Drug War Tales

Drug prohibition in the United States has spawned the same bad results as alcohol prohibition did only much worse.

Like the war on booze of yesteryear, today’s decades long war on drugs is claiming more lives and liberty casualties than the banned substances themselves could ever accomplish unchecked. The harder authorities crack down on traffic in recreational drugs, the more demand for them is created. Banning substances merely gives rise to more of them, including new substances yet to be banned.

Nearly 35,000 deaths in drug related killings have occurred in Mexico alone during the last four years since a federal offensive was launched on drug cartels which supply American demand. More than 15,000 of those killings happened just last year as the crackdowns intensified.

Recreational drug trafficking is an extremely dangerous occupation, not because the substances involved are particularly dangerous, but because they are deemed illegal by the state. Business disputes among drug dealers are necessarily resolved with guns and bombs since courts of law are not available to the black market.

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Chewed or brewed into tea, coca leaves act as a mild stimulant which prevents altitude sickness, aids digestion, and reduces hunger and fatigue. Bolivia recently proposed an end to the 50 year U.N. treaty banning coca leaf chewing in their country, but the United States has objected and is urging other member countries to object as well.

As a result, many thousands of poor innocent indigenous people living in the Andes Mountains and chewing coca leaves for centuries as part of their deep religious and cultural heritage, as well as for practical healthful reasons, will remain criminals under the law because of of our losing War on Drugs and the insatiable American demand for cocaine.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), using its emergency powers, has recently banned five chemicals used to make "K2" and "Spice," two popular smokeable herbs which can mimic a marijuana high. The DEA classified the chemicals under Schedule I, the supposedly most ‘dangerous’ category in the federal Controlled Substances Act, up there with opium and heroin.

"Just because something is legal or unregulated doesn't make it safe," a government official explained.

Quite true. Quite true indeed.

Now I suppose it is only a matter of time before over the counter cold and allergy medications, gasoline, paint thinner, nail polish remover, and model airplane glue will be banned as Schedule I substances for the common good in the never-ending War on Drugs.