DRUGS

It must be drug awareness season again. Periodically, it seems, a rash of public service announcements from the likes of the Partnership for a Drug Free America begin to flood the media outlets. Don’t get the wrong idea; this is very definitely a good thing. Drugs are bad, they do bad things and something has to be done. The timing is just curious, that’s all.

At the same time, the documentaries are hitting the airwaves. Some are new pieces about old problems - others are old pieces about current problems. The names and the faces have changed, but the destruction hasn’t. Nor has the knee-jerk reaction to the problem that is, by all accounts, growing exponentially.

Now is not the time to rehash the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the “War on Drugs” or Nancy Reagan’s ever-so effective “Just Say No” campaign. It’s not so much about the virtues of legalization, of incarceration or rehabilitation. I’m afraid I just don’t have any answers - I’ll leave that up to the experts and the (gulp) politicians.

I have, however, been around the block once or twice in my nearly 45 years on the planet, and that gives me a considerable amount of experience. It’s not all about the dope or the prisons or the crime created by the epidemic or the families destroyed by drugs (alcohol included), it’s about political consistency and the ability to change one’s mind.

I don’t like the government telling me what to do. I never have and I doubt that is going to change anytime soon. There are a number of political labels I could adopt, but it would be highly issue dependent and completely irrelevant. Suffice it to say that I don’t believe the government has any business regulating what I put in my body - even if it will kill me. I believe that to be my right.

Ok, I can hear it now. "He’s one of those guys who want to legalize everything so he can smoke pot all day." Well, perhaps once upon a time that would have been a fair, yet baseless accusation, but I haven’t smoked anything in a very long time - and I like my lungs nice and pink, thank you very much. Despite the preceding and despite my adamant stance against government intervention of this sort, I am not now for the legalization of any drugs.

It used to be the perfect solution - and so simple. Legalize drugs, tax them, regulate them and take the criminal component out of the picture. It was Utopian naiveté at its best.

Drugs are bad. They do bad things to even good people and even if legally available, the psychosis and addiction they introduce brings about an element of crime that is random, senseless and completely self-generated. And, yes, statistics show that alcohol and other drugs are involved in the vast majority of violent crime - especially domestic violence. Never mind the lack of productivity and the social costs.

Drugs are bad. Even marijuana. It robs our youth of their motivation and contrary to popular belief, it does lead to other drugs - not that pot isn’t bad enough by itself. Medicinal use? There probably is a legitimate one, but not the way it is administered in California.

And now, according to a report from the Partnership for a Drug Free America, about one third of teens and only slightly fewer adults think taking prescription pain medication recreationally is safer than illicit drugs. Extrapolation: It is safe.

Drugs are bad. So is locking up drug offenders. Treatment works and the trends seem to be moving more in that direction. There are, however, no easy answers and once violence or other crimes beyond simply using the drugs comes into the picture, well, there has to be some accountability. I used to think it was so simple…

Drugs are bad.