Sins of the Drug Wars

by Dennis Green

How very liberal and enlightened! In America, in most parts of the country anyway, the possession or use of marijuana is a minor offense, often punishable by a small fine, rarely by imprisonment. But the sale or cultivation of marijuana — unless protected by legalization for medical purposes — is a felony punishable by imprisonment. Consequently, many thousands of Americans languish in prison, costing the taxpayers on average $100,000 per year each, for doing something most of us acknowledge is harmless to the user, or even beneficial. Doh!

But the real harm — the terrible harm — being done by the U.S. drug war is in Mexico, where approximately 100,000 people have died in a bloody battle between the drug cartels and the Mexican army and police. Fully 60% of the revenue going to the Mexican drug cartels is from marijuana, and most of that weed is exported to the U.S. Without that revenue, the cartels would shrivel, or even die.

While our own DEA pressures Mexico to wage that war on its own soil, knowing full well that a simple change in our laws would drastically reduce, or even eliminate the problem, a stalemate between the two countries continues. But the legalization of marijuana would also mean a huge reduction in the DEA law enforcement budget, and in the budgets of state and local law enforcement agencies, and prison systems, all across America! Mercy me.

The Second Great Depression may yet be avoided, but the Second Prohibition is still with us, started by president Richard Nixon and promoted heavily by First Lady Nancy and President Ronald Reagan, and it’s not working any better than the first Prohibition did. As a tactic of the conservative counter-revolution, it was a smashing success, but as a prevention program, the War on Drugs, specifically marijuana, has been and continues to be an abject failure.

The epidemic of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angles is a proof in point. If allowed to increase, there would be more marijuana dispensaries than bars.

We know it’s harmless, less harmful at least than alcohol, tobacco and even caffeine, and yet we tolerate a prohibition that makes only top criminals and cops rich, and we also perpetuate enforcement strategies that focus on the inner city rather than college campuses or senior centers, where abusers of prescription drugs are legion.

But a national hypocrisy so huge and damaging that it kills thousands of people and imprisons thousands more is not just an amusing aberration in the collective psyche, but a mortal sin. And it’s so Middle Class, so pathetic an attempt to give the polite nod to conformity and sobriety, that it’s a massive national embarrassment.

We have an opportunity in California this November for redemption, with Prop 14, by making the recreational use of marijuana as legal as the medical use. But the outcome will be very close, determined probably by the demographics of voter turnout. If older voters predominate, legalization is likely to fail.

They may call it the “Tea Party,” but they probably don’t smoke tea. Unless people under 30 vote in big numbers, (and why should they, without an Obama to support?), pot is doomed to go on killing people in Mexico and the ghettos, and not by second-hand smoke.

©2010 Dennis Green