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The War On Some Drugs
Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,
Drugs are a charged subject everywhere. Longtime readers know that although I personally abstain from drugs and generally eschew the company of users, I think they should be 100% legal.
Few people consider how arbitrary the current prohibition is; up until the 1920s, heroin and cocaine were both perfectly legal and easily obtainable over the counter. Some people “abused” them, just like some today “abuse” fat and sugar (because they’re enjoyable).
But drugs are no more of a problem than anything else; life is full of problems. In fact, life isn’t just full of problems; life is problems. What is a problem? It’s simply the situation of having to choose between two or more alternatives. Personally, I believe in people being free to choose, and I rigorously shun the company of people who don’t.
Hysteria and propaganda aside, the fact is that most recreational drugs pose less of a health problem than alcohol, nicotine, or simple lack of exercise.
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (of whom I’m a great fan) was an aficionado of opium products. Sigmund Freud enjoyed cocaine. Churchill is supposed to have drunk a quart of whiskey daily. Dr. William Halstead, father of modern surgery and cofounder of Johns Hopkins University, was a regular user throughout his long and illustrious career, which included inventing local anesthesia after injecting cocaine into his skin.
Insofar as recreational drugs present a problem, it arises partly from overuse, which is not only arbitrary, but can be true of absolutely anything. The problem comes, however, mainly from the fact that they’re illegal.
Alcohol provides the classic example. It wasn’t much of a problem in the US before the enactment of Prohibition in 1920, and it hasn’t been one since its repeal in 1933. Making a product illegal artificially and unnecessarily turns both users and suppliers into criminals.
Because illegality makes any product vastly more expensive than it would be in a free market, some users resort to crime to finance their habits. Because of the risks and artificially reduced supply, the profits to the suppliers are necessarily huge - not the simple businessman’s returns to be had from legal products.
Just as Prohibition of the ’20s turned the Mafia from a small underground group of thugs into big business, the War on Drugs has done precisely the same thing for drug dealers. It’s completely insane and totally counterproductive.
Frankly, if you want to worry about drugs, it would be more appropriate to be concerned about the scores of potent psychiatric drugs from Ritalin to Prozac that are actively pushed in the US, often turning users into anything from zombies, to space cadets, to walking time bombs. But that’s another story more relevant to address at some point - likely years in the future, when it’s again time to consider whether US drug stocks are buys.
The whole drill impresses me as being so perversely stupid as to border on the surreal. Insofar as the Drug War diminishes supply of product, it raises prices. The higher the prices, the higher the profits. And the higher the profits, the greater the inducement to youngsters anxious to get into the game. The more successful it is in imprisoning people, the more people it draws into the business.
Meanwhile, a trumpeted “success” tends to increase funding from the US government. Some of that money succeeds in driving up prices to the benefit of producers, but a lot of it finds its way into the pockets of officials. That further entrenches corruption at all levels.
The only answer to the War on Drugs is the same as that to the equally stupid and destructive War on Demon Rum fought during the ’20s - a repeal of prohibition.
These are arguments entirely apart from the most important one, which deals with ethics. The question is really whether you have a right to control your own body and what you ingest. There’s little question that caffeine, cocaine, nicotine, heroin, alcohol, marijuana, sugar, and a thousand other things aren’t good for you, at least not in quantity. But I can’t see how that’s anybody’s business but your own. Once it becomes a matter of state concern, then everything becomes an equally legitimate subject of state attention. Which is pretty much where we are today - well on the way to a police state.
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Prohibition has never worked in the history of the world.
1.) Follow the money/vested interests
2.) The hippy Birkenstock Vietnam protester doobie ingesting free everything sect have become bloody Nazis.
Take 'way m' hopium and bitchez 'gon die.
It's all about control.
A gift of nature.
The State really doesn't care about drugs. They just want their cut. Alcohol is a natural microbial byproduct. Anyone with a simple skill set can create it but do so and you find yourself in jail unless you register and pay tax.
