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January 03, 2010
A Change in Drection
The global drug war’s failure is a phenomenon that can be explained either in starkly simple terms or in the complex detail favored by historians. The simple explanation is that lessons that should have been learned from the failure of America’s Prohibition Amendment between 1920 and 1933 have yet to be applied to the world’s massively failing drug war.Why that is so still eludes me. That it’s a form of denial has long been clear, but what is most troubling is that once one is alerted to how commonly the same mechanism has been, and is being used to avoid dealing with other unpleasant global realities, the danger posed to our species simply can’t be avoided. But it is. I have now concluded my best option is to resume the narrative of pot prohibition’s failure, but in greater detail and longer installments appropriate to its historical complexity. What follows here is the brief overview.
In 1920, America unwittingly launched two apparently separate prohibition policies, each of which was bound to end in failure, but ironically, the lessons of the first still haven’t been applied to the second; indeed, official rhetoric holds that drug prohibition remains an essential national and global policy. The reasons for that denial, and some way around it, would seem to be of great importance to the entire species, for they clearly relate to the function of our defining organ, the brain.
The next entry, which may be some time coming, will try to deal with some of the complexities that have been hiding the truth about cannabis and its (unsuccessful) prohibition from both the public at large and those who should be most interested.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at January 3, 2010 06:24 PM