HOW THE WEST WAS LOST: WAR ON DRUGS A LOSING BATTLE

I suppose we ought to spend some of our time looking at things not related
to Sept. 11. Like the fact that this nation's war on drugs continues unabated.

The most recent development comes from our staunchest ally, Great Britain.
In a story I pulled from the Internet I learned that there is a serious
political effort under way there to decriminalize pot. The reason? "The
evidence shows that criminal sanctions do not stop people using drugs,"
according to DrugScope Chief Executive Roger Howard.

Last year's budget for fighting this war was around $18 billion. What we
got from that money was more people in jail and a net reduction in the
street prices of all the most popular drugs. Alcoholic beverages, which are
also drugs and which cause significant irreversible harm, are legal and so
are not counted in the cost statistics.

My own casual survey here in Amarillo suggests the prices for legal drugs
rose during the same time. I suppose one conclusion is that the people
responsible for showing progress in the war on drugs know it isn't working,
and they're probably drinking more.

Anyway, in Great Britain they seem to have grasped something that still
eludes us Colonials - that using the law to swat someone's personal
consumption choices is futile, it's unprincipled for a free country, and it
creates more problems than it solves. Since our war on drugs isn't solving
any problem associated with its purpose, anything it costs is too much. But
at $18 billion of our money the cost is astronomical for zero gain.

I suspect that at least part of the problem is human nature. We westerners
accept certain notions about ourselves that easily distinguish us from
other cultures on the planet.

First among these notions is the one about the absolute primacy of choice.
If we are to be accountable for anything in life, we must be "at choice" in
the matter.

For example, if I am drafted, sent to a foreign country in an unjust war,
and I kill people as I am ordered to, I can't use the Nuremberg defense - I
was only following orders. I have a choice about following orders, and if I
am willing to accept the consequences of disobedience, an order from a
military superior is not binding on me.

Making choices and living with the consequences is essential to two aspects
of the human condition - accepting accountability and learning.

We all learn from our mistakes. We'd better.

The mistake we don't learn anything from is probably the one that kills us.
And it's natural for those who have made the most egregious mistakes to
learn that the best thing for society is to make sure no one else can make
them.

This is the underpinning of our war on drugs. Drugs have ruined lives and
families, and we can expect a certain fraction of society to conclude that
drugs should be illegal.

The problem with this approach is that it ignores the possibility that some
people will use drugs responsibly and harm no one.

Shall they be penalized, too?

If you believe they should, you are enlisting in the forces of tyranny.

Now to accountability.

To be "accountable" means, among other things, to be able to account for
oneself, one's actions and the consequences arising from those actions.

The opposite of "accountability" is being "victimized" - a condition that
always argues, in some form, that I had no choice but to do as I did.
People cannot be accountable where there is no choice. If you prod me over
a cliff at the point of a bayonet it's murder, not suicide. Absent your
weapon, I wouldn't even get close enough to a cliff edge for a freak
accident to claim me.

The same is true for drugs.

You can't force me to take drugs against my will (without incapacitating
me), and you really can't stop me from taking drugs if I intend to. The
measures you would have to implement to succeed at it would be draconian.

Another bothersome notion to us Westerners is that we hate to be told what
to do when it comes to personal consumption. Look at our smoking. Every
package of cigarettes sold in this country has a warning from the Surgeon
General, and the people who smoke know the warning is there.

But the problem is that the Surgeon General works for the government, and
it is always appropriate to wonder at the government's agenda.

We Americans have learned to suspect what the government tells us to do
"for our own good" and drug use is no exception.

If you don't believe that, ask teen-agers who smoke pot what they think of
the government's stance.

Finally there is the problem with virtue.

We westerners are not so hung up on being virtuous that we will be content
to live on wild flowers and spring water. Most of our economy is geared
toward an upward spiral of consumption, and if one form is denied to us we
will find another.

Something to think about the next time we declare a war on ourselves.