Knee-jerk reaction(ary)

Sometimes you have to wonder who’s smoking dope, the dopers or the legislators who nearly jump out of their pants in horror when anyone gets high. Their knee-jerk reaction can be summed up as, if it’s fun, ban it. NYT 9-09-2008 Salvia’s Popularity May Thwart Medical Use http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/us/09salvia.html

I haven’t gotten high (except naturally on sunshine and fresh air) for so many years I can’t remember. (hmmm . Drug-related memory loss?) And I’m not saying getting high is good. There are obvious dangers both for the drugger and the public. But this evangelical enthusiasm for making everything possible illegal (except alcohol of course) is madness and ultimately causes way more problems that it solves. Here’s a bit of the Times story:

Pharmacologists who believe salvia could open new frontiers for the treatment of addiction, depression and pain fear that its criminalization would make it burdensome to obtain and store the plant, and difficult to gain government permission for tests on human subjects. In state after state, however, including here in Texas, the YouTube videos have become Exhibit A in legislative efforts to regulate salvia. This year, Florida made possession or sale a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. California took a gentler approach by making it a misdemeanor to sell or distribute to minors.

“When you see it, well, it sure makes a believer out of you,” said Representative Charles Anderson of Waco, a Republican state lawmaker who is sponsoring one of several bills to ban salvia in Texas.

Anderson couldn’t be more wrong. We should be moving the other way – toward making more things legal.

A guy from Waco should know better. Half the economy of Mexico is drug running and half the government there is on the take. In some countries it’s worse. It’s all because the US insists on making drugs illegal and therefore incredibly profitable. Naturally that profit turns up in the hands of government officials and, incidentally, bankrolls terrorist and guerrilla groups all over the world. Which we then spend US tax dollars to fight. The world’s biggest and most lucrative make-work program and we the taxpayers get to pay for it.

DARE to say no to illegal drugs. Make ‘em legal. The Times story concludes:

Though states are moving quickly, Bertha K. Madras, a deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said federal regulators remained in a quandary. “The risk of any drug that is intoxicating is high,” Dr. Madras said. “You’re one car ride away from an event that could be life-altering. But in terms of really good studies, there is just very little. So what do you do? How do you make policy in the absence of good hard cold information?”

If you’re a legislator and you’ve got the twitchy knee, you make it illegal.