This past week Wolcott High School in Connecticut went into lockdown. The school authorities announced over the intercom that there was a threatening intruder in the building and the kids needed to get into their classrooms to be safe. Good sound advice, except for one thing: there was no intruder. It was a lie perpetuated in order to allow the police to enter and do a random drug search. Fear is a great motivator. Scared people will give up all kinds of things to “feel” safe. However fear can also incite violence and extreme actions depending on the nature of it. After recent situations like Virginia Tech I can only imagine being a teen in that school and hearing that an intruder was in the building that was of such a danger I needed to go hide in my classroom. Yet it was brushed off as “typical” by the authorities. Oh… no drugs were found anywhere.
This might lead some rational folks to ponder how did we get to a point where its OK to lie and possibly cause panic just to do a random drug search? Answer: Because fear has been used as a motivator to demonize drugs and make people fear them worse than that damage caused by the actions to stop them. This leads citizens to believe any action justifies waging a fierce battle against them. This intense “war” on drugs is what allowed this situation to happen among a great many other dangerous and harmful things. It is also why the police now militarize against their own citizens doing over 70,000 RAIDS a year (including the one they did on me) for mostly non-violent drug offenses.
Don’t get me wrong… drugs such as cocaine and heroin are definitely not a good thing to put in ones’ body. They cause damage, no doubt. But choosing to take them does not seem to be a call for a military attack. I promi
se you, having been the victim of a raid, it is indeed a military attack. Again, we have been taught that illicit drugs are the evil of all evils. This is false. If we were going to define evil by what harms us we’d certainly have to put smoking and drinking at the very top of the list. Tobacco and alcohol kill more people each year than all of the people killed by all the illegal drugs in the last century. Any logical thought at all can see something is a bit off here. We’ve been conditioned as such that when we hear that a drug bust has happened we immediately think “Yeah! They’re getting rid those bad old drug dealers and users!”. We need to rethink that big time. As I’ve said many times things are seldom as they appear… and by seldom I mean never.
So let me be really clear and let me also clarify that there are thousands of police officers, judges, prison guards etc. that back this up:
The reason schools have a big drug problem is BECAUSE of the War on Drugs.
The reason we have so much violence and crime is BECAUSE of the War on Drugs.
The reason we have more prisoners than any nation is BECAUSE of the War on Drugs.
The reason our addiction rates are so high in the U.S. is BECAUSE of the War on Drugs.
We’ve been lied to. We’ve been manipulated. Our streets are less safe, our kids are dying as are many others. The police have no time to deal with actual dangerous crimes because all their time is taken up chasing users and dealers. Drug addiction is incredibly high in the U.S. more so than most other countries. Deaths due to police raids and drug dealers protecting themselves is sky high. And lets not forget the billions being drained from our unstable economy to fight this drug war that could be placed elsewhere. At this point you might ask why do the authorities continue to do something that causes so much harm? To put it succinctly here are the words of Judge James Gray:
“We pursue it [War on Drugs] not because it is effective but it is fundable.” Judge Gray
And back we come again to unbridled capitalism and making money at all costs, even lives. Billions have been spent funding the War on Drugs. Billions go out to corporations who make money off mass incarceration and private prisons. Its big business and a huge profit center. And its so easy to learn this info. Its not like its hidden, you just have to look. Americans need to start looking. A wonderful place to start is the LEAP web site: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. www.leap.cc. Here you can read and listen to videos of police officers, ex-narcotic agents, judges, lawyers, etc. who will tell you in no uncertain terms what the war on drugs is really about and why it is so harmful.
One final thing to reflect on… when was the last time you heard of someone pushing alcohol at a school or trying to sell it on a street corner? You don’t. Why? Because its not profitable. Making something illegal that people by the millions are going to take anyway only creates a black market. Supply and demand, its as simple as that, which is exactly what occurred with alcohol prohibition in the 20s and 30s and why it was repealed. You make drugs legal and regulate them, just like we did with alcohol, and the dealers disappear. Crime goes down dramatically. Violence goes down dramatically. Prison population goes down dramatically. End of story. This is not remotely about justifying or saying drug abuse is OK. Its about the reality of the situation and helping rather than harming. When you focus on drug addiction as a medical problem, which is what it is, rather than a moral one, and offer treatment and education rather than a jail cell, addiction goes down. This is about saving lives, lessening crime and violence, lessening addiction. The War on Drugs is a colossal failure and the harm that continues to be done is astronomical, which thousands of honest officials and reliable organizations have proven.
So when you hear the US Drug Czar justify it, remember… his very well paid job depends on him doing so. You need to listen to people of integrity who have seen it up close and personal and know what its doing and how it affects law enforcement, crime, violence and death. That’s where you will get the truth. This issue is part and parcel of what the Occupy Wall Street is all about… corporate greed at the expense of the people. The ramification and harm done to our society from this particular situation should be at the top of our concern list because, just as the other issues of OWS, this one too effects us all.
~Nancy
[...] 25, 2011 No Comments ›› [...]