The Pessimist

Richard Nixon declared "war on drugs" in 1971, and the war was escalated by every (Republican) president since. So, how's that going, eh?

There were previous wars on drugs, though they weren't called that at the time: Opium was banned in 1880, Alcohol was banned in 1919, Reefer Madness banned marijuana in 1937. But it was Ronald Reagan in the 1980's that really got the hearts and minds of government focussed on abolishing mind altering substances (except alcohol, of course). Nancy Reagan told youth to "just say no", and Bonzo mobilized the full force of the CIA, FBI, Coast Guard, ATF and every other bureaucrat, with or without a gun, to the cause.

The war was equally fought against Columbian drug lords and teenagers possessing a single spliff (or whatever the cool people call a "joint" these days). Crossing the border with a single seed of marijuana landed you in prison for the rest of your life. So, they're winning -- right?

The war has certainly had an effect.

• organized crime is flourishing on the premium profits to be made in contraband.
• addicts are criminals so cannot seek help to fight their addiction and must steal or prostitute themselves to afford their drug of choice.
• al Qaeda was born and remains fully funded by profits made from poppy fields in Afghanistan.
• terrorists and run of the mill criminals can afford the best guns, bombs, forged documents and bribed officials that money can buy.

Good job guys.

This same policy is now being carried out in Afghanistan. Afghanistan supplies 90% of the world's illegal heroin. Agents of the U.S. are roaming the countryside burning or defoliating the poppy crops. These crops are the primary source of income for these ignorant dirt-poor people.
al Qaeda buys the crops and the U.S burns them, leaving them to starve. Do you wonder why the peasants choose to support or at least tolerate al Qaeda?

Now, notice the word "illegal" above. Did you know that there was a world market for "legal" heroin? There is, and most of it comes from Turkey. Turkey got an exemption that allowed them to keep their poppy fields when they lost WWI. Legal heroin is used by the medical world as a pain killer. Dr. Gifford Jones has been campaigning his whole life for the expansion of the use of heroin in palliative care. Heroin is the best pain killer, bar none, by a wide margin. When cancer is eating you alive one organ at a time, and the right-to-lifers are marching to prevent your euthanasia, a shot of heroin would make you care not at all. But, instead, people are required to die in agonizing pain, and doctors don't prescribe heroin for two reasons:

1. the stigma attached to heroin
2. the world wide shortage of legal heroin

If we were to make Afghanistan's poppy fields legal, we would take the guns out of al Qaeda's hands and guaranty a peaceful "twilight sleep" when cancer knocks at our door.