UNCLE HERKIMER'S KORNER: ©1988
This is my imitation of a snowball in hell. My motivation for putting forth such unacceptable ideas as I am about to stems not so much from my admitted affinity with Don Quixote, as it does the overwhelming evidence that inertia has swept us into unknown and dangerous waters. Even bemusement at finding myself on this issue in more or less the same boat as William F. Buckley Jr. does not give me pause in believing that drug use should be decriminalized; and that the so-called war on drugs is an ill-conceived farce, a major contributor to the problem it purports to diminish. Through every conceivable medium we are bombarded with the idea --indeed most Americans have come to believe-- that drugs are the most dangerous problem facing our society.
Close scrutiny of the actual damage from this alleged public enemy number one simply does not support the charges. Comparing the worst case statistics with other drugs which are legal and more prevalent, we find that in terms of direct detrimental effects, illegal drugs are significantly contributing factors in about 12,000 deaths in the U.S. annually, but deaths with the same degree of culpability from alcohol and tobacco number 320,000 each year. Here we have items that are perfectly legal causing 27 times as many deaths as items labeled illegal and public enemy number one. Preposterous!
The issue becomes even more bizarre when indirect effects of illegal drugs are considered. The most telling aspect related to these illegal drugs is the high rate of violent crime accompanying drug use. On the demand side, these crimes are related to users getting enough money to support their drug use. On the supply side the crimes tend to be more related to the territorial imperative of the sellers fighting for a larger share of the estimated 100 billion dollars in annual sales. Most of the drug related criminal activity stems from the enormous profits possible, BUT PROFITS OF THAT MAGNITUDE ARE AVAILABLE ONLY BECAUSE THE DRUGS ARE ILLEGAL. I don't follow the drug market closely, but five years ago an ounce of pure medical use cocaine would cost a dentist about $75. At the same time, an ounce of street cocaine sold for about $2000. So if drugs are to be paid for from criminal activity, it takes about 27 times as much crime to pay for illegal cocaine as it would take to pay for legal cocaine. Nowhere is our good old American entrepreneurial spirit more successful then in drug sales. The immense profits made possible by our head-in-the-sand-laws have attracted the brightest of criminal minds to the drug trade. Despite doubling and quadrupling our efforts to stop the flow of illegal drugs, we have only spurred on more sophisticated smuggling techniques, and now there are more drugs on the street by far than there were before this stupid crusade attitude took effect. The drug supply lines have become so saturated that prices are being driven down and drug suppliers are diverting more of their shipments to European markets where profits are better. Yo. Rambo. Good job.
Even more damage generally attributed to drug use but on closer inspection more directly attributable to the laws against drug use is evident. The research and development infrastructure crystallizing in the wake of prohibition is devoid of any social conscience or control. During our original ineffectual excursion into prohibition many people died from poison because the bootleggers were distilling moonshine in old car radiators. When abortions were outlawed, thousands of women and girls were maimed or killed as the result of a rusty coat hanger in the unsterile hands of some back alley butcher. The same social circumstances that produced bathtub gin in the 20's produced crack in the 80's. Crack is arguably the most dangerous drug currently available (but stay tuned, you ain't seen nothing yet). One reason crack has spread so quickly is that it makes cocaine highs available to people not on the yuppie pay scale. Now we have a drug far more addictive and deadly than cocaine affordable to the average thirteen year old child; a drug that would never have reached the market place from a legal laboratory. When prohibition was flushed, so were the deaths from lead poisoning; when abortion was legalized, the back alley barbarians went out of business. Decriminalizing drug use would do the same thing to the crack labs. So you are wrong society. Change now, O.K.?...O.K.?. Sure.
And as I listen, not without pain, to the sizzling detumesence of my snowball, and watch dispiritedly as the last wisp of vapor drifts off in a sulfurous cloud, I can just make out the faint image of Nostradamus--even though he ain't exactly on a roll these days, a circumstance for which the residents of Los Angeles are doubtless grateful. Nevertheless, my prediction is this: our unbounded fear of drugs will result in the greatest loss of our individual freedom in the last century, all without doing a damn thing to solve the problem of drug abuse. As a nation, we are real suckers for the cry of "Unite! The enemy is at hand! We must defeat him!" Communism served that role effectively for many years. The pestilence now known as the McCarthy era was allowed to happen because we bought the idea that a communist was under every bed and any momentary sacrifice of due process was justified in face of the unholy threat. But the threat of communism, despite the continued political rhetoric to the contrary, is losing its power to strike disabling fear in the hearts of the average citizen. Gorbi seems genuinely more interested in taking care of his own problems than in burying the west under Kruschev's shoe. Besides, how can Russia take over the U.S.A., they couldn't even take over Afghanistan. And if the Sandinista hordes, even if reinforced by the Cuban army, tried to invade America, the Texas National Guard would wipe them out before they got out of El Paso. So we need a new devil, and drugs are the perfect candidate-- the erosion of our individual freedom in the guise of saving us begins in earnest once again.
