Prohibition, It worked so well with alcohol, so it must work really well with drugs! That's right kids, alcohol was prohibited at one time in the United States. Specifically from 1920 until its repeal in 1933. Prohibition was a movement by not just one, but many of the evangelical religions of the time and the Anti- Saloon League. By pressuring legislators of the time, popularizing the notion that prohibition would reduce domestic violence and remove power from the German-based brewing industry, congress amended the constitution to establish a nation-wide ban on alcohol.
Crime did not go down, in fact criminal activity involving alcohol spiked. Bootleggers, rum-runners and the speakeasy became signs of the times. The organized crime outfits boomed. Not only did prohibition increase illegal activities, it also deprived the federal government of much needed tax revenue during the early part of the depression. Eventually ration did come back to congress, and in 1933 prohibition was repealed.
The war on drugs can be directly compared to alcohol prohibition. Has crime gone down? No. As a matter of fact the war on drugs has increased crime rates. The reason is simple, most people don't do drugs. Those who do, don't give a shit whether they are legal or not, they are gonna get high regardless. Whether they are involved in breaking laws to purchase drugs, or are simply breaking the law by using drugs, they are still breaking a law. If someone wants to sit in there home and get drunk, well that is just fine. If someone wants to sit in there home and get high, arrest them and charge them with a felony. A felony that in many states requires serving time in prison. Now, this minor offense has sent someone to an overcrowded prison where there is a good chance they will be forced to become a real criminal.
Looking at the broader picture, the war on drugs has created cartels that have made hundreds of billions of dollars off American drug consumption. You may or may not like it, but we are exporting huge sums of cash to foreign drug cartels. This is not just a money issue, the cartels are violent organizations that will go to extraordinary lengths do get drugs into the country and cash out. You get in the way, you are either bought off or disappeared. If you take away the profit motive of transport, sale, and consumption, the cash flow dwindles, and as any good economist will tell you, if you can't make money on something, it's not worth doing.
So, prohibition is obviously not the solution to the problem, people are going to get high and get drunk if they want to. Should the government just open the flood gates and make all drugs legal, crack at 7-Eleven, meth at Dunkin-Donuts. Only the finest Columbian cocaine at the country club. No. Decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs. If someone gets caught walking down the road with a crack pipe, don't simply arrest them and charge them with a felony offense for possession. Obviously, if someone is caught breaking into a car, and the arresting officer finds a crack pipe upon frisking this person, it will be tacked on to the felony they are committing by breaking into the car.
As most of us know, this world has some really bad people inhabiting it. We would be far better off as a society if we were not burdening our law enforcement agencies with petty crimes. Let them focus there resources on the real bad guys.
Sitting on your curb, smoking crack, is looked upon as pitiful. You become the neighborhood Peria, the crack-head. At that point you have two options, clean up your life and become a functional member of society, or be the home-less, aging, kinda crazy, crack-head the kids laugh at. We all grew up with someone in our neighborhood who would fit that description. It really does become sad to look at. On the flip side of that, most of us know someone that went pretty far down that rocky road of despair, and yet, they managed to turn their life around. Proud to be members of society once again. Sure, it sounds kinda bad that someone is turned into the guy on the steam vent, but some people don't want help when it is offered. Sad, but true.
Taking the profit motive out of the equation is crucial. This is where the problem gets tough to figure out. Should the government start buying drugs from the producers and selling them so that there is no trafficking? Should every drug be turned back into a marketable product? I don't know. Like I said, tough question to tackle. In my opinion, if you want to take the time and energy to grow a coca plant, refine it into powder cocaine, and then further refine it into crack-cocaine, in your basement, that's all you man. Just don't do it on a major scale, and then try and sell it to the neighborhood. Remember, most of us don't really like the idea of smoking crack. Sorry if I have offended any," basement coca growers".
The drawback of this thinking is that the cartels will still have a market for their product. However, by reducing the criminalization of small time offenders, more time and effort and can be given to eradicating the whole-sale producers of the product, thereby reducing violent activities associated with production, trafficking, and sale. If Escobar was just a small farmer, growing a plant that locals chewed for it's ability to give you a little jolt, he would be remembered as the Red Bull guy of Columbia. Take the profit out, and you squash the big guy.
