Let's Make Peace in the "War" on Drugs

For the past several weeks I have been violating one of the first rules of blogging–posting often so people will keep coming back to see what’s new. Well first off I don’t post unless I have something I really want to discuss and, second, I doubt the two or three people who accidently stumble upon my blog are standing by by their computers with baited breath waiting for my next post. But I am once again hearing the voice of my muse, so welcome or welcome back as the case may be.

Today while walking my dog during a rare sunny day during the Northwest Winter, I was pondering an ongoing issue for me, the so-called “War on Drugs.” Now please excuse me if I begin by getting political for awhile (I’ll bring it around to spirituality eventually). Last night I watched the documentary “aka Tommy Chong.” It’s about how the U.S. Justice Department spent over $12 million dollars of our tax money to persecute, er, I mean prosecute Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame) for selling glass bongs over the internet. It once again reminded me that in the history of U.S. drug laws, the laws have very little to do with the drugs themselves and much more to do with the people who are using them.

Tommy and his family had a business making hand-crafted blown glass bongs (water pipes for smoking whatever one might want to smoke in them) over the internet. Now if you were to Google “bong” you would find that the Chongs are far from the only entrepreneurs engaged in this enterprise. Most likely because of his notoriety, the Justice Department decided to make an example of Tommy and set-up an elaborate sting to arrest him. I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that this was a case of entrapment by even the most conservative of definitions. I’m sure the case would have been thrown out on appeal if the Justice Department had not coerced Tommy into taking a plea bargain in exchange for not prosecuting his wife and sons. He ended up doing six months in Federal prison. All totaled the sting and prosecution cost over $12 million tax dollars Don’t you feel much safer now that the Chong family is out of the bong business?

This is but one example of our country’s enormous waste of time and money fighting an unwinnable “war” on drugs (not that a war being unwinnable has ever stopped us before). Those who know me have heard me opine about this ad nauseum. Some find it incongruent that I would have such an opinion given my chosen profession. However, as I am quick to point out, I’m not in the business of law enforcement–I’m in the business of helping people who have problems.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that the Federal government–particularly the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)–have used the “war on drugs” just like they have used the “war on terror” to extort our income and ignore our civil rights.

Example one–medical marijuana. Several states have enacted laws allowing for the use of marijuana for treatment of certain medical conditions, but you would never know this from the perspective of the DEA. They not only prosecute people engaged in medical marijuana use (in states where it has been allowed), but they coerce local law enforcement to go along with them by using the threat of withdrawing Federal money to local law enforcement.

Example two–legitimate spiritual use of traditional psychoactive plant substances (see, I told you I’d get back to spirituality). With the current make up of the U.S. Supreme Court, unanimous decisions are rarer than polite words coming out of Ann Coulter’s mouth. Yet in 2006 they rendered a unanimous decision in supporting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) finding in favor of the União do Vegetal (UDV) church in New Mexico. The UDV is one of two Brazilian-based churches that use ayahuasca (a plant-based brew containing DMT–a Schedule I controlled substance) as a religious sacrament. U.S. Customs had seized a shipment of plant material used to make ayahuasca and UDV sued over the seizure. These plants–although they naturally contain DMT–are not illegal under U.S. law, therefore Customs officials were acting on their own in seizing the shipment, but the DEA and Justice Department supported the Customs seizure. In the decision–written by none other than Chief Justice John Roberts–the Court affirmed the UDV’s right under the RFRA to use ayahuasca as a religious sacrament, as has been done in Brazil for centuries before the first Europeans set foot in the New World. Despite this ruling, U.S. Customs continues to seize shipments of plants used for brewing ayahuasca. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way and don’t have the money to sue the U.S. government, but fortunately there are sources for these plants within the U.S. (DMT-containing plants are found throughout the world and grow naturally on every continent except Antarctica).

Now I’m not arguing that any 10-year-old should be able to walk into a 7-11 and buy a dime bag of black tar heroin, or that anyone should smoke a bowl of pot before getting behind the wheel of an automobile. What I am saying is let’s bring some common sense to the discussion instead of dichotomizing it into an all-or-none a-drug-is-a drug debate. Every study done on marijuana use in the U.S. has shown that there has been zero change in over 30 years. Anyone in the U.S. who wants to smoke marijuana can. Almost half of the U.S. adult population has tried marijuana. Over 50% of high school students will try marijuana before they graduate. All this despite the billions of dollars spent during this time on marijuana alone.

They say those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, we evidently didn’t learn from alcohol prohibition, the Vietnam war, or the war on drugs. The correct strategy when one is in an unwinnable war is not to keep fighting–it’s to make peace. As Merle Haggard said in a song a few years ago, "Where's all the freedom we're fighing for?"