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On the day after Labor Day, the Bush Administration is supposed to announce yet another strategy for ridding America of the scourge of drugs, for once and for all.
No matter what our leaders propose -- bombing Peruvian plantations, walling our borders, gutting the Bill of Rights -- it won't work. You wonder why they even try, except that in politics, it is easier to raise a fuss about things you can't do much about (drugs or hostages, for instance) than it is to tend to the matters you're responsible for (bribery or influence peddling among people you appointed).
Why won't the next strategy work any better than Operation Intercept, the South Florida Task Force and Just Say No? If you look at the history of drug abuse and governmental responses, a clear pattern emerges.
A given drug first becomes popular with a small segment of the population, usually an influential elite. Nobody thinks that's a problem. It is laughed off as another eccentric aspect of the glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous, of no more import than a champagne-filled swimming pool or a fleet of pink private jets.
Our culture teaches us to respect and flatter our betters -- that is, people who have more money than we do. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. We can't afford pools and jets, but we can afford a taste of their chemical entertainments.
People wouldn't take drugs if drugs didn't make them feel better -- note that there is little expressed concern about the clear dangers of snorting sulfuric acid crystals -- and so the activity in question spreads throughout all levels of society. When it reaches the lower socioeconomic levels, the result is a four-alarm national emergency.
Even though crime has occurred throughout history, no matter what drugs were available, every sort of crime will be blamed on the current drug.
But after a while, the excitement wears off. People notice the long-term ill effects of the drug, and give it up all on their own. By then, though, the rich and famous trendsetters have discovered another chemical novelty. The cycle starts anew.
So it was with gin in England, a scourge in 1750 when
Hogarth produced his Gin Lane
engravings of
working-class people degraded by drink. But in 1700, gin
posed no threat to the future of Western Civilization,
because only His Majesty and the House of Lords drank the
stuff.
More recently, we can look at LSD. No problem in 1964, when only a few daring writers, artists and college professors turned on and tuned in. A major problem by 1968, when orange sunshine was available on every street corner; the rabble was getting its grubby hands on an elite privilege, so politicians denounced it while newspapers displayed lurid stories about acid-addled college students who had blinded themselves by staring at the sun. But LSD was no problem in 1975, because by then everybody knew better, and besides, the trendsetters had taken up cocaine.
The moment that cocaine tumbled from the palaces to the slums and became bay rum instead of Don Perignon, it became our leading national problem, far worse than toxic dumps, oil spills, bankrupt S&L's or the national deficit.
However, cocaine will go away, no matter what the Bush regime does or doesn't do. It's passé in the stylish set. These days, they're into bottled water, power nutrition and daily exercise for that natural runner's high.
You think we have a crime problem now? Just wait until the street thugs quit smoking crack and take up jogging to build up their endorphin levels naturally. Slow-footed police won't have a chance when every corner lout trains like a decathlon prospect.
Soon a vast market will develop for goods previously limited to Beverly Hills: exotic brands of bottled water and obscure organic foods alleged to enhance potency, increase strength and extend life. The clean-living criminals will import, counterfeit and deal. We'll have a new national scourge to eradicate.
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