This issue is the power of the State not what substance people choose to put in their bodies.
Miffed
They may not care about drugs but they are hysterical about vaccines. Your (?) and knuks' state is coming after you with the needle! And ye shall drink the nectar of Merck....http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-vaccine-mandate-bill-up-...
They care not for public health. This is a ruse. In reality, the measles and whooping cough outbreak occurred in a high rate of children who were vaccinated. The measles outbreak has been traced to a strain common in the Philippines. Populations who are immunized against one strain may not confer immunity against another depending how divergent the strain is. There are antigenic shifts and drifts that can influence this too. Also any given individual may not seroconvert on exposure to the vaccine therefore they are susceptible. Many variables are in play here so any conclusions are strictly conjecture. But it makes for some damn good fear mongering in an unsuspecting, unquestioning public.
Your damn right about one thing. I've got to get out of this state. Every year I deny the flu shot and every year it becomes harder. If everyone would just read the package insert on this vaccine about its efficacy, they would understand why it is not worth taking.
A willingness to extend your arm shows pliancy. Something the State relishes.
Miffed
Here's a link to Mike Adam's article on said flu shot inserts:
http://www.naturalnews.com/048422_flu_shot_scientific_fraud_controlled_t...
Read it and weep, pro vaxxer's.
The State really doesn't care about drugs
I call BS.
The Deep State - the CIA in particular has been neck deep in illegal drugs since WWII. Opium - and its derivative morphine - were integral to war needs. They've been deeply interested in drugs - opium in particular - since WWI given the need for painkillers with massive casualties in troops.
The OSS - morphing into the CIA - was a bunch of Yalies whose ancestors were involved in the Opium trade with the British going waay back... The Brits were the ones pushing opium onto China but others were involved (and remember that opiates and cocaine were all LEGAL in the US until the 1920's). Post WWII the CIA (who utterly failed to see Mao winning and China going Communist) saw former Nationalist Chinese generals making fortunes in Laos off Opium
The CIA jumped in during Vietnam. AIr America - the CIA's air carrier - carried arms into Laos and guess what ? out. The CIA was integral to the expansion of cocaine in the US (and the crack epidemic) using coke to fund the CONTRAS - at least that was the official explanation, it justified Presidential pardons. Truth seems to be less noble - I'll bet the CIA and other Deep State agencies have really good 'off the books' retirement plans. The CIA got millions and millions out of the trade and used a lot of it to buy power and influence in high olaces (Google Mena Arkansas...... The Bush family and the Clintons are owned by the Deep State. Obama's mother's family (and he himself) have links as well....but that's another story - a massive Manchurian Candidate op designed to make sure no real change occurred after the disgust and outrage after Bush II. God forbid you actually HAD real change - couldn't have THAT. People going to prison for war crimes, for financial crimes......? no that wouldn't do... we must 'move forward'. And when people screamed..... look at how the 'terrorist' group Occupy Wall Street was treated simply for saying 'something is wrong here'. The Tea Party simply got bought out - you don't hear them talking about bankers anymore. But notice that NOBODY was screaming about 'war crimes'....... great management of the media and controlling the meme.
but back to drugs.....
There was no sign of a heroin epidemic in the US in 2000. The Taliban were executing growers in Afghanistan and 2001 opium production was at a record low. Hell.... we were calling them best buddies, having them tour DC and trying to get a pipeline built through Afghanistan before 9/11...... (oil trumps drugs).
NOW, after more than a dozen years of the US in Afghanistan we have heroin everywhere (coincidentally after a crack down on prescription opiates like Oxycontin which were all too widely available for decades). Rumor has it you've got Opium and processed base going to Kosovo where labs process it into H. And WHO was 'keeping the peace' after Yugoslavia broke up ? There's a nice graphic showing opium flows with LOTS going into the Balkans - but not showing any going out..... Anyone ever check military transports? They were well used during Vietnam and withthe CONTRA mess.....
