America's failed War on Drugs has been a gateway to a police state resulting in a total loss of privacy, unconstitutional asset forfeiture laws, no knock raids and jails stuffed with poor souls convicted of victimless crimes. Isn't our parasitic and murderous military/industrial complex sufficient cause for national shame? Must we add to it a rapidly metastasizing prison/ industrial complex that is equally parasitic and murderous?
Forget about legalization of marijuana. Let's move on to decriminalization. And while we're at it, let's decriminalize all the other substances that are now banned. Why did the people of a supposedly free country ever allow the State to dictate what they may or may not put in their bodies? Who owns our bodies, we or the State? America's drug laws are only about a century old and of a racist impulse. Their origin is in the early anti-opium laws intended to harass Chinese immigrants. Prior to then, Americans were pretty much free to do with their bodies as they pleased. Drug addiction was no worse than today, and society was free of the violence and corruption caused by hysterical drug prohibition.
Tobacco and alcohol are a far greater health hazard, yet both are tolerated, if not celebrated. We needn't search far to find wildly popular substances that have created a national health calamity. Sugar, Aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, MSG and hydrogenated fats, all found in the most common processed "foods" are a leading cause of disease and death in America. Yet children are willfully exposed to these poisons and no one is serving jail time for doing so. Our meat is pumped full of dangerous hormones and antibiotics and our crops are raised using toxic, nutrient depleting, artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Our drinking water is now laced with prescription drugs peddled to a gullible public desperate for a quick fix to disease caused by their unhealthy eating habits. Yet our "public servants" are annually wasting tens of billions of taxpayers' money jailing people for what they smoke, snort and shoot into their veins. This is institutional hypocrisy and national madness on an epic scale.
Today we are appalled that our ancestors tortured and burned people at the stake for being "witches." Years from now enlightened people will shake their heads in disbelief that Americans gutted their precious Bill of Rights so that busybodies could punish millions of people for what they put in their bodies.
4 comments:
Wow Chris you are so deep, and your political stance reminds me a lot of my own. I think a lot of us 2nd Gen still want to be iconoclasts to society. You know the reason why the Marijuanna was banned? It's because the South had a monopoly on tobacco, that was their rejuvination product after the Civil War. And to legalize Pot meant that you would take away what little livelihood they had. So they criminalized it. This maniuplative trick is by far a small drop in the bucket compared to what Fed and local governments have done to anyone who wasn't like them.
the moral yardstick that law is supposed to be devoid of obviously clashes with so-called 'public-interest'
a tragic dichotomy that will always lead to some prejudice unfortunately
Good post, I recently argued for legalizing 'drugs' along these same lines in my psyc class this summer. There just is no good distinction between 'drugs' and 'prescription drugs'. I would be against drugs in general myself but far more against these arbitrary drug laws imposed by the state. Tarnation to nanny government.
A stirring post. I am not sure who or where you are, but your URL will soon enjoy the company of several other very special websites in my link list.
Post a Comment