Sometimes a Great Notion

May 22, 2009

There are as many models of progression as there are progressive models, and they can’t all be right unless, of course, they can be.  A famous clash in the progress of human evolution pitted the age-old Darwinian model of gradualist evolution based on natural selection—however amended and tailored by his sycophants, protégés and adherents—and that of punctuated equilibria, formulated by a geologist, no less:  Stephen Jay Gould. 

Analogous to James Lovelock’s contention that Earth is itself an organism, which he named Gaia, I see the evolution of societies and even civilizations as profitably compared to the evolution of species, subject even to similar mechanics, at least depending on the elasticity of the mind at the time this thought experiment is consciously undertaken.  While the late twentieth century was marked by decidedly gradual trends in the evolutionary path of the American executive, today’s moment in American history is as punctuated an equilibrium as this nation has seen since those heady Lincoln years way back in the Paleozoic era, two whole centuries back in time.  Beyond the future of a Barack Obama lithographic displacement of Jackson or Grant on one of our nation’s bank notes, today’s national struggles shall certainly define the structure of decades to follow more forcefully and significantly than at any time in the 20th century.   Transformational figure, indeed. . .

The United States faces a range of dramatic—and in some instances nearly existential—challenges that are so variegated and disparate as to be linked only by something so impossible that it becomes in a breath the obvious common denominator, however utopian the paradox:  their solution.  First, we are in the midst of an economic crisis.  Second, we are embroiled in a global battle with Islamic extremism likely to fester and flare for decades.  As a nation we boast an incarceration rate of nearly one percent of our population, the world’s highest, five times higher, in fact, than autocratic China.  Of those locked away in American prisons on the tax-payer’s dime, a full 80% are there for non-violent offenses and 60% have no history of violence.  As tax-payers we invest more in punishing non-violent drug offenders than we do in feeding under-nourished children in our own country, and this disparity is one that a civilized society cannot long suffer. 

Local, state, national, and international agencies and institutions, even entire nations, have fallen prey to the endemic corruption of the quid pro quo balance sheets of drug syndicates and their barons awash with cash and weapons, not to mention megalomaniacal and other pathologic tendencies.  Mayhem, violence, revolution, and institutional corruption have been the attendant handmaiden more often than not of those nations where psychoactive plants grow well.  What would become of headline staples were the United States to take the grown-up role in the moralistic debate and were to decriminalize illicit drugs?  What about if it just made pot legal?  Might things begin to get, dare we venture to imagine, perhaps even a little bit boring?  Almost predictable.  There but for the grace of God go I.

I don’t mean just pot. 

We must make cocaine and heroin legal as well, and tax it, all of it.  Maybe stuff that is really bad for you like crystal meth, ecstasy, Vitamin K, the date rape drug, and things like that might warrant continued proscription, but the best thing for society may just be a clean sweep and universal legalization.  After all, huffing airplane glue is about as bad a thing as a person can do to himself, yet airplane glue is readily available, and without a prescription.  If people wish to aggravate aggressive egos with amphetamines, sublimate their selves with sedatives, dance the fantastic sublime unimaginable with psychedelics, or simply line their lungs with cigarette tar, then we as a society must not deprive them of the option of doing so legally and regularly.  People that get stoned are going to do so whether it is legal or not.  People that are impressionable are sure to respond to anti-drug marketing in the decriminalized world of our near future as much as they do to peer pressure to experiment with drugs in today’s world.  People that would just as soon snuff themselves with dissipation should not be made to take the long road when this path is well lighted and traveled.  The legislation of morality has never withstood the weight of its own pretension nor the force of the relentless future, and now is a perfect punctuated fulcrum upon which to equilibrate the argument for the decriminalization of illicit drugs.

