Essays Index

Drug Reform: Shame!

If you received a captured terrorist training manual from an anonymous source, it would be big news, a major scoop. You've just opened an anti-terrorism manual of the first rate.

A Response to Terror

Too often. it is impossible to distinguish between drug-reform groups and drug-advocacy groups. At the bottom line of what is fraudulently represented as a voice of reason is the uniform insistence that there are two and only two choices in drug policy options. One choice is the present prohibitionist stance reflected in current national policy and favored by 85% of the populace. That is opposed. The second choice is the legalization option. The reformers favor the minority option. For them, it is legalization or bust. It is important to remember that narrow minds are almost always closed. In anti-intellectual lock-step, these groups and individuals worship a vision that drugging oneself is a civil liberty to be cherished and advanced at all costs.

First of all, narcotic drugs are not a civil liberty in America. At this juncture in history, they are not a right, but illegal. Moreover, the so-called reformer?s legalization point-of-view perpetuates an inability to realize they have failed to consider any third policy option that is neither one of the present two; and in this way their reasoning process itself is flawed. This totalitarianism of view is clearly demonstrated by the intellectual dishonesty of using the descriptive term "reform" to mask the underlying agenda of "legalization." More honest persons would call a spade a spade and use words with true meaning.

A perfect exposure of such deceitful reasoning is the reformist rhetoric set alight by the flames of September 11, and is reported by the Drug Reform Coordination Network. Drug reform advocates (legalizers) shaken by the recent terrorist attacks upon America as a threat against their future drug aims, are, in knee-jerk reaction, trying instead to capitalize on a nation?s grief and tears; and claiming that it is drug prohibition itself that may have helped to finance and provoke the terrorist attacks. Not even professional cynics would stoop to such low and dishonest reversals of reason, or to the level of Common Sense for Drug Policy?s Kevin Zeese who says: "We have to engage, we have to make people see that the enemy is not drug users, but drug prohibition."

Personally, one might justly respond to such a shallow claim with a smack in the mouth, but that would miss an opportunity to discredit the source. Therefore, it is important to correct such disgusting exploitations of sorrow by pointing out the major flaws of that thinking. Most important, it is terrorists that use drug-trafficking as a means of financing, and it is drug-trafficking that is illegal, not the prohibition against drugs and trafficking , which our nation has enacted both democratically and legally. That terrorists have attacked the democracy that has freely chosen such policies is not to be upheld as a reason to attack those decisions undemocratically; least of all, by terror! How can advocacy organizations embittered by the war on drugs excuse what they themselves have described as a "certain cold glee" over the huge loss of life in the attacks against America? They are not even describing the same subject. And have drug advocacy groups so easily lost sight of the fact that it is narrow minded minorities taking power into their own hands, putting their aims before those of others, that become the world?s terrorists? As an afterthought, they did have the good sense to say that they shared something in common with terrorists.

However, America has chosen its position, as is our right. The small percentage of persons who favor drug legalization live in this democracy and enjoy the fruits of living in a nation where they can be outvoted by 85% of their fellow citizens on any issue, including the prohibition against drugs. They have been outvoted overwhelmingly, and they should cheer for this freedom. Being outvoted by 1% is not a cause for terrorism.

It is to preserve our democratic republic that we have declared war on terrorism. It is not because of our prohibition on drugs that barbaric savages have attacked America. To even suggest such a thing discredits the individuals and groups making it. People are not dehumanized by being deprived of their drugs. They are less than human for far more sinister causes. Shame!

If it was truly drug reform one supported, a good reason might well be that of taking the control of drugs and their profits out of the hands of criminals and terrorists. That might be a true reform. However, it does not necessarily follow that if taken from criminals, that drugs have to pass into the control of governments so they can be distributed to potential users and abusers. Why not? What if drugs just weren?t available? The point here is that there is no logical relationship between who controls distribution or criminal intent when there is no drug to be distributed by anyone, either bad guys or bad governments. (We say bad governments because only a bad government would distribute drugs when the vast majority of its citizens opposed such action) But what if drugs now defined as illicit and undesired within a particular country by the will of that people, were just not available? If one were a true reformer, not a wolf in sheep?s clothing, would one consider a drug-policy option like that, one that was a true option, and so much different from either prohibition per se or legalization? A true reformer would have to agree and say "Yes!"

How so, you might ask?

