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December 27, 2013
A Pleasant Surprise from Argentina
This morning's e-mail contained a surprising link from a colleague now living in Argentina. What surprised and encouraged me was the depth and accuracy of the criticism of our drug war in an article by an author I'd never heard of. It was gratifying evidence that an increasing number of young people are starting to see through the bogus science upon which our War on Drugs has been based for over 40 years. The importance of such false theories to evil policies is underscored by the use Hitler made of the pseudoscience of Eugenics to justify the wholesale murder of supposed untermensch.In much he same way, Nixon's CSA was quickly conflated by medically ignorant supporters into the bogus belief that- any possession, use, or "manufacture" of a schedule one substance represents "addiction" requiring "rehab" resulting in "sobriety" (total abstinence).
What is most troubling is that my 10 year study of chronic pot users seeking to take advantage of Proposition 215 not only disproves the Federal government's position, but exposes it as irrational nonsense that has evolved to support a destructive, inhumane policy. While our drug war hasn't been as deadly as Nazism, it has survived far longer and because it is still endorsed by the UN, its scope and impact have been much greater.
Simply by encouraging the production of illegal drugs in poor nations as diverse as Colombia and Afghanistan, US policy remains a major factor in the destabilization of volatile regions in the overcrowded planet that is home to a demonstrably warlike species.
Those who think, like certain European nations did in the late Thirties, that "it can't happen here" are courting disaster.
A rethink of America's futile drug war is long overdue. That it serves the vested interests of so many beneficiaries makes it an almost Perfect War Crime in the same sense that Sebastien Junger's Perfect Storm was produced by a rare confluence of deadly circumstances.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at December 27, 2013 07:22 PM