At my previous job, I was injured at work. After the doctor's evaluation, I was offered pain killers. Given my low use of pain medication, he opted to prescribe me simply a heavy ibuprofin dose with the proviso that I could always return for something stronger. "I don't want to get you addicted to a medication from which we have to walk you down stepwise when we're done," he told me. My coworkers were beside themselves at my choice and told me I should have filled the prescription because they would have bought the pills from me, but I had no interest in becoming a drug dealer. More to my dismay was the speed with which my fellows jumped at the chance to obtain a controlled substance. Who controls whom?
While the argument might be tempting on the surface to legalize drugs, it creates new problems. There are those who refrain from drug use now because it is illegal. Whether out of fear of punishment or respect for the law, those people do not currently indulge. If it were legal, suddenly you would find more people addicted with the consent and possible the assistance of the government. Despite what you may read in the media, Portugal's experiment has not actually worked. Whereas deaths may have declined and captures of individuals carrying illegal narcotics has decreased, those have simple answers. Portugal now has large groups of addicts hanging out around government facilities to get their next fix, and so they are not worried about overdosing or using poorly cut drugs. Fewer arrests come because people have started abusing and using legal drugs, not necessarily because narcotic use is down. Plus, coincidental things are not always causative.
I make it a habit to have good habits. I don't drink or smoke or do drugs, because I don't like other things or people to control me. I try to avoid buying chocolate, because if it's in the house I can't stop eating it. Yet, we have scientists and doctors out there justifying the wonton access to drugs on the auspices that it will help public health. They say they are here to help people survive, but are they really alive if they are addicted to a chemical? Their oath begins, as I read in Hippocrates "The Sacred Disease" to first do no harm.
Government, under the same guise to do no harm, depends to a large degree on things that do us harm. "Sin taxes" levied against these commodities are a source of great revenue for the government, as they know they can count on increased tax receipts because of how addictive the subtances are. I oppose legalizing something on the argument that you can then tax it. They would not call it a "sin tax" if they knew there was nothing wrong with these substances. They know full well that they're bad for you. Even King James I of England wrote in his Counterblast to Tobacco that the use of this narcotic would hasten the ruin of civilization, and that was almost 400 years ago when his cousin Elizabeth allowed that stinking weed into British society! Government is behind or confederate to most of the things that make your life miserable. As Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.”
Fortunately for us and for me, the US DEA is heavily opposed to the notion of legalizing drugs. Of course, if drugs were legal, it would cease to exist, but they offer some interesting thoughts on their website.
-Like America, the various countries of Europe are looking for new ways to combat the worldwide problem of drug abuse.
-In the Netherlands, it is illegal to sell or possess marijuana products. So coffee shop operators must purchase their marijuana products from illegal drug trafficking organizations.
-Furthermore, drug abuse has increased in the Netherlands.
-The strong form of marijuana that most of the young people smoke, he says, produces “a chronically passive individual—someone who is lazy, who doesn’t want to take initiatives, doesn’t want to be active—the kid who’d prefer to lie in bed with a joint in the morning rather than getting up and doing something.”
-Many proponents of drug legalization or decriminalization claim that drug use will be reduced if drugs were legalized. However, history has not shown this assertion to be true.
This is simply another example of poor science. They theorize before they have any facts and then bend the facts to fit their theories. Like I tell my students, do your own homework, and discern for yourself. Everyone who does research does so with an agenda, because they are patronized by people who pay them hoping that they will discover something that rewards and reaffirms the patron. When people make sweeping conclusions, I usually ask to see the data, because even if I agree, I like to know why before I jump on the bandwagon with them.
Legalizing drugs will not make life easier, it will make it more difficult. Even as Utah became the last state that brought us an end to Prohibition, Heber J Grant bewailed that alcoholism would break the hearts of women and children, and his prophetic warning has been verified in our day. There was a good reason to render them illegal before. Accepting that we cannot defeat the drug dealers is not going to help us defeat them. You discover your own strength not by relenting to opposition but by pressing forward and advancing your own positions in the face of opposition. Press forward.
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