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| The Drug War |
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| this should work..... |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, September 17, 1986. It's a thrilling scenario; there's a made-for-ABC movie in here somewhere. Imagine. The entire United States military targeted for bribery and extortion by organized crime. Entire work forces being made to prove themselves innocent before there's any evidence they are guilty. Executives subjecting themselves to analysis by people indirectly employed by those very executives! I'm sleeping sounder already. And for what, might we ask? Because six hundred people died of cocaine overdose last year, a figure comparable to the number dead of lightening or killed at train crossings, Reagan declares a drug war. Millions have used cocaine, of course, and it is estimated that five million are abusers as we talk.Meanwhile, tobacco kills hundreds of thousands by cancer or heart attack, and our Congressional plantlife line up like sheep to give them cash. Meanwhile, liquor kills more people directly on our highways in every state than die by any drugs in those states. Liquor companies supply much capital to political campaigns; and their products make it easier for me to tolerate them. But if we're going to start stringing up drug dealers, let’s be honest and gutsy and go for the biggest first. Which means the Coors family, extensive as it is, will be swinging soon. There are still enough lampposts to hang them from. It is difficult to find an issue that so reveals the innate cowardice, the utter hypocrisy, the intellectual corruptness of our elected officials. Drugs are, in actuality, only slightly larger a problem than last year's "Stolen Babies!" In fact, when you subtract liquor from the statistics, there are barely any statistics. Contrary to World Saving Social Science, there is probably a steady percentage of social benthics that are lost to normal participation in the civilization of their birth. They become institutionalized failures, and their excuse may be either liquor, drugs, food, or Mother. In any case, if you remove their excuse, they'll scream and find another. They're gone no matter what. So a certain percentage of those five million cocaine abusers, however big you see it, just got lost on their way to the liquor cabinet. So - plug along with your calculator - of our, say, two hundred fifty million population, they claim that two percent, or five million, are 'abusers.' Such a fine, definite, precise term, abuser. Scientific. And of that exact two percent, what percentage dies? 1.2% of that 2% die. Which is to say .024% of our population dies. That is about one fourth of 1% of our population. One fortieth of one percent. To arms! Automobiles kill more by kinetic energy alone, never mind pollution. And they are no more enjoyable. Of that 1/40 of 1 percent, I say, without any proof whatsoever, that about half are, instead of wearing lampshades at office parties, the ones who sneak out to the roof or fire escape and come back reeking of pot or talking in static bursts with acid perspiration. In other words, there'd be something else if not drugs. Of the rest, subtract from that 1/80 of 1 percent the few that can use drugs as recreation and do have it under control. There are seven of these, but I want to be fair. Now of the remaining, the ones left over who are doomed to die of drugs this very year, what could be done? Well, most of them come from situations that don’t conflict with the use drugs, which is to say if you lived their life, you’d be on drugs too. No parents, no money, no safety. That’s the poor. The ‘middle class’ abusers-to-die are different. No parents, much money, too much safety – meaning, they’re bored. But what of the run of the mill abuser? Who am he anyhoo? Us, Bucko. People like me, a retired abuser who was a speed freak at the hands of the medical trust for about three years. I never got into cocaine, even though I was on the fringe of rock and roll and entertainment for about fifteen years, because it only would bring me down from the chemical high provided by Escatrol Span, which is time-released speed with Phenobarbital to keep you ‘steady.’ Prescription for ‘depression’ I received by telling my Doctor I could get stuff on the street. The fact is that this drug war is a political, functional disaster that threatens national security. It doesn’t even deal with nicotine and alcohol, the most abused drugs. It is a sham, a waste, and a danger. |
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