You can’t excuse blow and smack from school because to do so fails to deliver the financial body blow to Afghan warlords and the American cocaine syndicates woven into the fabric of the entire western hemisphere.  When we make it all legal, it will eliminate the profit motive that sustains vast networks of criminal enterprises worldwide, pushing them into riskier criminal rackets that are easier to police.  Opium is the financial sponsor of a lot of Islamic extremism, less of which would be possible if the drug were legal.  Cocaine is the avenue of endless degrees of unimaginable criminal violence and loss of life and limb from Patagonia to Point Barrow, all of it, everywhere vulnerable to a single change in current law,

“Legalize it,” said Bob Marley, “and I will advertise it.”

With the deficit and national debt in territory that few have the capacity to imagine, much less visualize, the net effects of a change in drug policy can’t help but have dramatic economic consequences—all beneficial—across many different realms of our national civil infrastructure and the cost of doing business. 
Consider:

The eyes of my coreligionists glaze over at the idyllic prospect, but they all dismiss the notion as pie in the sky.  Obama’s own words even seemed to make fun of the mere prospect of pot legalization.  Me, I think it is a deft feint to throw the opposition into momentary disarray and that the legalization of illicit drugs is a viable alternative to an unworkable existing policy proven yearly to work less and less at greater and greater cost.  We proved as a society last November that we were not in such lock-step with the ideals of annihilation and national disgrace as to continue down the failed trail blazed by the former American administration by electing a seriously dark horse to the highest office in the land.  Had you asked ten years ago which was more likely today:  drug legalization or a freely elected black American president, I wonder which would have garnered more votes.

It’s coming folks, to a world near you.  “I would not feel so all alone,” advised Dylan with his usual prescience and wit.  “Everybody must get stoned.”

May 23 2009, Dan Troop, Denver, Colorado, wrote:

You hit a few nails squarely on the head with your recent sometimes a great notion editorial.  I have believed for years the only workable solution is an across the board legalization of all illicit drugs, not just marijuana.  It is not just a taxation issue, although we could sure use all of that money infused into our annual governmental budgets right now.  You hit on the more dangerous and pertinent point, opium and cocaine trade funds massive crime, revolution, and religious mayhem all over the world, but especially in Asia and the southern Americas. 

But here is the reason I believe that is a deeper problem that you got at briefly in the editorial:  the military industrial complex, the DEA, the CIA needs those cartels and revolutionaries and jihadists to be well funded so we keep having a place to spend our military and intelligence dollars.  The arms dealers and generals need those nuts to have drug cash on hands, or they're out of jobs.  That is precisely what Iran/Contra was all about, that is why cocaine and Nicaraguan contra soldiers were being flown in and out of Mena, AR, during the 80's.  This little game of trading opium for cash to fight a war goes back at least as far as Claire Chennault and his Flying Tigers who were hired by the Chinese govt as mercenaries and opium runners. These sorts have huge power in back rooms where real policy gets made, and they have no reason to want drugs to ever get legalized.  I think that is the real reason that reason has not prevailed! yet on this issue.  Everyday voters, many of them having tried a little of this and that over the years, could easily be persuaded in the logic, but the issue is not really even being brought to committee tables for initial votes, let alone serious public debate.  It gets killed along with a bottle of good scotch in the power elites comfortable dens.

Yes, upon legalization, at least a few years of a generation would be hit hard by addiction and mental illmess, if not an entire generation.  But the  obvious slavery of addiction would come quickly evident, and first hand experiences with friends and family battling addiction or dead of overdoses would soon make the young decide, I don't think I want any of this heroin shit.  Also, we could use a sizable chunk of the tax revenues, not to mention prison savings, on substantive, easy to use treatment programs.  And if some addict doesn't want to take advantage of that helping hand, well, it is pretty obvious where his road eventually ends.

This is an editorial.  This is only an editorial.  Had this been an actual fact you would have been advised to withdraw to your nearest fact shelter to await further instructions.  We repeat.  This is only an editorial.  If you wish to add your own two cents to this debate, you may mail me here.

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