Face it.... we have a HUGE and growing 'underclass' - the poor and former blue collar (now unemployed) who are regularly drugged up - 'self-medicated'.
The genius of it is that government has the masses paying for its own SOMA. The Deep State makes a fortune providing the stuff. A huge number of users are committing a crime simply by using - making them subject to arrest - and fodder for the prison-industrial complex. Of course the high end users (Inverstment Bankers and such) paying high prices rarely get nabbed.....
At the same time the mere presence of illegal drugs justifies the 'War on Drugs' - giving the police state more and more funding - and justifying the violation of Constitutional rights.
The Deep State profits via sales, profits via government funding for the 'War on Drugs' and gets increased powers in the process.
Seems like a win-win-win-win-win for TPTB..... a drugged compliant underclass dependent on gov but one that can be arrested almost at will and fed into the prison system while he rights of ALL are increasingly limited and the power of the state expanded.
Think of it as the ultimate 'False Flag' operation with the nation's own citizens as the victims on a mass scale..... blame 'the drug lords'........ but who is really profitting and who benefits the most? Truly sick but brilliant in the way it accomplished so many goals in controlling the citizenry.
I vote for both.
For a non-user it's daft to pen an essay on drugs.
Doug Casey is a closeted heroin user. I know this as factual. He pens this article as a way to contemplate cessation.
"For a non-user it's daft to pen an essay on drugs."
Please explain.
We non-users are being directly affected daily by the violence from both sides (the dealers and the cops against them). Not to have an opinion on a topic that so demostrably influences our daily lives seems like willful ignorance to me.
Even non-users are affected by more than just the violence you mention. Every time someone seeks medical assistance on the public's dime for problems arising from drug use, or for that matter careless driving or careless sex, a taxpayer is affected. From my perspective, that's immoral. I'd be more amenable to legalization of drugs if anyone who indulged was forced to either pay his own medical expenses or find others willing to foot the bill. Same goes for any other behavior that may transfer expenses onto others. An old saying comes to mind: he who pays the piper calls the tune.
I may be libertarian enough to believe that people have the right to ingest any mind-altering substance that they desire. Others have the right to be safe from those that do so.
If you have purchased a firearm, you must affirm that you do not use illegal drugs. I believe that it is a reasonable restriction. I am unaware of any instances of enforcement, but in my state, a report of public intoxication, etc, could jeopardize your concealed weapon permit. It should probably jeopardize your right to keep and bear arms in general.
How do you defend yourself or your family when you are high? Many substances cause the users to be helpless, or worse, dangerous. Should a person under the influence of mind-altering drugs have access to firearms, automobiles, or even power tools and sharp objects, for that matter? They may have the right, but in exercising it, they forfeit more important rights and make themselves wards of their more responsible family members, neighbors, and fellow citizens, if only temporarily.
With rights come grave responsibilities.
It's a good thing people don't lie about drug use and their reasons for purchasing firearms; just like they don't lie to their spouses about cheating or the IRS.
Doxycycline and Lyme disease
Lyme disease came from Plum Island
Ebola came from Kenema labs in Sierra Leone.
I thought drinking Coronas was the genesis of lime disease.
They should really have a war on pharmaceuticals. Because these scientists lie thru their teeth about the nefarious effect of their drugs.
https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2014/07/17/puzzled-scientists/
We've more than arrived at a police state, Mr. Casey.
I'm not sure we can even afford a police state anymore.
It may be a moot point.
Without overtime pay, the police are going to go home and watch Gilligan's Island like the rest of us.
We need war on banksters and their money. Let them eat it.
There is a world without bankster's money we just need to open our eyes.
Know your enemy, know what their money is for:
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/plutus-and-the-myth-o...
Long over due is the WAR on Rx aka Big Pharm.
I'm more concerned with this austerity rush that's putting folks with severe mental health issues (who should be on some medication or other ) roaming the streets.
