Papel Mag | 4/20: Carpe diem

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4/20: Carpe diem

Martes 20 de Abril de 2010 23:48 Vasco A. Carinhas

4/20: Carpe diem

“If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

--- George Carlin

“A bag of weed, a bag of weed; everything is better with a bag of weed.”

--- Stewie and Brian Griffin

Conservatives are sore losers. They vow the War on Drugs is a necessity, when the numbers prove them wrong. With the same logical [stream]line of thinking that believes abstinence to be the answer to keep two hormone ridden teenagers from jumping each others’ bones; so do they believe prohibition to be the answer to the sociopolitical riddle that controlled substances portent to them.

Let’s demystify the situation. The War on Drugs has been a failure. The numbers of users and the quantities confiscated from the pushers rise exponentially with each passing year. Prohibition has made the product more desirable. Nice going! Then again, maybe that is the purpose behind it. Maybe the idea stems from meetings between legislators and drug dealers (anyone up for a serving of Coquito?), because somehow the numbers don’t match.

Prohibition only makes the black market stronger, facilitating the monopoly of the product itself to those beyond the fringe of the above the law marketplace. The turning of the illegal label into a medicated one will push out of the equation the attractive quality of the outlaw’s thrill. Also, the treatment of the addict as a patient instead of a convict; by supplying his need and minimizing his dosage with each passing appointment would add to a major control of the substance (all the pun intended) by the government. A record of the users should be maintained, such non-erasable labeling turning into a new definition of the literary scarlet letter with the same weighty social stigma. Monitoring of the patient would provide the information necessary relating to his interaction with the black market. Users that prove to have been going over their assigned dosage should be chastised by lapses of privileges revocation. The dosage should be provided always in exchange for community service, that way the state gets his cut and users understand the exchange that is going on.

In the fiscal crisis that affects Puerto Rico, a population of 13,500 convicts costs a yearly $472.5 million of constituent’s money. Approximately 25 per cent of the inmates are convicted by controlled substances charges. Medication would then guarantee a 25% drop in the crime rate. Not counting the significant minimization in the 80% of homicides that are drugs related. It would also save the people, at $35,000 a head, a yearly sum of $118.125 million that could be redirected to a truly reformative system. The drugs used in the distribution clinics could stem from confiscated properties (after purification) issuing a blow to the black market in a Robin Hood fashion. The creation of such clinics would provide also a new source of employment for Puerto Ricans.

According to W.L. George, “Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies.” It is the constant prohibition that turns the “protect and serve” figurehead of a policeman into an intangible tyrant’s enforcer. Their oath to enforce the law pushes them to break the vow taken itself. By following judicial orders they go against the basic liberties warranted to us by the Constitution. In the post-Reagan law system they find themselves in a paradox, and so do the feelings of the people towards them. Medication would turn the policeman into a shepherd of lost souls towards a new system truly focused in the concept of reform and correction.

This loosely covers the approach to be made regarding hard drugs. However, let’s focus on the social hypocrisy paradigm that is the prohibition of marihuana. The rerun banter of it being a health hazard is struck down by the numbers of deaths a year by alcohol and tobacco (approximately half a million people a year) combined in extrapolation to the big fat zero under the cannabis strains. Its powerful “stepping stone” adage can be fought off by the unquestionable reality of the legal drugs being the true deservers of such title. Everyone that does lines in the nightclub’s bathroom tried a drink and cigarette before their first joint.

The benefits of marihuana in the medical field unquestionably override its adverse properties when smoking it. The safe option to consume it orally is there too. Its positive effects on the affected appetite of cancer and AIDS patients should be a humane reason in the medication of it especially in a country with such a high cancer and AIDS rate such as Puerto Rico. Its medicinal use in pain treatment, depression, glaucoma and anxiety poses less of an addiction threat than the legal pills designed to treat these afflictions; and with a shorter list of side effects.

Puerto Rico should take steps in the medication process, but shouldn’t stop there. Legalization would be a great stride forward in the civil liberties arena. The economic impact would also be positively exponential, to say the least. A new, government regulated, market can be born. The in-Island production is imperative, since the job creation would be one of the catalysts in the economic stimulation. Educated minds in botany, genetics, and agronomy could create competitive strains in the legalized marketplace; blessed by our tropical climate.

The sale and distribution in pseudo coffee shops would provide a safe ambience for the recreational smoker in which to consume legally and in the end put profit into the government’s funds. The black market makes a $10 billion yearly profit off of marihuana alone. Wouldn’t it be better if that profit went to the people? As Jeannete Rankin put it, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” However, the War on Drugs could be won with a change of strategy. You just have to shake things up a little.

Última actualización el Miércoles 21 de Abril de 2010 13:48