The Drug War: Trading Lives

Perhaps today a small child ran into misfortune.  There may have been a drug-related shootout in her neighborhood that spilled over and took her life.  Maybe her brother, in poverty, had wanted so badly to help the family that he got involved in drug trading, and a local branch of an organized crime group had decided he wasn't serving them correctly.  Or maybe, her parents were in an organized crime group, or her aunt or uncle were. A young child may have died today because of the crimes of those around her.

Maybe she lived in a city in another country.  Maybe it was a poor country, with people of a poor class.  This young child may have died today because people give her life little value, due to being born poor or living in a poor country or to having relatives in a dangerous situation.

The drug war that we wage causes tragedies.  Children die.  Whole families die.  Maybe they are of a poorer class or are brown-skinned.  Maybe they live in a different country than those the one that we in the US are familiar with.  Maybe they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, innocent bystanders.  People have hopes and dreams and rich family lives only to lose all in some sudden violence that they can't avoid.

Let's tell another story.  An elite child in a big city in the US has been saved from a life-long addiction to heroine.  She grew up in a nice neighborhood and went to a nice school.  Like the little child in the far-off land who died today, she has a rich life, and loves her family and friends.  She has dreams and goals, and plans to go to college.  Maybe she'll study to become a doctor or lawyer or physicist.  But maybe she has started smoking early, has a tendency to drink a little too much, and would like to experiment with other drugs.  Maybe she had her wisdom teeth out or her tonsils out, and liked the pain-killers that the doctors gave her.  Our US drug war may have made the difference of whether or not she can get hard drugs to try.  Young people do get reckless.  Our drug war may make the difference of whether or not she ever goes to college, ever has a rich life full of family and friends, or loses all her hopes and dreams to an addiction tragedy.

Is this trade-off of lives, that happens every day, worth it?  I say no.  Drug prohibition is not the way to avoid addiction tragedies.  It only pushes pain and loss out of sight of the elites and well-off people of our country and onto people who didn't ask for it and don't deserve it.  Should less privileged people suffer so that elites can be saved from their own tragedies caused by themselves or by mental illnesses or recklessness of youth?

Let the money, or at least some of the money, that we spend on the drug war be spent instead on addiction research.  Let's approach the problem head-on, with courage and care, and in the light of day.