So while the article is premised on the idea that individuals should control what goes into their bodies, we now are considering forcing meds into some others? Do we really know enough to judge who needs drugs and who doesn't? Will Obama declare people who cling bitterly to their guns and God to be mentally ill and in need of mandatory sedation?
This sort of thinking leads to SOMA and Brave New World. Gotta keep the sheeple calm, after all!
Sherlock Holmes was mainly known for cocaine use (7% Solution) and frowned upon the use of opium and opium dens.
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. If you want to look at real examples of serious drug addicts look at Hitler, Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, Michael Jackson...............
Actually, Holmes used cocaine and opium, much to Dr. Watson's chagrin.
Carl Sagan, arguably one of the best thinkers this species has produced danced with mary jane.
He claimed it responsible for breakthroughs in his thinking and maybe appetite too.
His wife was involved with NORML.
He was an idol of mine when I was growing up, but realized when I was older that he was a mediocre scientist ("exobiologist", puhl-ese!), and missed his true calling - 5th grade science teacher. He was really good explaining science to kids.
He was much better at promoting himself than he would have been at teaching 5th grade science.
I wish it worked that way with me, and I liked the taste and smell but it makes me lazy and stupid.
Everyone is different though. I think pot should be legal, because after Im done with my working life, I just mght want to get lazy and stupid again.
I used to be a heavy user. I agree 100% with this article. I would agree with it even if I hadn't enjoyed drugs or known people who had. It's a liberty thing.
However, I take exception to the author's snide remarks about psychiatric drugs. You can argue they are prescribed to the wrong people. You can argue they are over prescribed. In both arguments you might be right. However, it cannot be denied that for many people psychiatric drugs greatly improve their quality of life. I know that unmedicated my life is much worse. It is almost unbearable. Keep me in mind the next time you trash these medicines.
"Alcohol provides the classic example. It wasn’t much of a problem in the US before the enactment of Prohibition in 1920, and it hasn’t been one since its repeal in 1933. Making a product illegal artificially and unnecessarily turns both users and suppliers into criminals."
What bullshit. Being married to the daughter of an alcoholic I have a different take on this. It ravages families. Imagine being free to choose to be an alcoholic. Asshole.
He did not say it was not a problem, he sad "it wasn’t much of a problem". Making it illegal made it a much bigger problem.
Is being a alcoholic a crime, no.
Can you be put in jail just for being a alcoholic, no.
Imagine how much worse the situations would be for the alcoholic and the family if alcohol was an illigal drug.
So your solution is to make your problem someone else's problem?
Other people are not your property. Asshole.
Property
2. (Law) law the right to possess, use, and dispose of anything
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/property
The catch comes in being allowed to possess, use and dispose of anything in such a way that said actions do not have or pose a deleterious effect on others. Can I possess a pound of plutonium and store it near my neighbor's house? Can I possess a sample of smallpox and decide to dispose of it by tossing it in a public wastebin?
Your right to swing your fist stops before it hits my face.
Hey, 'asshole' I am an alcoholic. I currently choose not to drink. Maybe later I will decide to return to it. It is my choice either way. Who are you to get involved in my business?
It ravages SOME families. Sorry for your situation, but my family does just fine with it, thank you.
Based on my experiences, I say let's ban FOOTBALL - waste of time and intentionally violent. A burden on the people and a ravager of families and men's minds.
Can I have my way, now?? Huh??
Ban both what Americans call FOOTBALL and what much of the rest of the world calls FOOTBALL (soccer to US types.) Heading a soccer ball can cause brain damage.
If we prevent even ONE brain injury it is worth it...(that last was sarcasm of course, but I really do not enjoy watching soccer being played.)
If I have learned one thing in life is people are people and people are different.
because one teen drives like a maniac all teens should not be allowed to drive!
Because your mother in law could not handle alcohol, we all should not be able to consume!
Because pot makes him lazy and stupid we all should not have any. Pot makes me get off my ass and go... it also makes my mind think creatively and very vividly....
