A Typical Irony of the Nation's 'Drug War'

July 13th, 2009

I was recently treated to a silent chuckle of irony as an eighth-grader told me of the recent anti-drug awareness efforts that had taken place as part of her suburban middle school education. She subsequently proceeded to tell me of a claimed ‘drug’ dealer in her class as well as the drunken pastimes of many seventh and eighth graders in her school – all of which according to her, of course, was totally unbeknownst to the faculty of the school. Well, as she seemed intrigued to learn more of drug usage, I explained to her that the use of ‘illicit’ drugs and alcohol rarely significantly benefit anyone. I also explained to her the typical traits of many humans around the world which typically includes the enjoyment of imbibing and how in many parts of the world, others her age could buy whatever substance they desired if one had the funds and the desire for such and the foreign youngster harmed no one else in the pursuit of their pastime. However, I had to wonder, are our governments so inept that they are not themselves aware of the allure they create amongst school children for the criminalized past-times relevant to the use of ‘illicit’ drugs and alcohol? Or do the governments and educators clearly intend to create and instill the allure for the taboo-like substances of ‘illegal’ drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol amongst the nation’s adolescent children? Or, is the matter just like nearly every other government-type undertaking, in that no matter what the government tries to achieve, they only manage to make the matter less effectual and the situation becomes clearly worse by their hand and attention/efforts on the subject? That is to say, would the matter of underage drug and alcohol use - and any subsequent problems as adults – be less significant if the government did nothing, passed no laws to create a ‘contra-banned’ substance, thereby creating no allure for any ‘contra-banned’ substance, and called no attention to the matter of ‘contra-banned’ substances? To be clear, apparently the nation had no significant drug-use problems one hundred years ago when all of the outlawed ‘contra-banned’ substances of the modern day were legal and no one appeared to care much either way. Do you follow me here? (Granted, such an argument is subject to many assumptions and potential flaws.) Again, nevertheless, I see a potential massive waste of tax dollars just as likely to be only worsening the situation that the government professes to be attempting to alleviate. So again I wonder, are the educators and the governments seeking to create a demand for ‘illegal’ drugs? Do they seek to keep the prices of illegal drugs elevated - for whatever reason [and pardon the possible minor digression, if you would]? Or does the government merely achieve these aforementioned ends through its continued ineptitude of ‘hoping for result A, while achieving the undesired result B’ though its typically misguided and paradigm-laden actions?
AVT