Sanity vs Insanity

My upcoming debate is entitled “War on Drugs”, but it really isn’t so much about drugs as it is about failed public policy. The media and much of the country is up in arms about our failure to achieve our objectives in Iraq, but why is that same media silent on the war that has been waged for forty years against our own citizens? Where is the concern over the trillion dollars wasted on obviously failed policy since 1970? Why are there no people marching in the streets over innocent Americans killed routinely as the police consistently escalate their tactics in order to gain an advantage in a conflict where the goals can never be met? Why do we silently sit by while the very essence of our country, our constitution, is diluted to the point that its sacred guarantees of civil liberty are made practically meaningless? In the name of protecting our young we ruin their lives with criminal records for possession of marijuana; does that even make sense?

I once believed we could arrest our way out of the drug problem, but experience has shown me that that can never happen and we only reap a myriad of horrible unintended consequences. The debate on Tuesday night will be about sanity verses insanity. It will be about my experience at trying to make the impossible work. What are the answers? We aren’t sure, but we do know that prohibition doesn’t work; we proved it with alcohol, and again with drugs. The more we expose the folly of this failed public policy to the court of public opinion the sooner we can get over our drug war and address our drug problem.

Submitted by Jerry Cameron on February 1, 2007 - 2:34am.
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Isaac Singletary of Jacksonville, an 80 old man, went to investigate a disturbance in his yard, which turned out to be a police undercover operation. Singletary had no way of knowing some of the people involved were police officers. He was on his own property and had a gun to protect himself from what he believed were drug dealers. Those circumstances cost him his life and probably several police officers their careers.

Only a few weeks earlier in Jacksonville there was another drug related police shooting under controversial circumstances where a young man lost his life. In Nassau County Sheriff’s Deputies broke in the door of a single female while serving a search warrant obtained for supplying of few prescription pills to an acquaintance of hers. She armed herself when she heard the break-in; a Deputy saw the gun and ended her life. At about the same time an 80 year grandmother in Atlanta lost her life in the same way.

Collateral damage in the Drug War costs the lives of innocent citizens as well as defendants and police officers every day. The police are now using very high profile tactics to try and fight ever more sophisticated and better armed dealers. The risk for officers is increasing and the additional tension guarantees deadly mistakes. What is the return for this extremely high cost of human life? Will we eventually achieve a “drug free” America? Not a chance! We won’t even make a long-term reduction in the supply of drugs or the people using them through law enforcement efforts.

Senseless loss of life is just one of the unintended consequences of this horribly failed policy. Only when significant numbers of citizens demand it, will the politicians have the courage to initiate the reforms necessary to end this national disaster. When we get over our “Drug War” we can begin to address our drug problem.

Jerry Cameron | February 2, 2007 - 2:53am

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