I have been hearing rumors lately of big cutbacks in criminal justice spending here in Texas and it makes me ponder if it is not just another sign that we are not winning the "War on Drugs." The criminal justice system has been bankrolling itself on the drug dilemma for years, but prison populations continue to grow. At some point, the system has to start to be a drain on the governmental pocketbook. Even after instituting seizures, there is not enough money made from pursuing drugs to offset the increasing cost of policing a steadily growing problem.
Drug usage is not the worst problem a society has. It may not be one of the virtues of a society, but it should be a person's personal right to ingest anything into his body which only results in effects to his body. If someone harms someone else through their drug use, there must be consequences, but if they harm no one but themselves --- a person absolutely deserves the right to do to himself as he pleases: to hit himself in the head with a sledge hammer, stick pencils into his eyes, or marbles up his anus. (Feel free to substitute female pronouns, should it suit you better.) To want to do any harm to one's body, however, is likely a symptom of some mental or emotional condition that could be more easily dealt with through mental health avenues. Doctors and nurses dealing with problems of drug addiction instead of prison guards guarding gangs. The actual use of drugs could be marketed openly, controlled and taxed.
Would our forefathers, who initially settled this land to escape being oppressed by a government that believed differently than they, condone a government that continually oppressed a large segment of its society because they believed differently than the government wished them to believe? America was built on a tenet of FREEDOM; FREE CHOICES about what we say, whom we pray to, and what we read. Everybody has a place inside this society, no matter how small their numbers if their chosen belief or activity is not detrimental to other groups or individuals, and, for too many such bodies, that place is inside its prisons. Drugs are a problem, there is no doubt about that, but is continuing to warehouse huge numbers of people the answer? Or is this just one of the many things that needs to be brought into the open and really considered by all, not just the ones who hold the strings?
Posted by Tiger at April 10, 2003 07:43 PM