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Drugs, Guns and Money
(Santa Fe New Mexican, 12-10-02)
Just about everone hates the War on Drugs. Public officials and pundits at every point along the political spectrum, from the governors of New Mexico and Minnesota to the former mayor of Baltimore, have railed against its wastefulness; Detroit Police Chief Jerry Oliver blames it for exacerbating inner-city crime. William F. Buckley calls it a "plague that consumes an estimated $75 billion per year in public money"; Christopher Hitchens has labeled it "grotesque, state-sponsored racketeering." . . . The U.S. government spends over $40 billion annually to promote the cause of a drug-free America, while Bob Dole appears on national television shilling for Viagra. Marijuana is non-lethal and non-addictive, but you can't talk about it on the phone; Xanax is known to be dangerously addictive and Valium is responsible for thousands of deaths by overdose every year, but both are readily available with the click of a mouse. . . . The DEA, in an effort to make wayward states comply with the federal ban on any kind of marijuana use, has stooped so low that it's raiding California hospices and carting away the terminally ill. . . . In fact, by the end of "Busted," which concludes with Lester Grinspoon, M.D., reminding us that, among other things, if cannabis could be patented and profited from, it would be legal by now, it seems clear that the solution to both the drug war and our national drug problem is, ironically, to legalize all drugs - from heroin to methamphetamine to LSD. . . . Dr. Charles Grob's "Politics of Ecstasy," written by one of the bravest and most outspoken proponents of clinical MDMA in the medical establishment, rings axiomatically true. . . . It's not likely that someone like Senator Orrin Hatch, who gets a half a million dollars every campaign season from the same pharmaceutical industry that bankrolled the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, is going to pick up "Busted" and experience some sort of lightning-bolt flash of sagacity that will induce him to stop sponsoring bills that extend the draconian provisions of the crack-house law to raves. But as a source of ammunition for opponents of the drug war, a manifesto of reason, and a document of where our drug policy stands now, Gray has compiled an invaluable and comprehensive reference.

posted by LoZo 9:01 AM