We have been warned constantly, but this time it looks like
they really mean business.
Like a bunch of giggly teen-agers, we tried in vain to escape the inevitable. On
Sunday evening, during the Super Bowl, the final notice came down from the
president's office of national drug control policy.
President Bush has plenty of experience dealing with rambunctious teens and it
shows. As a product of Catholic schools, let me applaud the appeal to conscience
represented in those masterful commercial messages, which reveal the linkage of
recreational drug use and international terrorism. Sister Constantius, who
assumed custody of my soul during eighth grade, would be impressed with the
creative application of guilt.
Brazen crusading is apparently a permanent fixture in the yearly entertainment
and athletic gala. Last year's prime tormentors were the anti-smoking lunatics.
Who will ever forget the hideous wheezing and gasping? It was awful and, you
might recall, launched me into a fairly nasty tirade.
There are some occasions in which the sensitive modern man deserves to be left
alone, and the Super Bowl is one of them. This event is what George Will would
term a "meritocracy." The best of the best compete head-on, and at the end we
have a winner and a loser. There is a profound spiritual warrior tradition here
that should not be profaned by shrill politicians or do-gooders.
While any form of preaching is impolite and totally out of place on this
important feast day, the message of the anti-drug forces was substantially on
target. I wish to publicly thank Bush's office of national drug control policy
for making in scant minutes a point with which I have for years struggled.
It is noteworthy that the highest powers in the federal government have selected
one of the most widely viewed television events to place a message directed at
dopers, and at a cost of around $3.5 million. Could they believe that fiddling
with drugs is a middle-class pastime? John Walters, director of the policy
office, told The Washington Post that "since Americans spend over $60 billion on
( illegal ) drugs a year, this is a pretty well-leveraged investment." Indeed.
This marketing strategy is nothing short of brilliant, and the message is not
too subtle. The commercials portray international criminals buying weapons and
ask, "Where do terrorists get their money?" The answer is that the sale of
illegal drugs often funds the likes of Osama bin Laden and a host of shadowy
worldwide organizations sworn to our destruction.
It is pure, simple logic that taking the financial resources away from
"evildoers" would disrupt their rotten schemes against this land of liberty.
This is high-priority business.
Congress, state legislatures and local governments have a solemn patriotic
obligation to the men and women serving in the armed forces, and to the rest of
us to immediately begin the process of decriminalizing the unlawful substances
whose sale provides economic comfort to the enemies of freedom.
As more drugs become legal, the actual cost of goods will be very much less than
$60 billion a year. The good news is that revenues will flow to the guys and
gals who cultivate "weed" and other hard-working believers in free enterprise.
The drug trade will come out of the shadows and operate like a legitimate
business.
When the formerly illicit substances are lawful and controlled, they will be
safer in the same way that the whiskey from the liquor store is less hazardous
than moonshine. More good news. Drug users are accustomed to paying top price to
underwrite dangerous criminal operations and will not even notice steep state
and federal taxes, which can be used, among other things, to boost military
spending.
When restrictions on drugs begin to fall, it will be a bad day for the enemies
of Western civilization. Reform will come in stages, and the first step is a
national conversation about a sensible drug policy.
Nobody in his right mind would suggest legalizing methamphetamines, but
marijuana would be a good starting point. Cocaine and heroin might quickly
follow.
Yes, there are social consequences to more intelligent drug policies. They are
nothing compared to the plague of violence and incarceration that attends the
present stupid approach. The prevailing "get tough" attitude has brought ruin to
many at home and sumptuously funded our mortal enemies.
Where do terrorists get their money? It gushes prodigiously from a global
pipeline created by our foolish and failed war on drugs.
Pat Lynch
Pat Lynch has been a radio talk show host in Central
Arkansas for 18
years.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 2/7/2002