It must be the drugs..

Currently we have state and federal government where advertising is seen not
only as the most appropriate and almost certainly the only activity to solve
a problem. The billboard struck me as the equivalent of Speed Kills advertisements
which are seen as a substitute for proper driver training and a way of eliminating
the gross stupidity, social irresponsibility and hormonal imbalance of most
males under twenty-five.
There is a limit to the effectiveness of shock and horror advertisements and
we probably passed some it time ago. All we now have is the race to the abattoir
similar to rising gross-out levels of splatter movies.
But it led me to this: that the death of around 19,000 Mexicans in current drug
wars would seem a very high price to pay to enable the citizens of the United
States to ingest, inject or inhale various intoxicating and illegal substances.
Nearly 100 years of prohibition and increasingly rigorous enforcement has done
little or nothing to diminish the American consumers’ enthusiasm for shoving
interesting things up their noses, lungs, arms or other convenient orifices.

And apparently the good burghers of the World’s Greatest Democracy spend
at least $60 billion a year to do indulge in their pleasures which by a process
of complex deduction means at least $60 billion of criminal activity. We may
assume this to be largely tax free and to the benefit of people that we might
not think entirely desirable. Being an illegal trade dollar figures are rather
conjectural, but there are occasional illuminations into interesting corners
– the popularity of the Five Hundred Euro banknote for example.
The Daily Mail on the 30th January this year reported the following .
‘According to Colombian financial regulators, in 2006, euros valued at
about $ 327,800 were legally imported and declared as entering Colombia. This
would typically have been tourists’ money.
Yet the same year, nearly $ 983,000,000 million worth of euros were exported.
The vast disparity is because the balance went in undeclared – importers paying
for cocaine tend not to fill out currency declaration forms. ‘
When we add to this the literally billions spent trying to eradicate drug supplies
in South America, and the cost of incarcerating half a million not so appreciated
(and generally black) citizens of the World’s Greatest Democracy every
year, and there might be a good case for saying that the whole thing has been,
and continues to be, a colossal waste of time.
I don’t think that we can see the invasion of Panama as being a genuine
benefit even if it did remove one of the more astoundingly pock-marked criminal
and presidential visages of the past century
In fact – apart from the drug cartels the only legal beneficiary would
seem to be the owners of the privatised prison system, where growth prospects
and warder employment sees assorted regions engaging in bidding wars –
presumably non-lethal – to have host them. Though perhaps I am remiss in forgetting
the sales of expensive Swiss watches and the purchase of football teams and
governments.
Apocryphally we have Patricia Nixon, wife of the late and hopefully unlamented
‘Tricky Dickie’ Nixon to thank for the hard line American policy
on drugs when she persuaded her husband to see drugs, not as a medical problem
but a criminal issue. Given that she had graduated from University of Southern
Californian with a Bachelor of Science in Merchandising, the two Nixons made
a formidable team. By all accounts she was the preferable half and certainly
didn’t resemble a swarthy ski jump in a bad suit made out of dog fur.
According to Wikipedia a 2008 Harvard study estimated that legalizing drugs
would inject $76.8 billion a year into the U.S. economy — $44.1 billion
from law enforcement savings, and at least $32.7 billion in tax revenue ($6.7
billion from marijuana, $22.5 billion from cocaine and heroin, remainder from
other drugs).
Now this may only be a small fraction of the salary of a US Bank CEO but it
does seem a considerable amount of money that could be spent on more useful
things. Health and education for a start.
Now I am not saying that recreational drugs are a good thing and preferable
to a life of chastity and reading the works of obscure 15th Century Slavic authors
in Cyrillic script. I am merely saying that there may be an alternative way
of dealing with the fact that, since time immemorial, a significant fraction
of homo sapiens has enjoyed indulging in mind-altering substances.
Even the risk of looking like Keith Richard in one of his better days when he
merely looks like a recently excavated Danish Peat Mummy is no deterrent. Curiously,
even well educated people with apparently rich and full lives are not immune.
In fact, to have the benefit of more money means better quality, a more assured
supply and less risk.
As a species we seem prepared to indulge no matter whether sanctioned by the
State or not – and often with a reckless lack of concern for the consequences.
But the consequences of addiction would be better handled medically rather than
criminally.
Given that criminalisation has not been a triumph – is it possible to do anything
else? Every political party in every country has backed itself into a corner
surrounded by the moral high ground on one side and fear of losing votes on
the other.
So perhaps we need to diminish the hysteria and see that we have created a greater
evil than the one that we are trying to eliminate. I’m not saying that
there is an easy answer but I think that answer we have come up with does not
make sense.
I believe that nineteen thousand lives needlessly lost Mexico is an indication
that too a high price is being paid.