Criminalization like fear and corporal punishment for children, just makes misbehavior go underground, and have the added benefit of being a risk-taking behavior that passive-aggressively undermines the authority. Another oft quoted way to say this: what you resist, persists…
Of course, with Drugs and the “war on drugs” in America, we have the added problems of whole industries making a fortune from promoting drugsmisuse, illegal drug trafficing and a revolving door of addicts in and out of “rehab” facilites. If we were to de-criminalize currently illegal drugs, make suboxone widely available for treating addiction, and de-construct the hatred and fear towards addicts that alienates them from society, from family, and from their own spiral of self-loathing and guilt… Well, a lot of people would be out of jobs. If those drugs were legal, the crime would disappear because the price would be affordable, and insurance would cover medications!
Why do we hate addicts so? Because we so easily could all be addicts, we are addicts. How many of us are Rage-a-holics? Also Food-a-holics? When we’re upset over something, we stuff down our feelings or vomit them up, making it someone else’s problem. We don’t want to deal, but we do and we do it resentfully. We don’t want to take responsibility for our feelings, and neither does the addict.
Truth needs telling, and we can’t afford the crime and punishment debacle that having drugs be illegal has become. The costs for society are huge: we’ve lost our children, our mates, our policeman, our doctors. The corruption spreads from the possibility, when drugs are illegal.
It’s time we stepped up to the plate and create a new game, a place where people can talk, talking circles. A place where judgments cease and all are equal partners in our own lives and responsibilities. Where health and well being are natural offshoots of a system that works for everyone. For our children, and our children’s children, the buck must stop here. Decriminalize drugs now.