Obama Could 'Crack' the War on Drugs
Whether or not he wins the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama has won my respect not only because he inspires pride and hope for the future of our country, but because of the way he confronts the skeleton in his closet: drugs.
It often seems that our understanding of civic duty is informed by an unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam War, but Obama is too young for that. And while I don't always agree with him, I am always impressed by the way he handles himself.
Drug use is difficult to ignore unless a politician addresses it with honesty, humility and courage. In "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," Obama wrote about his rough adolescence: Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. He said that the high he got from drugs was something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory.
That sounds nice, lyrical even. It's more honest than "I didn't inhale." But I still prefer President Bush's admission: When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.
Drug use is irresponsible, and everything from cocaine to marijuana presents numerous problems in our society.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, cocaine is trafficked primarily by Colombian, Dominican and Mexican criminal groups. They aren't big on expanding your mind so much as pocketing your money. Those pesky drug laws get in their way, so they use a variety of techniques to ensure they can better serve you, including kidnapping, torture, extortion, human trafficking and terrorism. Read any news article about the FARC, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, and you can see drug money at work.
Popular myth suggests that most of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown here at home or in Canada. Unfortunately, the demand in the American marijuana market is too large to be supplied by American criminals alone. In today's global marketplace, there's always a mob willing to lend a hand in getting you high. Mexican gangs still traffic most of the marijuana used in the United States, but Russian and East Asian mobs are giving them a run for their money. Those mobsters also control enormous human trafficking networks for prostitution. Many of the trafficking victims are child sex slaves.
The point here is that these international crimes overlap. Giving money to a drug dealer is, in a very real sense, giving money to a human trafficking network. It is giving money to a terrorist network. It is an act that aids our enemies and severely damages the lives of those who fall prey to the heinous acts committed by members of these organizations.
All drugs, from marijuana to cocaine to methamphetamines, are addictive. They increase the dopamine in your brain to unnaturally high levels. To achieve the same dopamine level, you have to do more drugs. That's bad for your brain, your cardiovascular system and your reproductive health. But, boy, does it feel good. That salient feeling causes conditioning: You relate the feeling from the drugs to your surroundings. I once worked with a recovering heroin addict who said, "Those candle lit crack houses were the most depressing places I've ever been to, but damn was I happy to be there."
This is where Obama can do a lot of good. He, more than most politicians, has an opportunity to sympathize with drug abusers and others caught up in the drug trade. This seeming weakness of his can be turned into an impressive strength used to reform one of our most malfunctioning social programs.
But as of now, most people disobey drug laws because they think the laws are stupid or senseless. Unfortunately, they are the law, and the people who sell drugs are often involved in criminal organizations, so the only responsible way to use drugs is through civil disobedience. If you choose to do that, be careful how you go about it. In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote, "In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law. ... I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
So, here's what you do: Grow your own plants and process or manufacture your drugs at home. If anyone asks you what you are doing, be honest. Then, get your friends together and go to a crowded area to use the drugs. Since the tight-wads with the power don't understand the beauty of liberating one's mind with chemicals, you'll probably be arrested and expelled from school. Don't let that stop you. You will be fighting for something much nobler than a Georgetown degree; your campaign will be fought with all the moral righteousness of freedom for India and political rights for minorities in the United States.
Or you can obey the law and appeal to our leaders to create more compassionate and effective drug policies. For Obama, or any politician, to do that will take political courage. I hope he has what it takes, because the current resident of the White House has never had the political courage to do so - despite the lessons learned during his misspent youth.
A cursory review of the American prison system demonstrates that drugs sow much more sorrow than joy in American society. The War on Drugs is not succeeding. Only a leader who is unafraid of change can help.
William Quinn is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service and a former staff sergeant in the United States Army. He can be reached at quinn@thehoya.com AIMLESS FEET appears every other Tuesday.
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You brought some very relevant arguments here, I tend to agree with you, Obama is too young to deal with the same old matter, he is focused on the future and has the right energy to handle it. Drugs are a serious problem, perhaps too serious and perhaps we need some different approaches. I would really like to see him handle this problem.
http://www.drugrehab.net/start.php
I would like to raise the contention that many of the problems associated with drug use and abuse are actually caused by the economy created by the prohibition drug war policy. The public health and addiction problems would be greatly diminished by and can be addressed far more effectively without the criminal justice overlay on society.
It is the $ 320-billion global annual black market that inspires the crime and gang violence on our streets while subsidizing crime and terrorism around the world. Regulating, licensing and taxing this criminal anarchy out of the distribution would reduce the violence and provide tax dollars and savings to easily fund any drug abuse public health issues.
This is where Barack Obama fails in my book. He does not understand the cause and effect economics of prohibition. His proud co-sponsorship of the counter-productive 2005 Combat Meth Act ably illustrates his ignorance. The ever escalating 'ballooning effect' of squeezing domestic meth production gave better organized and far more violent Mexican gangs inroads into the American drug markets that they never had before according to the 2007 National Drug threat Assessment of the National Drugs Intelligence Center.
We never have been able to stifle demand for drugs with police and prisons. Not alone. America's consumer demand for intoxicant drugs is worth more than $ 141-billion a year according to 2005 U.N. estimates. As long as that demand exists it will fund crime in our streets and anarchy around the world from the current deadly Mexican border drug war to the 70% of the Taliban's funding that comes from drugs.
While there is not enough drug war bullets and prison beds to reduce the demand we can more effectively, significantly and quickly reduce the amount of money that today fosters, funds and feeds the anarchy of crime, gangsters and terrorism that all thrive in the black market created by the war on drugs. We could regulate, license and tax the violent criminal anarchy out of the distribution to the demand.
