panache as an imperial Russian
despot!

Pardon the bitterness found in my sarcastic tenor ... and welcome to my column
on the American Drug War - an issue that excites my ire on a daily basis. For
as long as I have been a journalist, I have always felt obliged to document
each new injustice that is borne from this conflict. Yet, there's never enough
that can be written about this socio-political folly; one could pen volumes.

The war on drugs as we know it today - which is, without a doubt, the most
foolish and cruel undertaking the U. S. government has taken against its own
people - was initiated by Tricky Dick in 1970. His $17 billion-a-year legacy
continues under the guises of "saving America's youth," "combating terrorism"
and other similarly fantastic lies.

I am appalled every time I think about Nixon's brainchild. Forget Watergate;
that was a minor slipup when compared to the horror of our current treatment of
drug abuse. Hunter S. Thompson said of our late president: "Richard Nixon broke
the heart of the American Dream." Considering the damage done by such a costly,
liberty-infringing war, I'm quite inclined to agree.

Let us critically examine what makes the whole campaign bogus with a timely
case study. The Ecstasy Awareness Act, introduced to the House over the summer,
is the latest piece of reactionary legislation to be pushed by the thugs at the
ONDCP. The authors of the bill purport in their abstract that the EAA is aimed
at "preventing the abuse of the illegal drug commonly called ecstasy."

Poppycock! This is just the shady semantics of the drug war. Essentially, the
EAA is a harsher incarnation of last year's RAVE Act, which was just barely
shot down by worried activists. The bill stipulates that venue owners may face
up to 20 years in prison, along with a maximum fine of $500,000 if their
premises are the site of the use, distribution or trafficking of any illicit
drug.

So, aside from having absolutely nothing to do with ecstasy harm reduction, the
bill is grossly unjust because it punishes individuals who might not even have
any knowledge of illegal activity at their establishment.

The same goes for the newly proposed extensions to Justice Department's
overbearing and arguably unconstitutional PATRIOT Act (that wonderful piece of
legislation that enables authorities to suspend all of your rights as a human
being if you're suspected of being one of "them") The proposed "drugs and
terrorism" law would allow extended penal sentences to drug sellers with
indirect (i.e. unintentional) ties to terrorist groups. Moreover, it would also
allow the government to virtually unrestricted access to an individual's
confidential records.

The American government isn't waging a war on drugs; are American troops firing
upon the cannabis fields of the Pacific Northwest with RPGs? No. That's because
the government is waging a war on American citizens (Read: minorities,
children, business owners).

I am reminded of this every time I watch the movie "Traffic." Near the
conclusion of the film, Michael Douglas's (he plays a newly-appointed drug
czar) stirring press conference captures the very essence of our nation's drug
war. As he tears up, he explains that a war on drugs is a war on individuals
with personal problems, just as it is also war on their families, friends and
colleagues. I've seen the film six or seven times now, and I am always
impressed by its realism. But I have to lament on Steven Soderbergh's
inaccuracy in portraying a drug czar with a heart.

Our nation's problems with drug abuse are infinitely complex, as suggested by
the lack of progress made in over 30 years of "battle." If they are to be
remedied, they must be done through true rehabilitation and an examination of
cultural context, not incarceration. If we have a "problem," it is because of
the way that our own society functions, not because a poppy plantation exists
in some third-world nation.

Yet the alarmist policymakers on the Hill remain ignorant of this fact as they
descend upon the drug-using populace like Big Brother. (They should rename the
"War on Drugs" to the "War on Your Freedom of Consciousness," though I suspect
that it would be too Orwellian for the American palate.) The enormity of such a
campaign, almost designed in its scope to undermine the civil liberties of the
people, single-handedly questions the progressiveness of our nation.

Never mind that one of the filthiest intoxicants known to man is peddled
legally on every college campus in America; but if you're caught putting fire
to a spliff, a dirty czar named Walters will violate your derriere. Remember,
folks, this is war.