Pubdate: Wed, 25 Nov 2015
Source: Concord Monitor (NH)
Copyright: 2015 Monitor Publishing Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/WbpFSdHB
Website: http://www.concordmonitor.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/767
Author: Bill Walker

MY TURN: DRUG WAR BELONGS IN DUSTBIN OF HISTORY

We can't solve a problem without knowing its origin. To solve America's 
drug problem, we have to know the history of the drug war.

The drug war did not start with Richard Nixon. It wasn't a Republican 
idea, or a traditional idea. The drug war was launched before the First 
World War by utopian Progressive Democrats.

Woodrow Wilson signed the first federal drug law in 1914, the Harrison 
Act. It was intended as a weapon against opiate-using "Orientals." Some 
doctors supported it because it granted them a prescription monopoly. At 
first, the Harrison Act only increased the cost of opiates to users. But 
soon the doctors fell victim as well, as the Harrison Act was used to 
imprison pain doctors and even those who ran opiate-addiction treatment 
clinics.

In 1920, another addictive drug was banned: alcohol. Pushed by church 
groups, Prohibition was supported by legislators from both parties. (To 
Wilson's credit, it had to pass over his veto).

They called it the Noble Experiment. As an experiment, Prohibition 
worked. Murder rates skyrocketed, deaths and blindness from contaminated 
alcohol became common. Doctors made $40 million from whiskey 
"prescriptions." Organized crime grew. Boardwalk empires ruled cities.

When the 18th Amendment was repealed, murder went down. Methanol 
poisoning was no longer a threat. Organized crime went into recession. 
Experiment concluded, Americans got on with their lives.

But power is the opiate of politicians.

In 1930, Harry Anslinger, FDR's head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 
launched a nationwide campaign to outlaw another drug (and fight the 
menace of jazz music). He made lurid, racist claims: that black people 
and Mexicans were driven to murder and rape by marijuana. In 1937, FDR 
signed marijuana prohibition into law.

JFK continued FDR's policies into the 1960s, re-appointing Anslinger in 
February 1961. Anslinger continued to warn Americans about the dangers 
of jazz music, black people and Mexicans until he retired in 1962.

Finally, Nixon got into the drug war business in 1971. He realized that 
the Drug War could be used to suppress white anti-war college students, 
as previous administrations had used it to suppress the Chinese, 
Mexicans, African-Americans and jazz musicians.

Wilson, FDR and Nixon didn't stop drug use. Drugs of abuse are available 
even inside prisons. But they did make drugs more harmful. Drugs are 
mislabeled, contaminated, varying in strength, causing overdoses. 
Diseases are spread by shared needles.

Drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition, burdens users financially. 
Addicts are forced into crime to support habits. Inner-city youth are 
sucked into careers as drug pushers.

Overseas, drug money built the Taliban, the FARC, the Mexican cartels 
and many other warlord regimes.

The most addictive and harmful drugs are favored by government policy. 
Tobacco subsidies in the United States totaled $1.5 billion from 
1995-2012. CDC says that tobacco annually kills 6 million people worldwide.

Protected from competition from safer drugs, the WHO says alcohol kills 
3.3 million annually. Tens of thousands of those deaths are non-users, 
killed on highways by drunk drivers.

All this social engineering costs money.

The drug war burns more than $50 billion up in smoke every year. Then 
there are the 1.7 million people arrested for drug offenses annually, 
billions of dollars in lost work time, the human cost of disrupted families.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can learn from history.

The 21st century is turning away from policies that imprison sick 
people. Legalization of drugs cuts costs, raises state tax revenues, and 
allows addicts to seek treatment or turn to safer drugs.

Medical marijuana causes no overdose deaths.

Drug use drops in a free society. Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 
2001, and it became much easier for addicts to get treatment. Drug use 
fell. Ireland recently decriminalized all drugs. Many U.S. states have 
decriminalized or legalized marijuana.

But U.S. politicians hate to give up power. Here in New Hampshire, the 
currently Republican-dominated State House has passed six 
decriminalization or legalization bills in the last few years. All were 
successfully opposed by Democrat governors.

Gov. Maggie Hassan is currently trying to expand the drug war to further 
restrict pain patients' access to prescriptions.

Like witch-burning, slavery and racial discrimination, the drug war is 
part of history. But it isn't the future.

Freedom is the best medicine, for society and patient alike.

(Bill Walker is a member of the Sullivan County Republican Committee.)
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