Modern biotechnology, agricultural biocontrols in particular, offers that interesting third option. It is important to say that agricultural biocontrol is not all that modern. In fact, the USDA has a history of biocontrol science going back as far as 1884. It is actually a mature and well-respected discipline with the field of plant sciences. Biocontrols took a backseat role to chemical controls in the ?20?s as chemical controls for plant pests and pest plants began to dominate. It has been the massive use of chemical pesticides and herbicides over the years, that both through cumulative and more widespread use, has re-invigorated the search for the more environmentally friendly uses of living biocontrols. Scientists also have a heightened knowledge of plant DNA.

It is not so much modern biotechnology, then, as some of the more modern applications of newer tools and knowledge that have raised the promise for biocontrols. During this rebirth of activity in this natural science, the occasion has arisen for experts within this discipline to do what scientists always do; to challenge the limits of the possible. That, after all, is the driving force behind the coding of the human genome, to conquer challenges of disease and despair not previously possible. During this modern equivalent to the quest for fire, science has asked the question, what if? and continues to do so. What if, a plant scientist also said, we could use science to help us to rid the world of unwanted plant disease, insects, fungi, nematodes, etc? What if we could even rid ourselves of unwanted plants; crab grass, dandelions, noxious weeds, and even socially harmful plants?even plants from which illicit narcotics are derived?

Fortunately, there are many hundreds of plant scientists who are working at such solutions. It is not a solitary instance of a mad scientist in a granite Victorian castle inhabited by rats and surrounded by bats. Most of these men and women are at respected Universities throughout the world. To the best of our knowledge, these are academics, not political types, but they have come up with solutions to rid the world of most of its plant-derived narcotics. Up till now, they have not had a sufficient hearing as to whether or not their solution is a legitimate policy option to take control of plant derived narcotics out of the hands of criminals and terrorists, and drug reformers. We hope that their opportunity will come soon.

Drug reformers (legalizers) hate the biocontrol option, calling it warfare, bioterrorism etc. Entire websites are devoted against it. Drug legalizers such as George Soros support the fight against it. And no wonder they are willing to ignore the fact that legitimate crops are not harmed, humans are not harmed and that a nation may choose do it within its own borders. Why is that? Implementation would not only eradicate current narcotics producing crops, but in most cases, render the soil inhospitable for the growth of that host narcotic plant for some time into the future. That?s what they really hate.

But before a full consideration of agricultural biocontrols can take place, our guess would be that the true reformers would first separate themselves from the legalizers. There will be dissention within the ranks. Non-availability is a true reform.

As an illegal substance, the price of a cheaply grown narcotic rises most at the street level. As a legal substance, prices would rise most at the producer level, even though controlled somewhat at the street level. Why? Do not be fooled that removing distribution to any government would substantially reduce the net take to criminal producers, Since they control the flow of supply, they will not allow their end of the transaction to be cut. The only real alternative for a government would be to enter the narcotics production business as a total government enterprise. Legalizers and politicians know that will not happen. Nor would legalization of plant derived narcotics reduce or eliminate the spread and or use of designer drugs, or remove them from criminal control, despite their undesirability to every society. It is hard to make a case for "Every society needs Ecstasy and LSD." We would like to hear that far-fetched idea defended.

True reformers should embrace a biological solution because it saves billions and billions of dollars and does it almost immediately! The drug producing capacity of every grower nation could be curtailed relatively permanently in less than one year?s time and for an incredibly insignificant sum, probably less than a billion dollars. When you think that the war on terrorism will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, bioherbicides represent a huge bargain to the world?s taxpayers as part of that endeavor. This would be a superb allocation of scarce resources. In addition to freeing up hundreds of millions of law enforcement man-hours and putting the emphasis of dollars on helping producing nations to develop sustainable agriculture. It would also help to end state and criminal sponsorship of terrorism, and make tracking any remaining financial support for terrorism much easier. It would allow societies to remove their concentration from drug policy to promoting more healthy and satisfying lives for more citizens. It would seem that a sensible drug policy would be one that denied narcotics to that society. It seems logical that there is nothing humans do better under the influence of narcotics.

Neither legalization nor true reform can eliminate the problem of a criminal intent to deliver mind-altering substances to people foolish enough to use them. In fact, it is because of such a point that the concept of "Criminalization" must be steadfastly retained--not eliminated. Without the status of ?criminal? to restrict the distribution of such substances, government itself would become a criminal defendant, a conspirator to the dehumanization of its own society. Legalizers have the ongoing right to try to become a voting majority. In the meantime, although they may wish to artificially alter their mental functions, even to die, they have no inherent right to impose by force, as do terrorists, their desires for alternate lifestyles upon any society's majority of citizens. For the majority, too, the status of criminal is their continuing protection against current drug advocates who say things like: "Clearly, Osama bin Laden has a variety of funding sources?prohibition clearly is one of the major forces making the world a more dangerous place, and one can only speculate on what the course of world events would have been without it." "?a lot of people think America has no responsibility for this." Another said: "I don?t mind spinning the issue."

