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| When The Drug War Ends |
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Posted by FoM on March 13, 2002 at 08:44:51 PT By Joseph Farah Source: WorldNetDaily 
It's inevitable. Some day soon, Americans are going to recognize the U.S. government's war on drugs has been a total, unequivocal disaster. I have explained the failed prohibitionist policy before, as have WorldNetDaily columnists Joel Miller, Harry Browne and others. Like most government initiatives, the war on drugs has only exacerbated our problems – increasing crime, infringing civil rights, soaking taxpayers and just generally making a bigger mess of things. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later. Let's also hope Americans are able to change the government's direction for the better when they realize what is happening. How would we change the government's direction for the better? Well, let's start with a model we should not follow. Earlier this month, Scotland's "drug czar" declared defeat in that country's war on drugs. Deputy Justice Minister Richard Simpson said he recognizes the government is worsening the country's crime problem by driving up the cost of drugs and driving addicts to robbery to feed their habits. "The only time you will hear me use terms such as 'war on drugs' and 'just say no' is to denigrate them," he told the Sunday Herald. But – and here's the danger Americans will face when they come to the same realization – the government in Scotland is simply changing tactics. It is about to embark on a whole new drug war by a different name – one that could prove more costly and more counter-productive than the failed policies of zero tolerance. Now the Scottish government is going to shift focus toward drug education that sounds remarkably like the failed sex-education programs in the U.S. "I've never used the term 'teach children how to take drugs,' but what I would say is that we need to provide them with information," said Simpson. "We need to say, 'We'd rather you didn't take ecstasy, but if you make that decision, here are the risks.' We have to give them all the information they need to take responsibility for themselves." The government will also increase funding of methadone programs to hook heroin addicts on a new drug. Giving mixed signals to kids is not the right approach. Neither is reallocating taxpayer dollars extorted from citizens under false pretenses. That's what government inevitably will do if it is permitted to lead a new failed initiative against drugs. There are better ways to address the drug problem – which is really not a drug problem at all but a moral and social crisis hitting western societies that have drifted far from the Judeo-Christian underpinnings that created them. Government can never take the lead in solving that crisis. It can only be addressed effectively by the churches and the synagogues – whose primary role setting standards of behavior and in charity and social care has been usurped by government. Take God out of the equation and, for many, the question of sin becomes, "why not?" The only way the government can answer the question "why not?" is with force and violence. If we've learned one thing in the last 30 years, it should be that government is not and can never be compassionate. It does not work that way. When it tries, it fails. Individuals can effectively express compassion. Churches and synagogues can effectively express compassion. Families can effectively express compassion. Sometimes even small communities can effectively express compassion and positively change people's errant behavior. Washington cannot. The drug war, indeed, needs to be ended, but not this way – not with more failed programs of centralized authority. First, we need to take the profit motive away from the smugglers, street criminals and drug lords. This can be accomplished by selling narcotics through pharmacies by prescription to adults at a small markup over cost. Second, the regulations over drug sales need to be made much closer to home. States and local communities can do a much better job than Washington – as they can with most programs. Third – and this is the most important step of all – it's time for the remnant of religious people to shoulder some responsibility. They need to emerge from their own haze of confusion and begin asserting their moral authority by teaching people right from wrong, again. This will not only have beneficial effects in the drug crisis, it is an absolute necessity for free, self-governing people to remain free, self-governing people. Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column. Get an autographed, first-edition copy of Joseph Farah's 1996 book, "This Land Is Our Land," published by St. Martin's Press. Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web) Related Articles: Saying No To Propaganda To Fight Terrorism, Quit Fighting Drugs Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on March 13, 2002 at 10:45:52 PT:
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| but not everybody's a Christian. and of those, not everybody is a Fundamentalist Christian, assured of their place at God's Right hand come the Rapture...and thus feel themselves agents of God. Who must be obeyed. Where I work, there are Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and who-knows-what walking these corridors. And I daresay that not one of them believes that any other group should be telling them how to live. After all, a goodly portion of the early DrugWar came about precisely because of the overly-pious so-called Christians 'asserting their moral authority' and preaching the Gospel of Saint Harrison and his Narcotics Act: http://www.drugwar.com/blackfiends.shtm from the webpage: "For those who think that the rationale of American drug law isn't inherently racist and anti-tribal, or that it's different than the industrial fascism of alcohol Prohibition, we have the KKK-supported Rep. Richmond P. Hobson of Alabama. In the 1920's Hobson was the most famous anti-heroin crusader in the country. In 1911 Hobson was the man who introduced what became the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition, in Congress. One of Charlie Rangel's favorite lies is that Drug Prohibition and Alcohol Prohibition are separate issues engineered by separate forces. They were, in fact, part and parcel of the same political program engineered by exactly the same individuals, most of them anti-Black racists. Rep. Hobson of Alabama was the Anti-Saloon League's most popular and highest paid speaker. The assumptions of his astounding arguments are all written into today's drug law. Here are some excerpts from his speech introducing what became the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition, on Feb.2, 1911: ...If a negro takes up a regular use of alcoholic beverage, in a short time he will degenerate to the level of the cannibal. "If America degenerates the yellow man will be on hand. Some may make light of the yellow man; so did Romans make light of the 'Barbarians.' The yellow man is not degenerating. He can shoot as straight as a white man now, and undegenerated he can live on one-tenth of what is necessary for the white men while they are in the field doing the shooting. A race of degenerates cannot occupy the American continent." ..."In America we are making the last stand of the great white race, and substantially of the human race. If this destroyer cannot be conquered in young America, it cannot in any of the old and more degenerate nations. If America fails, the world will be undone and the human race will be doomed to go down from degeneracy into degeneracy till the Almighty in wrath wipes the accursed thing out!" ..."We need to preach the gospel of narcotic abstinence from the pulpit, to flash it on the screen, to enact it on the stage, to proclaim it from the public platform, to depict it in the press, and, above all, to teach it in our schools. All constructive social agencies will help in fighting this peril - in setting up in the minds of all the same abhorrence that is felt for a venomous snake..." Uh huh...and look what we have to show for his efforts and the efforts of 2 more generations of people who think they have a God-given right to ram their religious precepts down the throat of others. No thanks. My parents didn't preach at me...they just told me the truth. In a way that Mr. Farah and others don't want to see it done. You are entitled to your opinions, Mr. Farah...as am I. But don't think I will accept such treatment from our own side. God did indeed gift me with a brain...and I will not spit in the face of the Almighty by allowing someone to hijack it, no matter how good a reason you give for doing so.
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