Which would be more responsible at keeping drugs out of the hands of children. The amoral addict dealers and predator gangsters in control of sales today? Or responsible members of the community who share society's values about protecting children and who would willingly be under regulatory oversight and license?
As the United States conference of Mayors resolved last summer, after citing a litany of social ills that they attribute to the war on drugs policy itself: "NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors believes the war on drugs has failed and calls for a New Bottom Line in U.S. drug policy..."
I think Obama is the one that has enough power to put all these things in order... We need someone who can clear all these things and stop this silly wars about drugs and drug addiction treatment!
I don't know where you get your sources but marijuana is not habit forming, I would know I currently smoke and eat it (It helps more than any other drug with my anxiety and depression) . The problem with America is that we have 15 year olds taking Adderall (comparable to cocaine) for being a little excessively hyper. I know a friend who was prescribed to Suboxin an Oxycontin type drug, he took one 15mg tablet and couldn't move for 3 days straight; he was more or less paralyzed, he compared the high he felt to Heroine. (a previous user These are just a few drugs that can be obtained at a local Pharmacy, there is a whole wide world of drugs out there that can be obtained with a piece of paper and a doctors signature. We can still just think we are doing something by keeping people from doing street drugs, but what we are really doing is perpetuating a billion dollar industry to do the same thing legally. Almost every street drug can be replaced by a pharmacy drug which is coincidentally more potent and habit forming. I don't condone the use of any drug, just Marijuana. Personally I think that it was wrongfully outlawed and should be given back to the people who don't want to take terrible prescribed drugs. EVEN IF IT HELPS MY MEDICAL CONDITION WHICH IS TOTALLY LEGITIMATE; I AM A CRIMINAL FOR SMOKING MARIJUANA THIS IS A TRAVESTY.
While it is admirable that Obama speaks honestly about his past drug abuse, it is important to note that marijuana is now and always will be a gateway drug. Ask those in drug rehabs, www.gatehouseacademy.com, and most will say that it led them to harder and more addictive drugs. Obama may have stopped at cocaine, but most continue down the road of addiction.
Today more people are ordering narcotics on the Internet. Many online pharmaceutical sites are legal, meaning they require a signed prescription from a physician and proof of a legitimate medical problem.But a growing number are not.Type in prescription drugs and hundreds of websites pop up. Many sell controlled substances such as Xanax, Valium and Hydrocodone without prescriptions shows a study realized by a drug rehab clinic
In my opinion a good way of stopping this drug war is education. It's 'amazing' how many young people get in drug rehab treatment centers because they don't have a proper education that showed them the real danger of drug usage.
All the rumors that we have heard about marijuana over the years are lies. As a kid growing up you hear all these bad things about marijuana then as you get older most people try it at least once in their lifetime and you start to realize that you've been lied to the whole time. Marijuana does not even come close to how dangerous other drugs are and can be. In the school I grew up in I can only think of a handful of people who didn't use it. Marijuana is a delicacy and if it should be illegal then so should alcohol and tobacco because they are more harmful than marijuana. If marijuana should be illegal because of some health risks(which there are only a few) then shouldn't obesity be illegal. Marijuana makes people happier and brings people together. That is why I smoke it. It makes me a happier and nicer person. You can look at things from a different point of view. Whoever says marijuana is addictive needs to find a new place to get sources from. I mean come on it's a plant..... it grows naturally from the earth. Making marijuana illegal was probably one of the dumbest laws ever made. Even America's forefathers grew and some even smoked marijuana. There is this talk about marijuana would be legalized if they knew how to tax it... well just because people can have a produce garden doesn't mean they are never going to buy produce at a store again. They could sell it just like cigarettes or anything else. What is freedom if you can't do what you want? Especially if it is in your own home and you aren't harming anyone by doing it. There are so many people in jail right now because they smoked a little weed, big deal why don't they arrest people for doing crimes instead of just trying to enjoy life. All the crime stoppers out there that hide behind bushes and wait for cars to drive by why don't you all get out there and stop real threats to the people like theft, murder, gangs, all the violence and bring some peace to this earth. Come on America everyone wants Marijuana to be legalized but the only way to actually do it is by all the people coming together and proving it nothing bad at all. This is just my two cents about the subject but now I think I'll burn one then head to the voting booths. Go OBAMA
Marijuana is addictive? I think you need an education before you try to write on such topics. That's a myth that's been put to bed by real, scientific clinical research trials. You need to stop getting your info from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
I'd hate to be the one to tell you, but while it's unfortunate that money spent on drugs goes to terrorist organizations (not all of it by the way because about 50% of marijuana is domestically grown), drug users aren't going to let that stop them from having a good time. It's not my reason for not buying drugs, either. That's the government's problem. They are screwing us and selling us short with this prohibiition crap. Need a history lesson? Look back at alcohol prohibition. Remember a guy named Al Capone? Prohibition breeds crime - just admit it. End the war on drugs and you end the sponsorship of crime. You can try to regulate peoples morales about what they do to their own bodies, but it means jack. Drug abuse has never went down despite the continually increasing penalties; people just talk less about it nowadays.
And before you go talking about the dangers of drugs, just remember that tobacco (legal) kills 430,000 people per year in the US and alcohol (legal) kills about 200,000 per year. Illicit drugs (all illicit drugs combined) kill less than 10,000 per year. Until people use logic and open their eyes to these facts (and the fact that only a dictatorship tells people what they can and can't put in their own bodies), drug related problems will continue on.
I believe in a change! Much of Barack Obama's electoral strength now lied with the western states. And in recent years, the momentum towards medical marijuana and a more general deprioritising of marijuana arrests has centered in these states, as well as a handful of states on the east coast and in the industrial Midwest.
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