The unbelievably large amount of unregulated money in the drug trade holds an obsessive fascination to our law enforcement system. The gendarmes display huge piles of it with all the pride of a great white hunter standing majestically over a slain trophy. And in so many cases this pride gives way to envy and greed as cop after cop is bought by the easy money. In some areas, drug money buys entire police forces as well as government officials. All but the most naive of us suspect that the drug pipeline is used frequently by our own C.I.A. in carrying out covert and frequently illegal operations. And the evidence is growing stronger that Noreiga plied his drug trade with the knowledge and possible cooperation of some sectors of our own government. The hand that holds the sword high is neutralized by the other hand in the till.
But graft and corruption are facts of life, we have survived thieving officials throughout our history and we will not suffer irreparably at the hands of this batch. The greatest threat to us in this shift of ultimate enemies is the concept of discretionary power. Sweeping discretionary power is an absolute necessity if we are to continue to call drug use a crime. The government estimates that 23 million Americans use drugs on a more or less regular basis, and possibly half of us have used illegal drugs at some time. Enforcing the drug laws equitably is a physical impossibility because the sheer numbers of so-called criminals far exceed our ability to process them. The motivation for specific acts of enforcement is by necessity based on factors other than commission of the crime. If we continue to give such a powerful tool to those so poorly equipped to handle it then we may as well, in the tasteless words of the renowned humanitarian Bobby Knight, "relax and enjoy it".
This is far from an attempt to trivialize the drug abuse problem. It is a serious problem, and a growing one. But it is a problem that has its genesis in free choice, it is not criminally forced on us. It is a problem that belongs in the same class as angst, depression, suicide...not embezzlement, rape, and murder. The only real hope for keeping drug abuse under some degree of control is though education and peer involvement-- the same methods that are putting a real dent in the use of alcohol and tobacco.
And as to utterly ridiculous acts such as seizing the Atlantis II research vessel under the guise of a safety check that found one marijuana joint in a sailor's shaving kit...Just say no.
This is my imitation of a snowball in hell. My motivation for putting forth such unacceptable ideas as I am about to stems not so much from my admitted affinity with Don Quixote, as it does the overwhelming evidence that inertia has swept us into unknown and dangerous waters. Even bemusement at finding myself on this issue in more or less the same boat as William F. Buckley Jr. does not give me pause in believing that drug use should be decriminalized; and that the so-called war on drugs is an ill-conceived farce, a major contributor to the problem it purports to diminish. Through every conceivable medium we are bombarded with the idea --indeed most Americans have come to believe-- that drugs are the most dangerous problem facing our society.
Close scrutiny of the actual damage from this alleged public enemy number one simply does not support the charges. Comparing the worst case statistics with other drugs which are legal and more prevalent, we find that in terms of direct detrimental effects, illegal drugs are significantly contributing factors in about 12,000 deaths in the U.S. annually, but deaths with the same degree of culpability from alcohol and tobacco number 320,000 each year. Here we have items that are perfectly legal causing 27 times as many deaths as items labeled illegal and public enemy number one. Preposterous!
The issue becomes even more bizarre when indirect effects of illegal drugs are considered. The most telling aspect related to these illegal drugs is the high rate of violent crime accompanying drug use. On the demand side, these crimes are related to users getting enough money to support their drug use. On the supply side the crimes tend to be more related to the territorial imperative of the sellers fighting for a larger share of the estimated 100 billion dollars in annual sales. Most of the drug related criminal activity stems from the enormous profits possible, BUT PROFITS OF THAT MAGNITUDE ARE AVAILABLE ONLY BECAUSE THE DRUGS ARE ILLEGAL. I don't follow the drug market closely, but five years ago an ounce of pure medical use cocaine would cost a dentist about $75. At the same time, an ounce of street cocaine sold for about $2000. So if drugs are to be paid for from criminal activity, it takes about 27 times as much crime to pay for illegal cocaine as it would take to pay for legal cocaine. Nowhere is our good old American entrepreneurial spirit more successful then in drug sales. The immense profits made possible by our head-in-the-sand-laws have attracted the brightest of criminal minds to the drug trade. Despite doubling and quadrupling our efforts to stop the flow of illegal drugs, we have only spurred on more sophisticated smuggling techniques, and now there are more drugs on the street by far than there were before this stupid crusade attitude took effect. The drug supply lines have become so saturated that prices are being driven down and drug suppliers are diverting more of their shipments to European markets where profits are better. Yo. Rambo. Good job.
