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The Red and Black / Finals • Monday, August 13, 1990 • 5
"The longer you stay here, the more likely you are to cheat.”
Student Affairs Counselor Roger Lee, on the cheating problem
at the University
Bush’s War on Drugs is a fraud
The “War Against Drugs" is a two fold fraud
against the American People and the principles this
country was founded on. Firstly, because the methods
through which the administration prefers to deal with
the drug problem are inadequate to even their own
ends and counterproductive to them in the long term.
Secondly, because the abridgement of the use of drugs
runs contrary to the Bill of Rights, Amendments I, IV,
and IX.
To deal with the first fraud, the means by which we
are attempting to eradicate drug use in this country
are futile. This is because of two vicious cycles: pov
erty and resistance. Few Americans would disagree
that the Drug War acquired its primal impetus from
the introduction of the cocaine-derived substance
known popularly as “crack." This drug holds a triple
curse: (1) It is cheap enough that the poor can use it.
(2) Its use for even a short time leads almost always to
addiction. (3) It has several deleterious effects on the
physical and mental health of the individual and on
effected offspring. So what’s its seduction? Why is it so
immensely popular?
The Conventional Wisdom regarding drug use is
that peer/associate pressure is enough to introduce
the drug, and that pleasure and addiction are enough
to keep the user in pursuit of it. This scenario is fine
with laboratory animals and behaviorists, but man is
a complex creature due to his mind, and mental and
emotional factors are inherent in any of his social ac
tivities, no matter how poor or uneducated the indi
vidual may be, despite the prejudices of the white
Anglo Saxon protestant elite.
The real roots of the problem can be found in the vi
cious cycle of poverty found in the lower economic
classes, especially in our much-neglected urban areas.
When a society, such as ours, extols the virtues of lu
crative success, as we did throughout the eighties, the
already-present frustration of the have-nots is
stretched to breaking-point. Rebellion takes the place
of traditional values and a split between the priv
ileged and the underprivileged is created through the
ignorance of the elite and the changing identification
of the impoverished.
The impoverished, then, will turn to other means of
achieving happiness in society, usually to crime. To be
a drug user or dealer is to be a member of a commu
nity which lives in opposition to the “unfair” practices
of the society-at-large.
When the society forcefully attacks the rebellious,
their position gains legitimacy and just cause for de
fense in the eyes of the rebels. Drug use then becomes
a symbol of solidarity and even the most greedy, cold
blooded pusher obtains a semblance of herodom in the
outlaw mythoe. Sure there are other, more valid
heroes and idols to follow, but none so down-to-earth-
dirty and omnipresent as the local-boy-made-rich-on-
his-own-ingenuity, no matter how false his facade is
in reality.
So, what have we done to solve the problem? We’ve
mustered special forces to deal directly with crimi
nals. We’ve begun to institute the policy of “zero toler
ance." We’ve created stoolpigeon networks and filled
latenight television with exciting but relatively inef
fective crimestopper’s shows. We’ve transferred the
blame from our society to foreign figures, drug lords,
and corrupt officials. We’ve taken money which
should go to urban renewal and “ welfare” for futile
actions. We’ve even invaded Panama and brought a
big but fairly disposable (in the eyes of the smuggler
networks) criminal dictator to justice.
Have we addressed the causes, though? Not a whit.
We have blamed the substances themselves, as if a
complex chemical could be held responsible for the
evils it causes.
This leads us to the second fraud, that drugs them
selves are the causes of problems, not the context of
their use. By “Drugs” I mean substances that bring
about changes in behavior and thought in individuals.
The conventional wisdom would extend the defi
nition of “Drugs” to cover all substances which are il
legal according to the Controlled Substances Act.
These are the ones targeted as “having a great degree
of potential for abuse." The key word is potential. A
car has the potential of being used as a weapon. So
does a chair, for that matter. Why aren’t they con
trolled?
The problem with drugs is that they change the
very mind of the person under their influence. If
madmen are not responsible for their actions and
drug users are temporarily insane, then they can, the
oretically, do all sorts of evil popularly attributed to
Barrington
King
the insane, like Jack the Ripper. The problem with
this argument is that it assumes that persons “out of
their minds” are by nature a threat to society. We
have all heard horror sories about drug abuse, from
the ridiculous Reefer Madness to the heart-rending
Go Ask Alice. It is time we really investigated the
realm of subjective reality and the effects of psyche
delic (mind-altering) substances on them.
Subjective reality is not subject to any sort of objec
tive value judgment and vice-versa. Cocaine is not
evil. Its effects on the mind are. Do we have the right
to apply objective measures to the mind? Do we, in es
sence, have the right to coerce people into not only
thinking what is socially acceptable but how to think?
The question is moot, since no amount of coercion
short of lobotomy or brainwashing will change the
thoughts of an individual.
Our ninth amendment was designed to protect us
from censure of our expression of our thoughts, and
our fourth amendment to protect us from having the
objective basis of these thoughts from being taken
from us. It is when a man kills his family for religious
reasons or an acid freak murders a pregnant actress
that the judicial arm of government should act to pro
tect the society. Likewise, the judicial stress should be
on the gang-wars and extortion, not on substance use.
Drugs have been used for investigation into the
unconscious and for religious purposes since the dawn
of society. In our time, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Huxley,
Burroughs, and Leary have all found reason to turn to
psychedelics for self-discovery. These uses are
peaceful, and effect only the user in quest of artistic
and personal expression.
Scripture is a different thought-altering mech
anism from Lysergic Acid, but the fact that both affect
the nature of thought, of the subjective realm, puts
them in the same light in our constitution. The truth,
however, is hard to grasp. We need discussion and
definition in the realm of psychedelia. We understand
ourselves very little, and a glance at the new spiritua
lism and cult revival will show how desperately we
need to understand ourselves and be fulfilled.
So how should we address the drug problem? We
must give the disenchanted and enfranchised reason
to pursue a normal life or give a new definition of
normal. We need economic reforms on the scale insti
tuted by FDR right now, not after the bottom falls out
and literal civil war decides the issue.
Our present policy of deficit expansion has been
made irrational by the recent S & L and Housing
frauds. Reaganomics and the “Just Say No” campaign
are both ineffectual and dangerous for the future of
our county. As an American citizen, you have a poten
tially powerful right, the right to vote and the right to
petition the government for an address of grievances.
Use them, and use them wisely.
Barrington King is a columnist for The Red and Black.
wap-.
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