Name: Nicholas Lukens
Major: Chemical Engineering
E-mail: irunitt@stanford.edu
Section: Friday 2 P.M.
War on Drugs = War on Terrorism???
The United States’ new claim in today’s world of propaganda and mind-warping media is that The War on Terrorism = The War on Drugs. Recently simple anti-drug slogans have been manipulated into aggressively and often erroneously exaggerated media assaults. (planetpapers.com) The United States claims that each person can help fight terrorism by choosing not to buy or use illicit drugs, and the government itself can help fight terrorism by implementing a more effective War on Drugs throughout the country. They claim that illicit drugs are the major monetary support of terrorist groups throughout the world, which in some respects is correct. Due to this claim, teenagers and drug users across the United States are seen as supporting these terrorists through their purchase and consumption of illicit drugs. The government has now stooped so low as to blame our own children for terrorism.
The United States government’s claim, that if a person buys or uses illicit drugs then they are supporting terrorism, is outrageous and utterly false. President Bush claims, "It's so important for Americans to know that the traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining terrorists, that terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit acts of murder. If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terror in America.” (peacecouncil.net) This is false because many of the illicit drugs being bought and consumed by the citizens of this country are being produced here in the U.S., so the purchase of these drugs cannot possibly be contributing to terrorism. Another reason why this claim is false is that many of the drugs being consumed in the U.S. are imported from countries that harbor little or no terrorist activities. The United States government is trying to gain support for their failed War on Drugs by placing the blame not on their own incompetence, but on teenagers and drug users throughout the country. Adding to this, even more blame should be placed on the government than the blame they are so valiantly trying to divert. It is the U.S. government’s fault that drugs are even remotely linked to terrorism. This is because the profitability of illicit drugs is the direct result of the prohibition of drugs by the government, and the U.S. is a leader of the world and is therefore the model for most other country’s prohibition laws on the same drugs.
Marijuana is grown everywhere across the United States and is one of the most widely used drugs. People in every state grow marijuana for their own use, for use by their friends, and for sale to make a little profit. I know personally of people who do this; it is not uncommon. Also most of the marijuana purchased in the U.S. comes from Mexico, other Latin American countries, and Canada, all of which are not a major concern for terrorist activities, if a concern at all. In the same way marijuana is produced in the United States, hallucinogenic mushrooms are also produced. The major source of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the U.S. is grown right here at home, and most of the other sources are also provided by Mexico, Latin American countries, and Canada. The illicit drug that is seen as the most problematic and widespread drug throughout the U.S. today is crystal methamphetamine (a.k.a. Meth). Meth is made in laboratories throughout the country, mostly on the west coast. Almost all of the meth sold and consumed in the U.S. is produced in meth labs in the United States. This situation is the same for the illicit drug Ecstasy, which is the leading “club drug” in the U.S. and the amount purchased every year continues to grow. Much like meth, ecstasy is manufactured in labs and households throughout the U.S., as it is easily made and has simple ingredients which practically anyone can obtain. Almost no ecstasy purchased in the U.S. is imported into the country. Another widespread illicit drug purchased in the U.S. is crack. Even though crack is made from cocaine, which mostly comes from Columbia, the cocaine is made into crack here in the U.S. and is not imported. All of these aforementioned drugs are produced/grown in the United States or other peaceful countries, so they can in no way have anything to do with terrorism. One should also note that the drugs mentioned above make up a very high percentage of the drugs purchased and used by citizens of the United States, so how can the government claim that drug users have a major impact in financing terrorism when most of the drugs they purchase only support those in peaceful countries?
