Killing America part fourteen-Friday addendum

This could go on forever I suspect, but I’ll try to wind it up soon.  The US prison system has tens of thousands of inmates, each housed at a cost of a Harvard University tuition, and their offense is drugs.  Over a third of jail cells are housing drug users and sellers.  “Isn’t that good?”  “Shouldn’t we get those nasty people off the streets?”  “Aren’t drugs evil?”  I’ll admit that this is the most common opinion, but it isn’t mine, and I believe that the cost of the hopeless and futile ’drug wars’ are bankrupting us, just as much as are other wasteful spending and gross mistakes of government.

I HAVE NEVER DONE ANY DRUGS, AND NEVER WILL.  Let’s get that out of the way first.

“Demon rum,” brought us prohibition and the 18th Amendment, and all it did was make illegal, what people wanted to do, and had been doing, since the dawn of the human race.  Remember Noah?  Prohibition gave us the Mafia and FBI, neither of which existed before prohibition. Prohibition made Americans drink MORE alcohol than they did before prohibition.  Why?  Because it was defying the law, and made illegal drinking a fun, social thing to do.  Prohibition gave us ’speakeasies,’ murder, and a crime wave which was expensive and brutal.  Probably the only good thing FDR did, was to sign the bill eliminating the 18th Amendment.  Alcohol is legal today, and most of us like to have a cocktail or glass of wine at the close of the workday.  Carrie Nation, with her hatchet, was going around destroying priceless back bars and other private property with her insane screams and illegal actions, which were winked at by the police.  I HAVE NEVER BEEN DRUNK EITHER.  Let’s also get that out of the way.

Cigarettes are legal, and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, including my father, and millions throughout the world.  Cigarette consumption has declined so much, that the cigarette manufacturers are depending on foreign sales to make a profit now, and it has all been without making cigarettes illegal.  The decline has been because of education and publicity about their harm.

Now about drugs.  Ever wonder where the name “Drug Store” originated?  Easy.  Before drugs became illegal in the 1930’s, you could buy all you wanted at any drug store.  Coca Cola, is nicknamed “Coke,” because it used to have a small amount of cocaine in it.  At my age, I well remember when marijuana became the thing kids wanted to do.  Outraged parents and supposed ’experts,’ bellowed that one marijuana cigarette, and you were hooked for life.  This was false.  The same ’experts’ today, say that ’meth’, if it is used one time, one is hooked for life, and doomed to commit one dastardly crime after another.  Recently, I read that this is no more true than the old marijuana warning.  I have no idea, but I do remember the intense ’crack cocaine’ publicity, which one never hears about any more.  Neither of these are the point.  The point is that the drug wars are expensive, silly, pointless, ineffectual, and can’t possibly eliminate drugs.  The drug wars have about as much chance of eliminating drug use, as do laws making prostitution and gambling illegal, or that stopped drinking with prohibition.

I have never been drunk, have never tried drugs, and have never smoked, because I appreciate a healthy body and mind.  I truly believe that drugs will alter the mind permanently, and I want mine to be clear and lucid.  The world is full of silly, stupid people, who will always do what is bad for them and others, and be a first rate pain in the you know what.  Drunk drivers should have their driving privilege removed for life at the first offense.  I love it that we can now go into a restaurant without having to tolerate cigarette smoke.  If drugs were as accessible as is alcohol and tobacco, and taxed in the same way, coupled with bad publicity and education, the use of drugs would simply go way down, and those who make outrageous profits by selling them, would have to find a legitimate way to earn a living.

Those who choose to do drugs, and probably alter their minds, could do so, and the problem would be theirs, not society’s and police.  Think of the cops doing actual law enforcement of laws which made sense.  Think of the available jail space and reduced costs, if drugs were made legal and taxed.  Want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet?  Don’t try to protect me from my own actions.  Want to drive without a seat belt?  Don’t try to protect me from my own actions.  Want to buy a car without airbags and make them a couple of thousand cheaper?  Don’t try to protect me from my own actions.  Want to smoke?  Don’t try to protect me from my own actions.  Just protect me from the smoke,  Want to have a drink?  Great, but prosecute me if I harm others.  Want to do drugs?  Help yourself and self destruct if you choose.  It’s your problem, not mine, nor society’s.  Don’t legislate your idea of morality, and this includes abortion, which has no business in anyone’s laws.  I am a Christian, but strongly object to attempts to legislate morality…or someone’s idea of morality anyway.

When people smoke marijuana, they get groggy, sleepy, and hungry, I hear.  They don’t careen down the highway like drunks do, and cause deaths of innocents.  If a druggie wants to screw up their mind by consuming drugs, and not harm anyone but themselves, why make it illegal?  Why burden society with costs and complications caused by morality legislation?  Want to make cigarette smoking increase quickly?  Make it illegal.  Want to keep drugs and the drug wars going on forever and at huge cost?  Keep on fighting and legislating.  Want to make alcohol consumption go up dramatically?  Re-install prohibition.  Want to make moonshiners proliferate?  Make alcohol taxes even higher.  Want to make cigarette bootlegging profitable?  Make the taxes even more outrageous.

When the illegal gambling and numbers betting law enforcement crews gave up, states made it legal by instituting lotteries. The old numbers runners gave you a far better chance of winning, and your winnings were far higher than state lotteries, but they couldn’t compete with billions of dollars in advertising, and being able to gamble legally at any store or super market.  Want to make drugs safe and clean?  Make them legal.  Want to stop trash sellers of drugs from getting rich?  Make them legal.  Want to stop hundreds of billions in drugs being sneaked across borders?  Make them legal, grow them here, and make them clean and unpolluted.  It’s all so simple!  Now realize that the drug wars are as pointless as was prohibition, and just as expensive and destructive of our nation.  STOP LEGISLATION OF YOUR IDEA, OR YOUR PARTY’S IDEA OF MORALITY.  If John McCain loses, it just might be partly because of his abortion stance.  If I were a woman with an un-wanted child in my womb, what would I do?  I have no idea, but it should be her choice, made with her own sense of morality and decency, plus counsel of her pastor or doctor, not legislation.