NEW YORK (CNN) — Here’s something to think about:
How many police officers and sheriff’s deputies are involved in investigating and solving crimes involving illegal drugs? And arresting and transporting and interrogating and jailing the suspects?
How many prosecutors and their staffs spend time prosecuting drug cases? How many defense lawyers spend their time defending drug suspects?
How many hours of courtroom time are devoted to drug trials? How many judges, bailiffs, courtroom security officers, stenographers, etc., spend their time on drug trials?
How many prison cells are filled with drug offenders? And how many corrections officers does it take to guard them? How much food do these convicts consume?
And when they get out, how many parole and probation officers does it take to supervise their release? And how many ex-offenders turn right around and do it again?
So how’s this war on drugs going?
Someone described insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. That’s a perfect description of the war on drugs.
Even the most mainstream of commentators is unafraid to say The Emperor Wears No Clothes! So let me prepare you now for what comes next in the rhetoric. The notion of legalizing sale and use of marijuana is becoming too attractive, so the drug warriors will be trying to tie marijuana to cocaine, meth, and heroin. Cafferty’s piece describes the cost of the war on drugs as $44 billion a year and legalization reaping $33 billion a year – but that’s if we’re talking about all drugs, and that’s a radical notion to most people who aren’t so afraid of you smoking a doobie, but you snorting a line or shooting up scares the crap out of them.
What they’ll try to portray is the notion that drug legalization means Acapulco Gold, Columbian Flake, Super Speed, and White Horse sold in flashy branded ads and available at a convenience store near you. Legalize weed and there will be heroin-filled disposable syringes available next to 40-ouncers at the Qwik-E-Mart.
What we need to do is inject common sense into the debate. NORML doesn’t take a stance on other drugs, we’re about legalizing marijuana and supporting its responsible use by adults. That said, we’re also pretty staunch anti-prohibitionists: locking people up for drug use clearly doesn’t work. How I address the issue is to say, “Why can you get aspirin at the grocery store, but you have to see a doctor, get a prescription, and visit a pharmacy to get Oxycontin? Why can you buy 3.2 beer in most places in America at the store, but you have to go to a liquor store to get Bacardi 151 rum, and then only in some states? It’s because rational people understand different drugs need different rules. I support treating marijuana like alcohol because it is clearly safer. I think rules for cocaine, meth, and heroin would probably need to be much stricter, because I believe those drugs are more dangerous.”
We must maintain separation between marijuana and other drugs. Marijuana was on the verge of legality in the ’70s until cocaine made such a splash in the latter part of the decade (seasoned Stashers will remember High Times mags with lines of coke on the cover…) The recent tabloid story of Vice President Joe “Mandatory Minimums” Biden’s daughter’s alleged cocaine video tape just made me shudder. Maintain focus. Say things like, “I don’t know about hard drugs, but we certainly need to legalize marijuana.”
