I figured as much.
Being one who has dealt with allergies my whole life, I have been really, really annoyed that I can buy no more than a 10 day supply of decongestant now that government officials have decided that restricting the sale of pseudo-ephedrine, the ingredient used for basement meth labs, is the answer to the drug problem. There is a new drug coming on the market called phenylephrine, but I'd have to buy two pills since none of the anti-histamines I use have moved to using phenylephrine. Who knows if they ever will.
So has restricting the sale of the drug worked? Sort of. There are, in fact, fewer basement meth labs, which do pose public health hazards beyond drug addiction: the by products of meth production are highly toxic and (obviously) never disposed of properly and meth labs have a tendency to blow up. Has drug consumption decreased? Nope. Now we're just importing more crystal meth, a more potent variety, from Mexico, and because the Mexican variety is more expensive, drug related crime is up.1
I just don't get it. Several months ago I read about the latest efforts at combating cocaine production in Columbia. Law enforcement officials, egged on by U.S. policies, had taken to spraying coca farms with defoliant. So what did the drug traffickers do? They moved their farms into national parks and wilderness areas where laws forbid the spraying of defoliants. Now, not only can the government not spray, but the drug traffickers are also burning acres of rain forest and poisoning the water with chemicals.2 How long before people pull their heads out of their asses and finally grasp the concept you cannot win the "War on Drugs" by trying to eliminate supply. These people are criminals. They don't give a frogs fat ass about anything but money: not the law, not the land, not the lives destroyed by drugs.
More and more I am losing patience with our drug policies dictated by religious mores. Drugs are a sin, so we cannot countenance drug use of any kind and to have the U.S. government involved in the drug trade is absolutely unconscionable and not open for discussion. And yet, if the U.S. government strictly controlled distribution of drugs at a price cheaper than the streets, not only would we not be destroying acres of rainforest, drug related crime would likely go down, and we would have direct access to the people who are the root of the problem and be able to offer counseling and assistance in kicking the habit altogether.
I am admittedly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, it seems a much smarter solution than anything else that has been tried. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results. The "War on Drugs" crossed that line a long time ago. Drugs still flow into this country pretty much unchecked. Drug consumption has not diminished in any significant way. All they have succeeded in doing is making it a pain for honest people to get the medication they need.
January 23rd, 2006 - 12:30
The “War on Drugs” has been a disaster on many fronts. Can’t we learn from history? What did the experiment with Prohibition produce? Corrupt police, gang control, diversion of the court and prison systems, inducing children to drink, “bathtub gin” which blinded or killed people, sound familiar?
This is not a Liberal/Conservative issue either, people in both camps are skeptical.
Could we learn from others’ experience? The Dutch have legalized drugs for at least a decade. How has that worked out?
Like you, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of the government dispensing drugs, but I’d like to see it discussed. That’s unlikely though, in today’s political climate.