Columbia is in a state of civil war, and hundreds of civilians died in
the American attempt to bring accused drug dealer Manuel Noriega to trial.
In Washington, DC a reading teacher, trying to persuade her fourth graders
to read at home, urges them to take a pillow and read in the bathtub --
the last place a stray bullet would be likely to reach. And some people
still say that ending drug prohibition would be a dangerous social experiment.
(David Boaz, The Consequences of Prohibition).
The notion of legalizing drugs is still socially unfathomable. Even with
proven failure of the law to prevent drug abuse, people want to believe
it will work. It is a type of denial. The L word is considered by many to
be taboo, so we try to find other words to use ... a hook as the advertising
business would call it. No matter what words we use, they are translated
into legalization and thus ignored.
Somehow we have to break the mind-set that legal drugs would be easier
to procure than illegal drugs. It is abundantly clear that illegal ones
are everywhere.
And, we have to convince people that if the law were going to be a successful
way to end drug abuse, we would have seen improvement by now! The time is long overdue for a new approach.
History Lesson #10: The glamorization
of alcohol and tobacco was a form of drug pushing. All drugs must be understood
for what they are -- scientifically -- not demonized, not glamorized.
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