At the end of the day, our government needs to realize the amount of money they are spending trying to eradicate drug use is just wasted. It is an idealistic challenge that can never be met. We are humans. We do not live in utopia. Some of us are going to seek an escape whether it is legal or not. Most of us are guilty of having a cocktail night! Do we really need to send "bong guy on a Tuesday" to Pelican Bay? Good Luck America!
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
The War On Drugs: Part One
Well, let us dive into one of my favorite topics of conversation, the war on drugs. Of course this topic could never be covered accurately in a simple blog post, however, as I stated above it is one of my favorite topics of conversation. It is truly one of those topics that gets people, regardless of their personal disposition, to engage others in thought provoking conversation. There are two basic arguments to be made about the war on drugs. First, it was a completely relevant approach to an escalating drug problem gripping the citizens of the United States. Second, it is an overreaching draconian set of laws and regulations that has created a black market of violence and thuggery. So, with that being said, let us dive in.
Well just in case you were wondering, the first argument doesn't really hold much water. True, we do have a problem with drug use in the United States. This is not a new problem. Before most items that will cause you to become inebriated were illegal, they were perfectly legal and for the most part looked upon as wonders of modern medicine. Think about cocaine in Coke, elixirs of the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds that contained quantities of opium and other goodies. Until the early part of the twentieth century marijuana was legal and commonly used, hemp, which is the hippie cousin of marijuana, was one of the most widely used textiles. It would seem as though these were boon times for the producers of such goods. So how is it, that all of the sudden, these items became the devils brew? Easy answer, racism and anti immigrant sentiment.
Many of the Chinese immigrants who came to this country during the building of the major railroads, smoked opium to relax in the evening after a solid day of building the infrastructure of the railroads. How can we get rid of those pesky immigrants now that the labor is done on the railroad ? Ohh ohh, I know, make opium illegal to possess. And so it was done, in 1905 the United States Congress banned opium. Start the deportations. Yeah baby!
Tensions in the early nineteen hundreds in the American Southwest and West were building about the influx of Mexicans coming to America. Well what do you know, after a fifteen hour day working in the field, a couple of guys smoke a little weed in the evening to relax. How can we get rid of those pesky Mexicans once the crops have been harvested? Yeah, you guessed it, lets make marijuana impossible to possess without the proper documentation, then we will make it impossible do get the correct documentation. Start the deportation engine so we can get that cheap labor out of here. Yeah baby!
As for cocaine, well I believe this quote will just about some up the social anxiety of the early twentieth century and some of the typical stereotypes associated with cocaine. In 1914 Dr. Christopher Koch testified that,"most of the attacks of the white women of the south, are a direct result of the cocaine-crazed Negro brain." Interesting enough, in the eighties when powder cocaine became so popular, the typical user was a middle class white guy! Wait a minute now, we can't deport the black guys, shit we brought them here. Damn, ever since that emancipation proclamation thingy, we have to respect theses people as actual human beings. Better start the fear mongering!
Well there we go, we have set the stage for the war on drugs. Next post we will examine the pitfalls of prohibition. It might just be a long post. Good Luck America!
Well just in case you were wondering, the first argument doesn't really hold much water. True, we do have a problem with drug use in the United States. This is not a new problem. Before most items that will cause you to become inebriated were illegal, they were perfectly legal and for the most part looked upon as wonders of modern medicine. Think about cocaine in Coke, elixirs of the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds that contained quantities of opium and other goodies. Until the early part of the twentieth century marijuana was legal and commonly used, hemp, which is the hippie cousin of marijuana, was one of the most widely used textiles. It would seem as though these were boon times for the producers of such goods. So how is it, that all of the sudden, these items became the devils brew? Easy answer, racism and anti immigrant sentiment.
