Sustainable Democracy

The “War on Drugs,” may be the longest war that has ever been waged against Americans.

In my opinion it is, like prohibition, a travesty against the rights of citizens. This is not because I like drugs, but I detest the government telling me what I can do with my own body. I am made especially angry by the extreme inconsistencies in the scheduling of different substances, mostly those that are deemed to have no medical purposes at all and for which all research is banned.

The quickness of the government to ban substances happens at a speed not seen anywhere else in government. I would not be at all surprised to find that the congress and senate can make a drug illegal with much greater alacrity than it was able to help Louisiana or Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. Not for the greater good of the people, or based on lengthy studies from multiple sources, but only because it would be deeply unpopular to think twice about any sort of mind altering drug.

But wait… Alcohol and nicotine are perfectly legal. Both of these have very similar effects on the nervous system as any other drug. The only difference is that in some cases they act more slowly or less profoundly than the “hard” drugs that are banned. In fact, both alcohol and nicotine can cause the same patterns of loss of activity in the brain as other drugs in heavy users. Nicotine has an addiction rate comparable to heroine, and alcohol is responsible for countless avoidable deaths every weekend night.

Are these safe substances?
No! But we have the right to use them any way we like, so long as we do not directly endanger the safety of others. And that rule is a good one.

If I show up to work drunk, I get fired. That’s fair. If I smoke marijuana on a weekend, maybe even two weeks before testing, I get fired, even though I am not in any sort of altered state. Is that fair?

The government has decided for you that any number of substances are not safe for you. They have gone so far as to say that they are so unsafe that there shall be no testing of them to either confirm or disprove their statements. By doing this they are saying that as a citizen you are simply not smart enough to use drugs unless they were far to entrenched in society to extinguish. By this opinion I would also like to point out that I do not condone any drug use, don’t encourage it, or want intoxicated people working or driving.

Just like alcohol (and in many ways should include nicotine) if your altered state would endanger others it should be restricted to certain locations. A private home, the bar, or as in Amsterdam the weed cafe are great places to get high in whatever way you would prefer. If you get in a car, interfere with children, or otherwise disrupt the public then there should be consequences.

But that is only the social side of this very complex issue. Really this only covers the My Body argument against government regulation in a free society. I will write later on further issues.