Yes, terrorists do make some money from the production and sale of illicit drugs, but the only reason selling drugs has become so profitable is because the U.S. government drug prohibitions make drug trafficking far more risky and more profitable than the production of any other crop/chemical. (www.fff.org) For example, the only reason illicit drugs are more profitable than beer is because the U.S. government and other governments prohibit drugs, while tolerating beer. (www.fff.org) Drug laws are far more effective at putting profit into narcotics than law enforcement is at taking the profit out. (www.fff.org) An example of this is the Alcohol Prohibition of 1920, which made the cost of alcohol skyrocket and the sale of it very profitable, although illegal. Al Capone and his gangsters were financed by the profitable sale of alcohol brought on by the prohibition. (bbsnews.net) If it was not for the prohibition, Capone would not have been such a big name and could not have financed many of his illegal activities. Federal officials admit that the government fails to intercept 90% of the drugs trying to be smuggled into the country, so the laws are almost null anyway and in all practicality should be abandoned. (bbsnews.net) The drugs are going to continue to be produced, sold, and consumed no matter how great the efforts are to rid the country of them, so why waste taxpayers money on mute efforts to stop drug trafficking. A good example of an outrageous waste of money by the government was seen during the 2002 Superbowl. (planetpapers.com) During the intermissions of the game, two anti-drug commercials were aired. These commercials were paid for by the government and made ridiculous claims, blaming our youth for terrorism. One example was of a girl admitting to using drugs while stating that today she helped to kill a police officer. These commercials were nothing more than a scare tactic, creating an emotional stir by stating things that had little evidence to support them. (halo-in-reverse.net) These commercials cost the government over $3 million, the largest single media purchase by the government in history. (smokedot.org) Many people were outraged by these commercials and had valid right to be. The commercials did not even mention that buying drugs is supporting terrorism in an “indirect” way, instead they directly state, “I killed a woman and her child today.”
Since certain drugs are illicit, making them illegal, the production and marketing of them attracts violent, ruthless people, people in opposition of the law (e.g. terrorists). Because drugs are illegal, drug producers seek out “lawless” areas of loosely controlled countries, so of course there is a link between terrorism and illicit drugs, and this link is again brought on by the government’s prohibition on the drugs. (www.fff.org) The prohibition also changes the agricultural economics of many countries. Instead of growing normal, legal crops, the farmers of many countries choose to grow illicit crops, which yield 10 times or more of a profit than legal crops do. Also there is no way to even come remotely close to controlling every farmer in the world. (www.fff.org) The U.S. government dreamily thinks that it has more power and control than is reasonably possible. Even more disturbing of a fact is that the U.S. government itself performs terrorist-like activities all of the time to try and stop illicit drug production, killing people and destroying legal crops in many of our neighboring countries. These activities are top-secret and the public is not supposed to know of them. When in rehab, I talked to a man who was a Special Forces agent for the United States Marine Core. He told me of classified missions he performed for the U.S. government. His missions entailed sneaking through the jungles of Latin and South America and find out where drug exchanges were going to be made. He would then sit with a long-range sniper rifle, and as the exchange of drugs and money was being made he would proceed to kill all participants involved in the exchange. Another example of this is the chemical warfare campaign in Columbia. Our government is fumigating the Columbian countryside with deadly herbicides to suppress coca production. This has devastated the crops of many law-abiding farmers and has made many children ill. (www.fff.org) This destruction of crops leads to more production of illicit drugs to make up for the loss of profit the government has created. So the U.S. government is its own worst enemy and is creating more of a problem than it is stopping one.
