Pubdate: Fri, 1 Nov 2002
Source: The Daily (WA Edu)
Copyright: 2002 The Daily University of Washington
Contact:  http://www.thedaily.washington.edu/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1254
Author: Omari Taylor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?132 (Heroin Overdose)

THE WAR ON DRUGS

Last Friday, the body of local rock musician Layne Staley was discovered 
here in the U-District, just up the street from my house. Though heroin 
paraphernalia was found near his body, it took some time before an overdose 
was determined as the cause of death.

But who are we kidding? Of course it was a drug overdose. Anyone who 
followed Staley's career even peripherally knows how he struggled with 
heroin, and it was his addiction that forced his band Alice in Chains to a 
halt.

In latter years, Staley's life mirrored that of many other addicts: caught 
in the throes of addiction, yet unable to receive adequate treatment due to 
funds being allocated to policing rather than treating. Like many addicts, 
Staley was perhaps looking at jail time just for possession. Anyone will 
tell you that each time you quit a drug as seductive and addictive as 
heroin, you are far less likely to quit if you return to it again. A fear 
of getting caught by police only adds to the burden of addiction. You can't 
think about getting help for yourself if you're endlessly worried about 
going to jail for a possible 20 years or more, just for possession.

In the Netherlands and other European countries such as Sweden, there is a 
system of government-sponsored legalized drug use based on what is known as 
"harm reduction." It's sponsored by the governments because they have a 
sensible, realistic approach when it comes to addiction: You cannot force 
people to stop using drugs. That's why it's called addiction.

Instead of funding ludicrous policing organizations such as D.A.R.E., the 
government allows all drugs, even cocaine and heroin, to be used by those 
citizens who want to use them. Harm reduction is effective because, knowing 
that the drugs are legal to use and possess, an addict can go about his or 
her day as an addict, and still function. While there is a tax on the 
drugs, what is up to a $400-a-day habit under drug prohibition amounts to 
substantially less under harm-reduction policy.

For those who choose (and that is the operative word) to try to get off 
drugs, the money saved from policing addicts and dealers is funneled to 
treatment centers that are far superior to ones in countries where drugs 
are illegal. Money is also funneled to places where addicts can go and get 
clean, free, sterile needles, to avoid spreading AIDS and blood-borne 
pathogens. This does not happen in a country such as the United States, 
where lawmakers and the dunces who support them have outmoded ideas about 
how to correct this problem.

Let me make this simple

Though it is illegal to sell, buy, use, manufacture or possess drugs and 
drug paraphernalia in America, drugs are still astoundingly easy to 
acquire. And when something's easy to acquire yet illegal, a black market 
invariably comes into existence. Always and without fail. In the `30s, 
Prohibition didn't work, because underneath all the spit-shine and moral 
debates, the glaring fact remained that alcohol was and is a vice that 
people want and will go through anyone and pay any amount to get -- even 
mob prices.

When the criminal element becomes involved, what is sure to follow is the 
loss of innocent life.

The drug war is pure, absolute, patented bullshit. It's not the answer 
because it doesn't work. It doesn't work because it is rooted in morality, 
and being addicted to drugs is not about morality. It's about people who 
are sick, and throwing sick people in jail is not a way to cure them.