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December 11, 2008
The American Contribution
The title is a play on The American Disease, by David Musto, MD of Yale. Musto’s original edition (1973) was written at a time when the drug war was receiving more hostile scrutiny from academia than now, and reported his original research on the role of Hamilton Wright,MD in sponsoring the invidious Harrison Act of 1914. It was a valuable contribution to drug policy scholarship, however, in multiple subsequent editions, Musto has taken a far more expedient and policy friendly position.One of our nation’s more unfortunate contributions to the modern world (there have been several) has been our drug policy, which, since the First Nixon Administration, has also become the whole world's drug policy via UN treaty.
Beyond that, the UN’s American clone has become one of its more enduring policies, especially since the Carter Administration was flummoxed enough by Iran’s abrogation of the Vienna Convention to lose to Reagan. In essence the entire world’s current (but failing) attempt to ban certain drugs is identical in concept to earlier bans of tobacco and opium, both of which were completely unsuccessful, a situation which, by itself, should raise the logical question that is avoided in all official drug policy discussions: why does such a lame idea continue to receive any respect at all?
The most likely answer is that we humans are, by nature, loathe to admit failure and a lot more dishonest than we want to admit. Those conclusions are well supported my own study of pot smokers; ditto, the cascade of new developments signaling the deepening descent of our overpopulated world into profound depressions, of both the economic and psychological varieties.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at December 11, 2008 11:02 PM