The War Against Drugs

I was asked in a high school class again today, "What is the war against drugs?" It seems an easy question to field, but I found myself stumbling on my answer.

The phrase itself is an obvious misnomer, The War on Drugs? What do they do, line the drugs up against a wall and machine-gun them down? Or do we declare war on anything we feel unable to overcome? The war on poverty, the war on illiteracy, and the war on just about anything you really can't face. It doesn't make much sense.

A phrase first coined by President Richard M. Nixon, the war on drugs has changed over time into something that defies definition. In fact, looking for a completely unbiased description is pointless. Depending on to whom you are speaking, the war on drugs has failed or has succeeded.

Without delving into conspiracy theories regarding this historical phenomenon, the whole thing started around 1971 and was ostensibly intended to reduce and ultimately control the use and trafficking of illegal psychoactive drugs in the United States and some of our allies.

And now, despite billions of dollars spent and innumerable lives impacted, the drug problem is still one of our most pressing dilemmas and is again on the rise in 2010.

I think it is time we faced the fact that laws will never solve the problem of drug abuse.

As long as you have someone standing there, holding up a fifty dollar bill and shouting, "Give me some drugs!" there will be some drug pusher right there with a handful of whatever saying, "Here you go, fool."

That isn't to say that taking some kid, caught with a baggie of weed, and throwing him in jail is a good idea. There isn't any treatment in prison...prison is crook college.

But saying it is legal? Oh no, we'd be opening a door we could never close. I can't even imagine the destruction if we'd see if one could get heroin in the local quick-mart. Or go to the grocery store and order a couple of hits of crack cocaine.

Instead of fighting a war on drugs, let's fight a war on ignorance. The drug pushers and dealers and proponents of illegal drugs would have a lot tougher time making their money if the kids were all made fully aware of the dangers, short and long-term, of drug abuse and the possibilities of drug addiction.

Armed with complete knowledge of what lies down the drug abuse road, our children will not fall so easily into the pushers traps and schemes.

Then the pushers and dealers and purveyors of illegal drugs will have to go off to find some other slimy way to make their money.