December 18, 2005
War On Drugs Department
Sending Children a Dangerous Message
One of the most annoying responses to proposals to relax the drug war is the assertion that doing so would send the wrong message to the children. Even allowing sick people to smoke marijuana has been criticized this way.
Pete Guither at Drug WarRant is asking what message are we sending by continuing the senseless war on drugs. Here are a few of my favorite responses of his and his readers:
"Lying is OK when adults are talking about drugs."
"If you make a mistake regarding drug use, we're going to make sure that your friends are too afraid to get help that might save you."
"If you're going to use drugs, we want to make sure that you get them from a criminal[...]"
"You have no rights. We can come and test your blood or your urine or search you whenever we feel like it. You're property."
"We use sick people as a tool for our political purposes. We don't care whether they are in pain or die from a lack of medicine."
"Non-violent drug posession is more serious than sexual assault or armed-robbery." (Ben Heumann)
"If drugs are outlawed, only outlaws (and sick people and kids and casual users and drug abusers and criminals and politicians and homemakers and rock stars and the elderly and professors and steelworkers and journalists and day laborers and teens and actors) will have drugs." (Baylen Linnekin of To the People)
"We believe there is logic in allowing an easily grown weed to sell for more than gold with only criminals making the profit from it." (Kwix)
"It's better to tear a family apart than to permit someone to possess a leaf. Snitch on your family and friends, it's the right thing to do. Drugs decrease your ability to perform your job, so they should be banned. Performance-enhancing drugs increase your ability to perform your job, so they should be banned. Drugs are bad because they're illegal, and they're illegal because they're bad." (Bruce)
That last guy could work for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He's really got their talking points down cold.
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