Pastor Graham Long of the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross has called for an end to the War on Drugs, pointing out that it victimises poorand underprivileged people while providing warring factions in Afghanistan with cash for weapons. In his weekly newsletter he writes:
Why on earth don't we get the UN to buy the whole heroin crop from farmers in Afghanistan to use it for legitimate medical needs around the world. Bingo! Instant defunding of all the warring groups who fund their mayhem by the sale of heroin. I've spoken to people in high places about Afghanistan and the truth is that no one sees any end in sight. I don't often get on a soap box but I just loathe the idea of young Australians dying in some cause that has no end. Perhaps if we took the market away from the Taliban and the other warring factions, they'd be struggling to fund a single bullet. While I'm on the box, I wonder when we'll wake up that our war on drugs is a war on people. Actually, it's a war on poor people. Every time I think of the Bali nine, it sticks in my neck that our AFP handed Australian young people over to a potential death sentence. Do you think the AFP would have taken this action if one of the nine had been the son of the Prime Minister? We could save a fortune as well as some lives if we took the drug market out of the hands of criminals. I'm expressing the view of a small minority but one that I think will start to make sense when governments become motivated to pay off their debt. One day, we'll see that today's orthodoxy is expensive and unproductive. I don't get on my box often but ever since 1964 The Wayside Chapel never pretended to be a not for prophet organisation.
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to the ongoing open season on hippies, commies, and non-whites in the war on drugs. Cops get good performance reviews for shooting fish in a barrel. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
ReplyDeleteThe drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for selling seeds that American farmers use to reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot.
The CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnates Al Capone, endangers homeland security, and throws good money after bad. Fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies, but he underestimated Schafer’s integrity. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use. Former U.K. chief drugs advisor Prof. Nutt was sacked for revealing that non-smoked cannabis intake is scientifically healthy.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. God’s children’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with their maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law holds that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration. Liberty is prerequisite for tracking drug-use intentions and outcomes.