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Also this issue: Shady's Back Common Ground Totally Idiotic Americans |
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December 5-11, 2002
loose canon
Having voted down recent state ballot measures to liberalize drug laws, America is winning the war on drugs, declares our newest drug czar, John Walters.
I think not.
Yes, it's true that Ohio, Arizona and Nevada just said no to various drug initiatives. But these reforms bordered on the radical.
The Ohio measure would have taken nonviolent drug offenders out of prison and placed them in hospitals. The Arizona initiative would have reduced the penalty for pot use to something like a traffic ticket -- and medical users were to get their dope from the state for free. And in Nevada -- already one of eight states that let you toke with a doctor's note -- marijuana would have been made completely legal (despite still being prohibited by federal law).
So why the Czar's victory party in Washington?
In a war being waged in the press, you need to wail on your enemy's most visible flank. So, for the feds, that means making a big deal out of defeating the outlandish. It also means squeezing the market -- making life tough for even recreational dopers. Which is why it's been so hard to get grass lately, even at the astronomical prices.
But these are only temporary tactical wins. Czar John may have $19 billion to wage war, but the important numbers are on the other side.
A full third of adults in America have smoked grass. Of the estimated 15 million people over age 12 who used illegal drugs last month, the majority (57 percent) consumed nothing stronger than marijuana. That's 8.5 million people in the last 30 days, close to 4 percent of the population.
And among 18- to 29-year-olds, between 25 and 30 percent smoked dope last month.
Those numbers have been steady for some time. But what's rising is the number of arrests. Last year, 700,000 Americans were busted for pot, a number that has doubled over the last decade. In Philadelphia, some 15,000 got clipped in '97 (the most recent figures available), up some 9 percent in three years.
Lives are being ruined for doing what's getting close to legal in Nevada, Colorado, Maine, Washington state, Alaska, Oregon, Hawaii and California. Outrage is rising, so no wonder we've seen some wacky initiatives.
Winning the war against dope? Sorry.
A new GAO report -- released over Justice Department objections -- concludes that no perceptible harm has come to states that allow medical marijuana.
Over the summer, Britain downgraded the possession of cannabis to the status of a non-arrestable offense, and Canada is considering the same.
Yet Czar John -- and King George -- are claiming victory.
What are these people smoking? And what other war will they say we are winning next?
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