Perhaps you've seen those Jim Beam commercials on TV and streaming media: a crowd of lively young people are seen responsibly lugging around bottles of Jim Beam bourbon while living a joyous life.
I have two very different reactions to that ad.
I am struck at first by the hypocrisy of selling Jim Beam like it was apple pie while living in an age in which drugs like opium 1 and coca and peyote (etc.) are demonized as the devil incarnate. Nor do I believe that drugs, alcohol included, should be advertised in this way, by appealing to the emotions of young people. But at the same time, this ad depicts the way that I believe we should be taught to feel about ALL mind-affecting drugs that are used for relaxation and for having a good time: they can be used responsibly -- and those who do not do so are the oddballs, the ones who are irresponsible and/or who lack the necessary education -- the education that we should provide rather than arresting them.
The Drug War is one big entrapment scheme for poor minorities. Prohibition creates an economy that hugely incentivizes drug dealing, and when the poor fall for the bait, the prohibitionists rush in to arrest them and remove them from the voting rolls.
We should not be talking about the potential harm of drugs -- we should be talking about the well-established harm of drug PROHIBITION.
The goal of drug-law reform should be to outlaw prohibition. Anything short of that, and our basic rights will always be subject to veto by fearmongers. Outlawing prohibition would restore the Natural Law of Jefferson, which the DEA scorned in 1987 with its raid on Monticello.
I can't imagine Allen Ginsberg writing "Howl!" while under the influence of mood-damping drugs like Inderal and Prozac -- but then maybe that's the point: the powers-that-be do not want poets writing poems like "Howl!"
If drug warriors were serious about saving lives, they'd outlaw guns, cars, and all pleasure trips to Mars.
ME: "What are you gonna give me for my depression, doc? MDMA? Laughing gas? Occasional opium smoking? Chewing of the coca leaf?" DOC: "No, I thought we'd fry your brain with shock therapy instead."
Properly speaking, MDMA has killed no one at all. Prohibitionists were delighted when Leah Betts died because they were sure it was BECAUSE of MDMA/Ecstasy. Whereas it was because of the fact that prohibitionists refuse to teach safe use.
Reagan paid a personal price for his idiocy however. He fell victim to memory loss from Alzheimer's, after making a career out of demonizing substances that can grow new neurons in the brain!
"Arrest made in Matthew Perry death." Oh, yeah? Did they arrest the drug warriors who prioritized propaganda over education?
We've got to take the fight TO the drug warriors by starting to hold them legally responsible for having spread "Big Lies" about "drugs." Anyone involved in producing the "brain frying" PSA of the 1980s should be put on trial for willfully spreading a toxic lie.
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