Certain people have addictive personalities.
I started drinking with my friends and smoking pot when I was twelve, I never developed need for alcohol or pot, and I have drank and smoked a lot... the best tennis match I ever played by far was imediately after smoking a big doob...
I am a sucessfull buisness owner in a very technological type of industry...
I am far more intelligent than any of my lazy tv additted friends...I rarely watch tv, I read ZH daily, and am always learning about something! I just wish I had the knowledge of the internet when I was young!
As for pot being a gateway drug, i should be a coke and heorin additiced freak...
Life is about choices, making the choice to be somebody or making the choice to sit around get fat watch tv drink and drink and drink until you are addicted. or sit and do coke instead of going to work.
CHOICES
It makes sense to ban something because a few people have problems with it. That is why peanut butter it the scourge of the USA. BAN PEANUT BUTTER!
Your right it's a liberty thing. It's a liberty that McConnel is pushing though TPP fast track while his family is running cocaine shipments.
It's obvious McCain's on Speed or is Senile and befriends/entertains Terrorists. Maybe they're lifting the opium for him and it's not paid up MIC business.
Who Knows?
sugar is probably the most potent and deadly drug of them all.
Not sugar itself, but the fructose component. The sucrose component is relativly harmless.
Maybe, but it's the doses you get of sucrose in normal food that may be the safety factor - nothing like the mega doses you get of fructose in processed food.
You need glucose to absorb riboflavin. Your metabolism isn't going to do anything unless you have sugar, and this is portion controlled.
As I tell my fellow Christians - What was Carrie Nation's legacy to America? Organized Crime.
Trying to stem the tide of human desire is a fool's errand even if you believe a certain thing is immoral. A proper reading of the Old and New Testaments has no prescription to crusade about stuff you eat, drink, snort, or shoot up. It only warns that you should not be "mastered" by anything (a personal assessment - your liberty).
While I agree that scripture is a lot more concerned with you choosing to stay away from "mastering" drugs than it is trying to get you to pass a law against them, I also think a proper reading of the OT and NT brings us to conclusions which are in conflict with the premises of libertarianism. This includes "self-ownership" and "delegation and symmetry" and several other ideas. The classical western view of government is at odds with all of these ideas, and this view produced a lot of human liberty. It would take a whole book to flesh this out, and here is that book. http://www.amazon.com/Localism-Defended-between-Anarchy-Central/dp/09962...
I have no problem legalizing drugs, just don't ask me to support the addicts or their children.
They don't ask you. They tell you. Therein lies the problem.
"I have no problem legalizing drugs, just don't ask me to support the addicts or their children."
That's fine. Seemingly, you don't mind supporting private prison industry and civil assets confiscating cops in the current scheme of things.
You support them now if you are a taxpayer!
you pay for their lawyer their day in court, their Dr in prison as well as their prison stay, with their gym equipment their cable tv etc....
Alcohol was a serious problem in America in the late 19th and early 20th century. Why do you think prohibition was such an important issue?
Prohibition did a great deal of good and not much harm, to find out the truth read "Booze" by James H Gray, someone who was there, lived it, and did the research to find out the truth.
You can't go by movies and stories, if you did you would think drugs were a carefree glamorous thing. Anybody who has been around knows the truth about drugs and alcohol. Anybody who says they are harmless is either ignorant or a liar.
I've used more drugs, and drank more alcohol, than you and your entire extended family put together. In my expert opinion they should be legal to use.
I smoked a lot of pot in high school, but after that, not so much. The effect on me was I couldn't concentrate or remember things, and it killed ambition. My grades went to shit and my Dad saw right through my stupid excuses.