Even more damage generally attributed to drug use but on closer inspection more directly attributable to the laws against drug use is evident. The research and development infrastructure crystallizing in the wake of prohibition is devoid of any social conscience or control. During our original ineffectual excursion into prohibition many people died from poison because the bootleggers were distilling moonshine in old car radiators. When abortions were outlawed, thousands of women and girls were maimed or killed as the result of a rusty coat hanger in the unsterile hands of some back alley butcher. The same social circumstances that produced bathtub gin in the 20's produced crack in the 80's. Crack is arguably the most dangerous drug currently available (but stay tuned, you ain't seen nothing yet). One reason crack has spread so quickly is that it makes cocaine highs available to people not on the yuppie pay scale. Now we have a drug far more addictive and deadly than cocaine affordable to the average thirteen year old child; a drug that would never have reached the market place from a legal laboratory. When prohibition was flushed, so were the deaths from lead poisoning; when abortion was legalized, the back alley barbarians went out of business. Decriminalizing drug use would do the same thing to the crack labs. So you are wrong society. Change now, O.K.?...O.K.?. Sure.
And as I listen, not without pain, to the sizzling detumesence of my snowball, and watch dispiritedly as the last wisp of vapor drifts off in a sulfurous cloud, I can just make out the faint image of Nostradamus--even though he ain't exactly on a roll these days, a circumstance for which the residents of Los Angeles are doubtless grateful. Nevertheless, my prediction is this: our unbounded fear of drugs will result in the greatest loss of our individual freedom in the last century, all without doing a damn thing to solve the problem of drug abuse. As a nation, we are real suckers for the cry of "Unite! The enemy is at hand! We must defeat him!" Communism served that role effectively for many years. The pestilence now known as the McCarthy era was allowed to happen because we bought the idea that a communist was under every bed and any momentary sacrifice of due process was justified in face of the unholy threat. But the threat of communism, despite the continued political rhetoric to the contrary, is losing its power to strike disabling fear in the hearts of the average citizen. Gorbi seems genuinely more interested in taking care of his own problems than in burying the west under Kruschev's shoe. Besides, how can Russia take over the U.S.A., they couldn't even take over Afghanistan. And if the Sandinista hordes, even if reinforced by the Cuban army, tried to invade America, the Texas National Guard would wipe them out before they got out of El Paso. So we need a new devil, and drugs are the perfect candidate-- the erosion of our individual freedom in the guise of saving us begins in earnest once again.
The unbelievably large amount of unregulated money in the drug trade holds an obsessive fascination to our law enforcement system. The gendarmes display huge piles of it with all the pride of a great white hunter standing majestically over a slain trophy. And in so many cases this pride gives way to envy and greed as cop after cop is bought by the easy money. In some areas, drug money buys entire police forces as well as government officials. All but the most naive of us suspect that the drug pipeline is used frequently by our own C.I.A. in carrying out covert and frequently illegal operations. And the evidence is growing stronger that Noreiga plied his drug trade with the knowledge and possible cooperation of some sectors of our own government. The hand that holds the sword high is neutralized by the other hand in the till.
But graft and corruption are facts of life, we have survived thieving officials throughout our history and we will not suffer irreparably at the hands of this batch. The greatest threat to us in this shift of ultimate enemies is the concept of discretionary power. Sweeping discretionary power is an absolute necessity if we are to continue to call drug use a crime. The government estimates that 23 million Americans use drugs on a more or less regular basis, and possibly half of us have used illegal drugs at some time. Enforcing the drug laws equitably is a physical impossibility because the sheer numbers of so-called criminals far exceed our ability to process them. The motivation for specific acts of enforcement is by necessity based on factors other than commission of the crime. If we continue to give such a powerful tool to those so poorly equipped to handle it then we may as well, in the tasteless words of the renowned humanitarian Bobby Knight, "relax and enjoy it".
This is far from an attempt to trivialize the drug abuse problem. It is a serious problem, and a growing one. But it is a problem that has its genesis in free choice, it is not criminally forced on us. It is a problem that belongs in the same class as angst, depression, suicide...not embezzlement, rape, and murder. The only real hope for keeping drug abuse under some degree of control is though education and peer involvement-- the same methods that are putting a real dent in the use of alcohol and tobacco.
And as to utterly ridiculous acts such as seizing the Atlantis II research vessel under the guise of a safety check that found one marijuana joint in a sailor's shaving kit...Just say no.
MensaMuse, Boulder, Colorado, Jim Moore
Back to the curator's desk.
