Prohibition didn t work, but we didn t learn. We decided to name it the war on drugs and try again. Maybe we did learn something. We no longer punish alcohol possession, minors excepted. We punish alcohol-induced misbehavior and view chronic misuse as a disease.
People seek drugs to cope with spiritual, emotional or physical problems.
That makes drug abuse a problem for a pastor, a counselor or a physician. If a drug abuser refuses to ask for help, we should care only about their behavior during their voyage to personal destruction. We have nothing to show for the war on drugs but more addiction than ever, a legal system clogged with drug-related cases, and graft and corruption that eat away at our moral foundation. We have politicians who take our tax dollars and send our legal system on a mad pursuit where private property can be confiscated without due process and courts intervene to forbid the medicinal use of marijuana. My idea is hardly original.