I've been smokin' pot & hash for decades, wendigo. Don't think for a second that you have fired up more reefers than moi. And my alcoholic buddies have drank more than you guaranteed. Hell, one of my alcoholic buddies drank so much booze that his bloodstream indicates too much phosphorous, and he was forced to quit. This was after he invited another alcoholic to drink at his house and accidentally burn it to the ground. As if that was not enough, he then went bankrupt due to being more interested in drinking than paying his overdue bills that were piling up. In sum, a real booze hounds burn their house to the ground in a fit of drunken forgetfulness, and incompetence.
I notice you don't say they are harmless.
This is too easy. Prohibition turned common thugs into ruthless businessmen. I call the same to you - liar and a follower of "stories", but the movie "The Roaring Twenties" is a perfect period piece.
I REFUSE to give up my liberty becasause SOME people can't handle the soup. And, yes, Carrie Nation was a man-hating witch. Her father was a violent man and her mother was mentally ill. Not a good place to cultivate a "balanced" and reasoned individual.
Has not the "War on Drugs" taught you anything???
If you really believe the world would be a better place if drugs were freely available, there are such places in the world and even in this country. I don't see too many people who want to live in such places, but there are plenty who would love to get out.
If you think I'm saying that having all drugs freely available is some kind of libertarian nirvana, you're dead wrong. But let me make myself clear in current terms - I'd rather live in a country where drugs are legal than to live now in the US worrying about a cop using "narcotics activity" as a reason for an arbitrary CIVIL FORFEITURE.
I don' think I can be more clear about my stand on the issue than that.
Bad law enforcement is a different problem from drugs. But if you really want to go live where drugs are freely available what is stopping you?
everything is fine but some will always have a problem ....
most guns never kill, but all should have theirs taken away because of a few.
most drivers don't kill. Should we stop all drivers?
You cannot paint everything with the same brush!...
Cocaine is a neurotoxin that is unsafe for the brain/Central Nervous System, and causes damage to brain tissue, and whole sectors of the brain. There is no safe level of usage with regard to Cocaine. Moreover, the damage caused by Cocaine is irreparable over time. In brief, Cocaine is a don't do drug that is often characterized as the third scourge on humanity. Sigmund Freud is credited historically for unleashing the third scourge on humanity back in the 1890s when he published Uber Coca, and lauded the use of Cocaine therapeutically until he noticed addictive properties in terms of his own use of Cocaine. Actually, Freud was snorting medical grade Cocaine that was pretty well 98% pure Bolivian Flake. It's no wonder he prescribed it initially to his colleagues in Medicine.
There are limits to personal freedom, and those limits are generally accepted to be where my behavior infringes on your life and liberties - and therein lies the problem. If drug users could be insulated in such a way that their behavior had no negative effects on others, I'd be all for unlimited drug legalization. Hell, I'd be for government subsidies so the herd could be thinned back to the healthy critters more quickly. But there is no such safety mechanism; and until there is (very unlikely to impossible), I don't want to increase the odds of becoming an unwilling participant in some drug-addled fantasy.
There is another problem no one but me seems to have noticed. Liberty rests on personal responsibility, and that rests on mental competence. We don't hold certain people responsible, such as children, those who are mentally incompetent by nature, or because of injury or disease. There is also an old principle in law, of diminished responsibility due to alcohol or drugs.
So if alcohol and drugs affect your brain - and why else do people use them? Then it stands to reason that a person under the influence is NOT a responsible person and is NOT capable of making sound, rational decisions.
Therefore the "liberty" to use drugs or the "libertarian" argument is bunk. The drugs themselves make the person incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions.
This is hardly news to anyone with much experience with drugs or alcohol, I wonder why no one points it out to the "freedom to be an asshole" brigade.
Since Wall Street is now high on meth, I mean ahem! "Molly"- whose quality controlling that shit?
The FDA? CDC? AMA? Duhmericans can't even take personal responsibility to quality control their diet.
Yeah "legalize it"- we've seen what they've done with our tax dollars.