Is the government trying to protect us, or are they just trying to cover up their own failures and not take responsibility for anything? All the government seems to be doing is pointing fingers, placing the blame on everyone else when it is clear they are the ones at fault. Matthew Briggs of the Drug Policy Alliance accused the drug czar's office of "hid[ing] their failed war on drugs behind the war on terrorism. That's bad enough," he added, "but what's truly appalling is that they would stoop to blaming our own children." This should be a major concern for every citizen of this country and we should think about other situations in which the government denies responsibility for their actions. Can a government having no responsibility be trusted? The Drug Policy Alliance pointed out that the government funded anti-drug campaign is:
The ads are factually misleading: they blame drugs and nonviolent Americans for terror funding, when, in fact, the drug war itself is responsible for creating the illegal markets that generate those funds. Blaming Americans for funding terrorism is like blaming alcohol consumers in the 1920s for Al Capone’s violence. (www.theantidrugwar.com)
The ads waste precious resources: the federal government is spending $10 million on a television and print ad campaign to demonize Americans when more than half of the people in the country who need drug treatment cannot get it. (www.theantidrugwar.com)
The ads are politically motivated: the drug czar’s office is using millions of taxpayer dollars trying to persuade the American public and Congress that the failed drug war is still worth funding. (www.theantidrugwar.com)
The ads do nothing to educate children about the health risks of drug use, or to stimulate real dialogue among parents and children about drugs. Instead, they dishonestly link the war on drugs to the war on terrorism in a desperate and cynical effort to protect drug war budgets. (www.theantidrugwar.com)
The U.S. government has its priorities backwards, and is not performing its main duty of protecting its citizens. For example, before 9/11 the government was spending more than three times as much money on the War on Drugs than it was spending on fighting terrorism. (www.fff.org) And which of these two things caused incomparably more damage: terrorism. Drugs can ruin people’s lives, impair their thinking and judgment, and even kill them, but drugs do not demolish 110-story buildings and kill thousands of people in mere minutes. (www.fff.org) Not surprising to most, the government was wrong again, seemingly more worried about how they are looked upon than what duties they are supposed to be performing. Robert Sheer explains the situation as he wrote in the LA Times on May 22nd, 2001:
"Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously... ...Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998." (bbsnews.net)
Recent polls show that 70% of the American public believes the war on drugs has failed. 17 out of 19 initiatives and referendums in favor of drug policy reform have passed in the U.S. since 1996. (www.theantidrugwar.com) So why has the government failed to act upon the situation and make some changes? Something needs to be done; changes need to be made. After 9/11, the most high profile action the DEA has taken was raiding non-profit organizations in California that provided medical marijuana to sick and dying patients. These non-profits are supported by local police and California voters, but the government will still not listen to the voice of the people. (www.theantidrugwar.com) The government needs to focus on the real problems our country faces, such as terrorism and violence, and stop wasting money on harassing non-violent citizens for possession of drugs.
The present U.S. government has no idea of the realities of the street, which is proven by President Bush’s incompetent statement and the entirely new transfer of blame the government has put on America’s teenagers. People across America should be outraged that the government is attacking the youth of our nation, and only the incompetent, narrow minded, drug despising people should believe these lies. Our national government, the Government of The United States of America, sworn to uphold truth and justice, has manipulated a terrible atrocity in an attempt to gain more support for themselves and cover up all their mistakes, failures, and lies. They are attempting to make a far-fetched connection that is weakly supported by facts and draws on emotion because of the sensitivity of the subject. They are distracting the attention of the public eye from seeing the truth and using propaganda to continue to draw out the losing War on Drugs. The government is just wasting the tax payers’ hard earned money on T.V. advertisement and other propaganda to try and cover up their failures, and this should not be tolerated by the people of this country. Something needs to change and responsibility needs to be taken up.
Bibliography
Truth. Drugs and Terrorism. http://www.theantidrugwar.com.
Hess, Michael. Mass Media Helps Distort Terrorism / Drugs Link. http://bbsnews.net/bw2002-02-05.html. 02/05/02
Coretnor. A War on Drugs Becomes a “War on Terrorism”. http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/4989.php. Sept. 27, 2002
Anonymous Stoner. A toke from the Superbowl. http://smokedot.org/story/2002/2/4/1834/18948. 02/04/02
Bovard, James. The Bush Administration’s “Drugs = Terrorism” Fraud. http://www.fff.org/comment/com0204f.asp. April 2002
Moeller, Emily. The "War on Drugs and Terrorism": Madison Avenue Enlists. http://www.peacecouncil.net/709MadisonAve.htm