The War On Drugs

Courtesy of shows like Cops, the American stereotype of a drug dealer is a black male with sagging pants, standing against a chain-link fence at a school waiting for the next unsuspecting five-year-old to buy crack. The explanation for overcrowding the nation's jails with non-violent drug offenders (and spending taxpayer money on building more jails) is the common refrain about keeping our kids safe.

Well, looks like the war isn't working - duh! The insurgency fighting the government's so-called war on drugs has found a stronger, more powerful ally -- the pharmaceutical industry.

The Partnership For A Drug-Free America released a study revealing that 1 in 5 kids has abused a prescription painkiller, often found in their parents' medicine cabinets -- a bigger number than those who experimented with crack, LSD, ecstacy or cocaine. The same study found that marijuana use among kids declined last year from 42 percent to 37 percent.
(http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/parenting/04/21/drug.survey.ap/index.html)

Not surprising given the advertisements that dominate television programming - a man's voice is placed over a video clip of a couple riding bicycles - "Do you get tired at night? Do you wake up in the morning feeling tired? Do you get annoyed when you are stuck in traffic? Well, you might be suffering from life-can-be-stressful syndrome, commonly found in men and women ages 5-100. Ask your doctor about 'Numbyourbrain' - just one pill a day will have you back to the normal you." Then the voice lowers and the man accelerates the speed of his speech, reciting "side effects include liver dysfunction, sexual dysfunction, insomnia, diarrhea...." Of course marijuana use is down - how can hardworking marijuana growers compete with such effective advertising?

Chris Rock jokes in one of his stand-up specials (I think it's "Never Scared") that it's not that the government doesn't want you to take drugs - it wants you to take the drugs its campaign supporters make. Vioxx increases the risk of heart attacks and Celebrex causes an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, but these painkillers remain legal. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/12/23/pain.warning/index.html) In contrast, marijuana is illegal to the public and there is an attack on California's medicinal marijuana laws.

I am really curious - do the same pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control pills on the grounds that it offends their moral values also refuse to fill prescriptions for Vioxx and Celebrex because they value life and don't want to put people at risk? Probably not.

If a parent leaves a gun unlocked and something goes tragically wrong, that parent will face criminal charges for, at a minimum, criminal neglect. If the war on drugs is serious about keeping the nation's children out of harm's way, then the parents of the one in five children who abused painkillers found in the parents' medicine cabinet should be put in jail with all the other drug dealers who crowd the nation's jails. Perhaps Cops will start featuring America's new drug pushers and drug abusers in its shows.