{news} FW: The misleading war on drugs--Record-Journal-Meriden Connecticut

[David Bedell]

----Original Message Follows----
From: "clifford thornton" <efficacy@ msn.com>
Subject: The misleading war on drugs--Record-Journal-Meriden Connecticut
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:53:37 -0500

"If one does not understand racism, classism, white privilege, terrorism, 
and the war on drugs--what these terms mean--how these concepts work, then 
everything else you do understand will only confuse you"


This editorial is written by long time friend and reformer Bill Collins.  
Bill was the Former Mayor of Norwalk Connecticut

http://www.record-journal.com

letters@ record-journal.com.

The misleading war on drugs

By William A. Collins

The other day the cops pinched a couple of guys in our town for drugs.
Thought they might be planning to sell. The 16 tidy little bags of marijuana
in their car could give you that impression. Also they were in a school
zone, where mere possession, let alone selling, is illegal. Think of all the
little tykes who were thus rescued from a life of addiction.

Well, maybe. But for one thing, it was 8:45 p.m., and all the tykes had long
since decamped for home. For another thing, the site was not that close to
the school. Tykes don't normally hang around there in any case. Third, in
Connecticut the term "school zone" is a trifle misleading. The law defines
it as any place within 1,500 feet of the schoolyard, including your living
room. This covers virtually all of Norwalk or any other major Nutmeg city.

The results of this law have been painfully predictable. Whites get arrested
too, of course, but the bulk of suspects are black and Latino. That's who
lives there. Even sitting in their own homes they're charged with school
zone violations. They often end up in jail, and unable to vote. This is not
exactly an unintended consequence. It helps suppress the Democratic vote in
central cities.

And to a large degree, it is marijuana that we're talking about here.
Cocaine and heroin arrests have sagged while pot pinches have proliferated.
Since pot is largely non-addictive, and overall usage has remained very
steady over the years whatever the law, one has to wonder what this current
excessive legislation is all about. And sadly, our otherwise commendable
General Assembly still won't even let patients in horrendous pain have the
stuff prescribed for them.

The rationale for this mindless foolishness seems to spring more from
ideology and politics than from pharmacology. Politicians love to make their
constituents afraid, and then save them from the threat. (Terrorism is
another example.) In this case, the hysteria is that the scourge of drugs
will visit our children if we don't maintain our harsh laws and draconian
enforcement. Though remember, this whole war did not even surface until well
after Prohibition, our earlier moral scourge, was repealed. Neither crusade,
of course, has cut down much on usage of any substance. It's just put a lot
of poor people in jail.

In time though, conservative politicians noted that the war had the
above-mentioned beneficial effect. It cut down on voting. Especially among
minorities. In the South, in tandem with other devices to retard black
franchise, tough discriminatory drug enforcement with long sentences has
helped make that region safely Red.

Even in Connecticut, which is definitely not Red, liberals are often
reluctant to promote the repeal of mandatory sentencing for fear of being
tagged as "soft on drugs."

So what happens is, life goes on, skirting around the law. While heroin and
coke users gradually become outcasts, pot use continues in popular
profusion. Nice folks grow their own, or find discreet sources, usually more
than 1,500 feet from a school. No one is the worse or the wiser. The biggest
middle class danger is to the gravely ill and their doctors. All could go to
jail for relieving pain.

Meanwhile the poor pile up in prison.

Not surprisingly, most of Europe and Canada do better. The trend there is
for pot to be regulated, like tobacco and alcohol, but not prohibited. And
several cities are even using heroin itself, in a controlled environment, to
treat heroin addiction. Incarceration rates are but a fraction of ours. So
naturally, the U.S. State Department uses every device it can muster to roll
back these foreign advances. But pity the poor department's plight now that
the new president of Bolivia is a coca grower.

Here at home our pointless crusade continues in the overzealous persecution
of all marijuana users, especially the sick. Talk about sending the wrong
message to society. And as they say in the counseling biz, you can cure an
addiction, but you can't cure a conviction.

Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former
mayor of Norwalk. See: www.minutemanmedia.org

Efficacy
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efficacy@ msn.com
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