Pubdate: Fri, 08 Mar 2002
Source: Northwest Arkansas Times (AR)
Copyright: 2002 Community Publishers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nwarktimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/828
Author: Charley Reese

CHANGES NEEDED TO SOLVE THE DRUG PROBLEM

National Perspectives

Let's talk about the drug problem, which has been the object of America's 
phony war on drugs dating back to the Nixon administration.

First, forget about Colombians, Afghans, Burmese, Mexicans or any other 
foreign suppliers. They aren't the problem. They are supplying product to 
meet a demand, and the demand -- 100 percent American in its origin, for 
our purposes -- is our drug problem. Demand in other countries is their 
drug problem.

If there w were no demand, there would be no supply. Why, then, do 
Americans take these drugs? The answer is simple. At first, they take them 
because the drugs make them feel good. Later, they take them because they 
are addicted. Reducing demand will require two strategies: education to 
prevent as many first-time users as possible from becoming addicted, and 
rehabilitation for addicts.

Unfortunately, the present administration, like its predecessors, prefers 
to spend money on jails, guns and soldiers rather than on rehabilitation. 
It thinks that silly ads, squeezed into blank spots on TV schedules, can do 
the education. Colombia gets billions of dollars to shoot people. Tens of 
thousands of addicts in America have no affordable rehabilitation facilities.

Doesn't make sense.

The first step, if we ever become serious about this, is to ban all 
pharmaceutical advertising. Remember, people take drugs to feel good. What 
is the message in all of the billions of dollars worth of pharmaceutical 
advertising? "Feel bad? Take our drugs. You'll feel better."

It is the manufacturers of legal drugs who create the climate that makes 
selling the illegal drugs easier. From childhood on, Americans are 
bombarded with messages that follow the same pattern. First, frowns and 
suffering. Then the drug pitch. Then happy, smiling faces. One message: 
Drugs can make you feel good. It's the same for cocaine as it is for 
headache, arthritis and you-name-it other drugs.

If the government can ban tobacco advertising, and it already has, then it 
can certainly ban drug advertising. These drug ads are designed to persuade 
people to pressure their doctors into prescribing the drugs. Some doctors 
have already complained about the tactic. Let the media moguls howl. We 
will never reduce demand for illegal drugs in a society saturated with the 
idea that taking drugs will make you feel good.

Like the rose, a drug is a drug is a drug.

The second step is the hardest for most people to accept, and that's to 
legalize the drugs. It is the fact that the government bans them that 
creates the crime. The exact same thing happened when the government banned 
alcohol. Criminal gangs are created to supply product for which there is a 
demand. They fight among themselves. They bribe government officials. 
Noncriminals are made criminals for using the drugs. Fortunes are made both 
by suppliers and by corrupt officials. And don't kid yourself. No one can 
run a multimillion- dollar retail business without corrupting officials. If 
the customers can find the drugs, so can the cops, so if you have a big 
drug problem in your community, you also have a corrupt government problem 
in your community.

Cocaine, marijuana and opium are all easy to grow. They are practically 
weeds. It is only because the government bans their sale that the price is 
so high, the profit margins so enormous. And the financial incentive for 
the government is very high. Not only do the black-market products generate 
enough profits to pay for the bribes, the problem allows the government to 
expand its power, buy more guns and prison cells and inflate its own 
importance.

If legalization is too much for you to handle, then at least let us insist 
that the government provide 10 beds in rehab centers for every one bed in 
prison. It really is a disgrace that we have more people in prison than any 
other country on Earth. I refuse to believe that Americans are by nature 
any more lawless than other people. It is equally disgraceful that poor and 
lower-income addicts simply can't afford rehabilitation.

Let us also offer our children factual, scientific information about drugs 
rather than these silly fried egg commercials and slogans.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom