The Drug War increases drug misuse by children by, 1) keeping the subject of "drugs" forever on the mind of rebellious youth (see "Synthetic Panics" for how this is accomplished), and 2) encouraging them to fear and despise substances rather than to understand them. (It often accomplishes this here in the States by having the state police or the DARE organization bribe the kids with teddy bears to adopt a jaundiced Christian Science view of psychoactive medicines.) That's why "crack cocaine " is a byword for "hopelessly addictive substance" in the west, even though that form of coke can be used non-addictively by a person who has been taught to do so. In a recent documentary ("Kid 90") about the '80s child star Soleil Moon Frye (AKA "Punky Brewster" of sitcom fame), one of her friends describes how he used a variety of illegal substances, including crack cocaine , "acid," and heroin 1 (which he says he smoked). "But," he said, "I always did this little thing where I'd do it and then not do it for a long time, where I wouldn't get so super strung out or anything."
Sounds like he saw through drug-war lies, right? He realized that informed use was the answer rather than substance demonization. But not so, for he then adds, apparently in deference to drug-warrior sensibilities: "Which isn't any excuse, but..."
Really? Why not?
A second friend then proceeds to blast "drugs" by implicitly blaming them for the deaths of his friends in the '90s, despite the fact that those deaths were a result of prohibition combined with the drug-war policy of willful ignorance about psychoactive substances. But Soleil's only comment about "drugs" in this documentary was in reference to an ecstatic experience that she had with her friends in a sunny wheat field after consuming a few mushrooms. "I have such a soft spot in my heart for mushrooms," she says, "I must tell you, because of that experience."
Indeed, the experience was so positive that she violates drug-war etiquette by failing to follow up this statement with the customary post-facto denunciation of her youthful "drug use," thereby failing to emulate the seemingly endless list of two-faced British politicians who profess their scorn for the cocaine 23 that they used so liberally in their youth.
If religious liberty existed, we would be able to use the inspiring phenethylamines created by Alexander Shulgin in the same way and for the same reasons as the Vedic people of India used soma.
The problem with blaming things on addiction genes is that it whitewashes the role of society and its laws. It's easy to imagine an enlightened country wherein drug availability, education and attitudes make addiction highly unlikely, addiction genes or no addiction genes.
There would be little or no profiling of blacks if the Drug War did not exist.
We should hold the DEA criminally responsible for withholding spirit-lifting drugs from the depressed. Responsible for what, you ask? For suicides and lobotomies, for starters.
Wade Davis writes that cocaine was outlawed because 400 people consumed toxic doses worldwide. What about the 49,000 that commit suicide every year because we have outlawed drugs that could cheer them up!!!
In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.
As great as it is, "Synthetic Panics" by Philip Jenkins was only tolerated by academia because it did not mention drugs in the title and it contains no explicit opinions about drugs. As a result, many drug law reformers still don't know the book exists.
The healthcare industry turns all the emotional downsides of drug prohibition into "illnesses."
Americans were always free to take care of their own health -- until drug warriors handed doctors a monopoly on providing mind and mood medicine.
Morphine can provide a vivid appreciation of mother nature in properly disposed minds. That should be seen as a benefit. Instead, dogma tells us that we must hate morphine for any use.
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