Tonight I'm thinking about the opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. John Walters wrote an article about why drug legalization was not the answer. Not only did he say it was not the answer, he elaborated and made it clear that he thought that there should be more of the same and if we just doubled down we would have success.
It is astounding that someone who knew about the war on drugs would have the hubris to proclaim that it could be won in the current fashion.
The newest pew report now says that one in every 31 citizens of the US is under the control of the criminal justice system. It is costing billions of dollars - although they are going to workers in the prison industry, law enforcement, prosecutors, court system, and mental health industry - the War on Drugs has failed and is destroying lives and making us a less civil society.
We have a war on people and plants.
beth curtis
johnknock@johnknock.com
Beth, I think you're right. In fact, I think you're more than right if there could be such a thing. Looking at what you've said is like looking at the reflection of a mountain range on the sleek, unrippled surface of a calm lake. So much more lies beneath the surface and we're just not seeing it as a nation.
ReplyDeleteThe government has the citizens duped into believing that we are somehow so much safer because of their vigilant control of the "bogeyman." But what nobody is realizing is that we the citizens are the bogeymen in the government's eyes. The pot smokers, the vocal, the reluctant to be strip-searched to get on a plane - we're the dangerous ones.
I'm so much more aware of the mind game when I see people like John put away for life and violent rapists and murderers getting out in 7-to-10. Wouldn't any of us rather live next door to a pot-dealer than the thousands of registered sex-offenders roaming freely in our neighborhoods?
We are a nation screaming through the streets in our night-shirts. Sanity is lost.