If you're on subsidies of ANY kind, I do support drug testing. I'm not just refering to welfare recipients, but Vets, social security beneficiaries, medical/medicare recipients,
The U.S. doesn't stand a chance in hell against big pharma. I'm impressed that Japan can stay healthy enough to where their healthcare sector isn't considered a money maker and that their centaurians are smokers. When I was there, nobody made a big deal about skinny people like they do in the states. But looking at American Caucaisans was NOT easy on the eyes after you've been there. It has to "go there" and Americans do have the potential to be clever about it.
But it's too status quo to be a glutton and take no personal responsibility (ie. excessive borrowing from the banks on that mortgage, equity lines, getting jobs you're not qualified for because you want the money, rushing the cops from behind and getting a gun in your face, etc.)
When I was at the doctors a few times, a "skinny" adult female was 180 pounds, 40 somethings were jabbing on about MRIs, a young black patient was desperately trying to switch his statins... the nurses were MEAN and not healthy.
I've only managed to motivate people through jealosuy. I hate to say that. It's something- but I'm seen as a stuck up bitch whose full of herself in the process. But so be it, I was sick and and had to fix my own "uncurable" situation. I can't believe out of 360 million Duhmericans, I was the only one who solved that riddle.
When you do the right things for your health, you're loosening Big Pharma's grip and the positive results will show in the blood work if not your waist ine.
But if anyone needs an argument to not do drugs? Look at it this way. You gain a boat load of fucking weight in and after rehab. Not due to a "poor diet", but because these chemicals prepped by homicidal sociopathic dealers/cartels mess up your metabolism, which needs your brain and stuff. You can gain more weight with rehab than through pregnancy. And I've seen Asians go back to their double digit pre-partum weight after 2 kids.
I'm so not paying for someone else's meth trip when it only returns me racism, headache and problems. No thank you.
As you can see, I'm a fan of a healthy economy and not AFfordable Care Act- but people need something in emergencies and complicated situations.
The war on drugs is actually a war on the taxpayer.
It Employs;
cops
judges
prison guards
lawyers
bankers
politicians
criminals
Coroners
prison construction
gun dealers/ammo
When a country abdicates personal responsibility, becoming the most litigous country in the world by far, everyone must accept the loss of personal soveriegnty and freedom. Hence, drug laws, helmet laws, seatbelt laws, pools with no diving boards, no riding in back of pickups, etc. etc... Due to the assumption of risk by gov and insurance companies, individuals no longer call their own shots. Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.
We're all addicts. If you eat or drink anything else other than meat and water (the only two substances that humans aren't allergic to) then you're an addict. You may delude yourself that eating fruits and veggies is healthy but both contain varying amounts of fructose. And by the time you reach 40+ your body can't process fructose and you start to put on weight, however much you exercise.
If your addictions don't harm others then be happy and enjoy them.
If more chalks ate the same drugs the cops eat - meth and roids - this would move forward quick.
BE PREPARED
When the FBI took down Silk Road not many people had heard of buying drugs on the Dark Net.
But all the publicity was a massive boost to those that also sold on the Dark Net and business exploded (not on Silk Road, but other sites).
Call me paranoid, but the last HRH Tony Blair British govt were soooo concerned about peoples' eating habits that Harriet Hatemen (Minister for interferring into peoples lives and general busybodying) wanted to pass a law which banned me from eating sausages for breakfast and from eating mushrooms after 8pm at night. Doubtless she would eventually have banned sausages altogether on grounds they were sexist, due to the resemblance to a male organ.
Can you believe it.
Nanny State socialism knows no limits. Nanny knows best.
The "War on Drugs", just like every other declared "War" (poverty, cancer, other nations, etc.), is a racket. Someone is set to make money on both sides of the issue at hand. Just think of the money being made on each side in the WOD: In the supply chain from grower to end-user, with premiums for incurred risk; and on the law enforcement side: cops, jailers, prisons, alphabet agencies, and so on.
The users and their families/friends are the ones who suffer the most.
Lest we forget: Drugs are bad, mmkay?