Many of the Chinese immigrants who came to this country during the building of the major railroads, smoked opium to relax in the evening after a solid day of building the infrastructure of the railroads. How can we get rid of those pesky immigrants now that the labor is done on the railroad ? Ohh ohh, I know, make opium illegal to possess. And so it was done, in 1905 the United States Congress banned opium. Start the deportations. Yeah baby!
Tensions in the early nineteen hundreds in the American Southwest and West were building about the influx of Mexicans coming to America. Well what do you know, after a fifteen hour day working in the field, a couple of guys smoke a little weed in the evening to relax. How can we get rid of those pesky Mexicans once the crops have been harvested? Yeah, you guessed it, lets make marijuana impossible to possess without the proper documentation, then we will make it impossible do get the correct documentation. Start the deportation engine so we can get that cheap labor out of here. Yeah baby!
As for cocaine, well I believe this quote will just about some up the social anxiety of the early twentieth century and some of the typical stereotypes associated with cocaine. In 1914 Dr. Christopher Koch testified that,"most of the attacks of the white women of the south, are a direct result of the cocaine-crazed Negro brain." Interesting enough, in the eighties when powder cocaine became so popular, the typical user was a middle class white guy! Wait a minute now, we can't deport the black guys, shit we brought them here. Damn, ever since that emancipation proclamation thingy, we have to respect theses people as actual human beings. Better start the fear mongering!
Well there we go, we have set the stage for the war on drugs. Next post we will examine the pitfalls of prohibition. It might just be a long post. Good Luck America!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Chase Bank Can Suck It!!
That's right JP Morgan, you are going to lose another customer. Recently I was informed by Chase that my account will now be charged even more fees than I currently pay. Some of the fees that will now be charged include, five dollars for every money order, eight dollars for an official check, and a monthly maintenance fee if I do not have a direct deposit of five hundred dollars or more once a month. I could go on and on with the new fees but this is more about principle than bitching about fees.
Previous to 2008 I had been banking with Washington Mutual. WAMU had been a pretty good bank as far as customer satisfaction was concerned. Unfortunately they made a bunch of bad decisions concerning sub-prime mortgages and home loans. At that point Chase bought them out. Remember that in September of 2008 the major financial institutions including JP Morgan, took more than seven hundred billion dollars of tax payer money to keep themselves from going out of business. To big to fail was the mantra of the day. According to CNN Chase received twenty five billion dollars. How ironic is it that one of the banks that came to Washington with their hands out now rips off the very people that bailed them out with no regard.
Chase needed to be bailed out by us and that is exactly who they want to nickel and dime now. This is absolutely crazy. Imagine if you had a bad month at work, you borrow money from your brother to cover the rent. Next month you go shit on your brothers lawn and tell him he needs to pay you to do it. Crazy!
My solution is to quit banking with any of the Wall Street banksters. I am going to open an account with a local small bank. Chase should remember that old retail adage,"if you keep your customers happy you will be lucky if they even mention it to their neighbor, if you really piss the customer off, you will be lucky if the whole neighborhood does not hear about it". Good luck America.
Previous to 2008 I had been banking with Washington Mutual. WAMU had been a pretty good bank as far as customer satisfaction was concerned. Unfortunately they made a bunch of bad decisions concerning sub-prime mortgages and home loans. At that point Chase bought them out. Remember that in September of 2008 the major financial institutions including JP Morgan, took more than seven hundred billion dollars of tax payer money to keep themselves from going out of business. To big to fail was the mantra of the day. According to CNN Chase received twenty five billion dollars. How ironic is it that one of the banks that came to Washington with their hands out now rips off the very people that bailed them out with no regard.
Chase needed to be bailed out by us and that is exactly who they want to nickel and dime now. This is absolutely crazy. Imagine if you had a bad month at work, you borrow money from your brother to cover the rent. Next month you go shit on your brothers lawn and tell him he needs to pay you to do it. Crazy!
My solution is to quit banking with any of the Wall Street banksters. I am going to open an account with a local small bank. Chase should remember that old retail adage,"if you keep your customers happy you will be lucky if they even mention it to their neighbor, if you really piss the customer off, you will be lucky if the whole neighborhood does not hear about it". Good luck America.
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