Such small-minded and blatant opportunistic willingness to rub salt in the open wounds of a bloodied nation that has voted democratically to prohibit illicit drugs is without civilized defense.

Is narcotics biocontrol, if applied, an oppressive policy?

Oppressive to whom? It is a nation?s right to protect itself against having the will of its people disregarded by criminal intent, either by nations or individuals within nations. Nations who wish to fight terrorism and decide to get rid of the potential of drugs to finance it, have that as their right, even if they may be pressured to do so by more democratic neighbors. Every nation should have the right to weigh its own interests and decide accordingly. By the same token, too, we do not believe nations have the right to build or grow weapons of mass destruction. Nations will have to decide whether illicit narcotics have now been rightfully identified as weapons of mass destruction.

Nations must claim mature responsibility along with sovereignty. Even when claiming the protective mantle of sovereignty, a state has a firm obligation to make certain its territories are not used as a base for violating the laws of other sovereign states. The offended state has both a legal and moral right to take action when such security is not forthcoming from the violating state. Having established that, drug producing nations in sovereign response are free to destroy drug crops on the ground, either by the conventional means of digging them up by the roots or destroying them with chemical herbicides or by choosing other alternatives, including biocontrols or edicts. For example, in Afghanistan, although criminal interests had stockpiled a twenty-year supply of opium poppies, the Taliban, citing religious reasons rather than drought, suspended opium poppy planting by edict. Edict is still a possible response in any nation committed to fighting terrorism within its borders. President Bush?s "You are either with us, or with the terrorists," has a broad range of possibility and promise.

Therefore, as scenario one, even the most cynical of reformers would have to agree that drug-producing nations have the right to end the growth and/or production of illicit narcotics. There is no sustainable argument that a nation does not have the right to stop producing drugs. Since India has both the capacity and the legal right to produce the morphine needed for legitimate medical use, that supply would not be lost to whatever method another nation chose to end its relationship with illicit narcotics.

As scenario two, a nation that wished to give its citizens the right to drug only themselves, might have a right to do so as an internal and sovereign act. However, when any such nation exports its drug habit to others and violates the borders of nations where drugs are illegal, it cannot then make the claim that a legitimate market exists by reason of a minority of non-citizens of another nation acting illegally. The act of shipping a product legal in one nation into a country where that product is illegal, is an illegal act! (We have many such regulations regarding commercial, agricultural, and other products.) If and when that act can be proven to support terrorism and criminality, nations so acting to the detriment of other nations expose themselves to criticism, sanctions, and under some conditions, more forceful action.

The pro-narcotics forces are already on the alert and attack, even to the point of dishonoring their nation in it?s darkest hour. It is our belief that the recent terrorism and its connection to the illegal trafficking of illicit narcotics will raise world awareness to a degree in which drug producing and transit nations will adopt voluntary restrictions to this scourge of mankind?s well being. It is our position that no counter-advocacy, no matter how strong, can find a rational and intellectual basis for saying that any nation is somehow better for having illicit mind-altering substances freely available. If one could make a convincing scientific argument that humankind is better off under the influence of drugs, let such advocates make that argument.

If the only argument is philosophical, a libertarian one that individuals should have the right to harm themselves as they see fit, then they should go to a society where the freedom is greater than in America, and where following their cherished goal is within the acts that the society of their choice permits. That is what we would call a responsible judgement. Trying to make something legal is also a much different thing than doing when you know it is illegal, It is a universal truth that trying to have it both ways creates terrorists, because civil disobedience is never fully satisfying and inevitably leads to acts of destruction. Dissent and revolution are not the same as terror. Today?s breaker of a Starbuck?s or McDonald?s window is tomorrow?s suicide bomber.

The drug advocacy groups have made an excellent beginning toward thoroughly discrediting themselves as citizens worthy of being listened to. In times of trial even the political parties have come to each other?s aid. But before the deadly dust had settled in New York and Washington, the drug advocates were intent on scattering heroin and cocaine powder into the falling debris, as if to say: "Sniff cocaine, not smoke." Shame!

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