Pubdate: Mon, 23 Apr 2001
Source: Oregonian, The (OR)
Copyright: 2001 The Oregonian
Contact:  http://www.oregonlive.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/324
Author: G.P. Franck-Weiby

TREATMENT, NOT PROHIBITION

Why Are We Punitive About Drug Use At All?

The Oregonian's editorial "Treatment, not incarceration -- Why are we so 
punitive about drug relapses?" demonstrates that the prohibitionist 
editorial board of The Oregonian still doesn't "get it".

While it is praiseworthy to advocate treating an addict instead of 
imprisoning him -- because he is sick and not a criminal -- The Oregonian 
ignores the greater national moral turpitude of punishing people who are 
neither sick nor criminal.

The reality is that the majority of all users of illegal drugs are adult 
users of Cannabis who do not use any other illegal drugs, who do not 
violate any person's rights, and who are not addicted according to the 
medical definition of repetitive excessive use with harmful effects. The 
ostensive purpose of prohibiting any and all use of a given drug is to 
prevent the sickness of addiction -- in fact suffered only by a minority of 
the users of each drug. In each case of the approximately 700,000 Americans 
arrested each year for "marijuana offenses" (85% for possession alone), 
where there is no sickness to be cured by treatment or prevented by 
punishment, what then is the purpose of punishment?

There are a number of motivations for prohibition, none of them legitimate, 
and none of them the rationales publicly offered by prohibitionists. Of the 
two primary reasons, one is defensive and the other offensive. The 
defensive persecution of non-sick, non-criminal illegal drug users is a 
response to recognition that the reality of their lives threatens the 
credibility of prohibitionists and their control of public opinion on the 
issue.

The offensive motivation goes to the heart of moral turpitude. The most 
dangerous, harmful, addictive "drug" known to humanity is the drug of 
power. The strongest dose of the drug of power is dictating other people's 
states of consciousness, the means of altering them, and the contents of 
people's blood streams. The strongest form of the drug of power is the 
abuse of the coercive power of government. Such power abuse is satisfying 
only if the power junkie can be certain that peoples' behavior is a 
response to the threat of punishment, rather than their own independent 
judgement about the desirability of the target behavior.

Consequently, the means of power abuse has to be a criminal law which is 
arbitrary, irrational, and unjust. The purpose of prohibition is an endless 
test of obedience to authority for the sake of authority. It is also a test 
of the degree of prohibitionist control of perception of the issue.

The editorial suggests that it is inappropriate to treat a "medical 
ailment" as a "moral weakness", because the addict can't control his 
behavior. Since the editorial does not condemn punishing the user who is 
not sick because he does control his behavior, then the only possible 
rationale for the punishment is a "moral" condemnation of the end to which 
that behavior is a means. Yet I've never seen The Oregonian condemn the 
non-abusive use of alcohol for the same purposes -- and with the same 
effects -- as the non-abusive use of Cannabis by the majority of its users.

That prohibition punishes possessors of substances without regard to 
whether any individual prosecuted is addicted and without regard to whether 
any particular defendant has violated any person's rights results in 
violation of the rights of people who have not violated anyone's rights -- 
and without any supposed medical justification. That is not the result of 
unavoidable difficulties in enforcing a law responding to a difficult 
problem. It is the malicious purpose of prohibition that distinguishes it 
from all legitimate criminal laws. That is the essence of injustice. That 
is immoral. That is the moral turpitude sold to this nation by 
prohibitionist news media.
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MAP posted-by: Beth