datamusicata

Forbidden Fruit – It Didn’t Work For God

Just listening to the NPR report on the drug wars in Mexico and it came to mind that this is the same kind of thing that was happening in Chicago in the 1920’s, during prohibition.

They made drinking illegal and, because people are people and will only follow laws that are just, created an underworld where the profits were high enough to warrant the risks of death and imprisonment.

During the prohibition, people actually went blind from drinking bathtub gin.    Once booze was legalized and controlled, that stopped happening.   Yes, you have alcoholics, but you would have them anyway.   Forbidding booze doesn’t make someone stop drinking, it only stamps the romantic lure of the forbidden on it.

Think about the Garden of Eden.   A paradise where everything is provided and all both of the people are healthy and happy and naked.    With one caveat.   Don’t eat the forbidden fruit.    If you don’t eat that fruit, I will take care of everything else, God said.

You KNOW what we did.   Apple pie, apple stroodle, apple juice, apple sauce, apple computers, etc..

If it didn’t work for GOD, why do we think it’s going to work for us?   

You cannot stop something by forbidding it.  It has never worked and it never is going to work.

Before  the Prohibition Act, no substance was illegal.  It was society that imposed the boundaries on substance use and abuse.  

Opium eaters were held in little regard, drunkards and drug addicts didn’t hold an elevated place in society, but none of these persons were imprisoned for doing what they wanted to do to their own bodies.

Then with the Prohibition Act, came illegal stills, speakeasy’s, and organized crime.   And it came because now that these substances were illegal, their scarcity increased their value.   Not to mention the fact that no taxes are paid on illegal earnings.

The same thing is happening again.  

It would not be economically feasible for these drug cartels to exist if drugs were legal.   One could purchase any grade of any drug and no exactly what they were getting.   There would be no more accidental overdoses, because people would know what they were ingesting.

Overdoses occur when someone thinks that they are ingesting a specific amount, but because there are no controls over the manufacture and distribution of these substances, no one knows for sure how much they are taking.

Now that booze is legal, you can see right on the label how much alcohol you are taking in.   It’s written right on there.   If you get drunk now,  it’s all your fault.    It would be the same with legal drugs.  If they overdose, it’s because they wanted to keep going, keep getting high.  

Further, with drugs legal and available at market prices, the crime that exists just to feed the expensive and illegal habit would also atrophy. 

Many people find my position untenable and say that I have no concern for the weak people that are addicts.   Not so.

I have concern for my fellow man, and I believe that tough love is part of that concern.   Personal responsibility is big in my world.   You make a mistake, you own up to it and you pay for it.

When Reagan was president, they did a big expensive study to determine the best way to deal with the war on drugs.   They determined that the legalization of drugs was the only sensible answer.   They elected to not release this information for fear of losing constituency.  Regan ( the president’s appointee to head the committee) came forward—after he was no longer in government service—and spoke at length about it.   Google him.  You’ll find the quotes.

We are our brother’s keeper, but we can’t go to the gym and work out and expect our brother to suddenly get muscles.  

Making drugs difficult to procure is not going to stop people from taking them and is not going to teach them the effects of drug abuse.   If folks want drugs, they’ll find them.   If the drugs are legal and available at pharmacies, then the addicts will know what they are taking and what happens after that is up to each individual.

Personal responsibility.    It’s the only way society will work.