Addiction Is A Man Made Disease
To say that drugs wreck lives is preposterous yet most would agree emphatically. Anthropomorphizing this inanimate object denies human control of self at the same time that it takes it. Most Americans trust their government. Drugs are bad. Drugs harm society. Drugs are a human scourge. By not saying exactly how drugs are dangerous, prohibitionist do not have to justify ‘dangerous substances’ that are not and false presumptions that are obvious. These lies are left for us to assume to be metaphor for rhetorical effect.
Why do they do this? Why does everyone speak of drugs as though they effect ingestion and behavior? Obviously, neither is true. The reasons these words are never spoken are twofold. Firstly, nobody likes to appear to be stupid. “The Kings New Cloths†are real everyone seems to insist. Secondly referring to the real object of drug law would be so obviously beyond government purview. This leaves we the people to assume what they cannot. So we speak of the ‘drug problem’ as though control of the most personal of human behavior was simply an unavoidable by product of a perfectly legitimate regulatory function controlling a ‘dangerous’ substance that is clearly not so, unless one again presumes a metaphor. Ignoring this sophistry in order to enable power never bestowed on this government is national policy based on fear of freedom, stupidity, personal benefit and/or evil intent. Type 3 stupidity plays a major role, but that is another rant.
So why does everyone seem to believe that people are powerless over drugs. Because they are taught from an early age that drugs are bad and a thousand other ‘presumed’ metaphors for the unspoken human behavior that drugs ‘cause’. These ‘popular’ lies have introduced presumption into our legislature and our courts. These lies tell us we are powerless. Being powerless over a drug is so very attractive to all but Libertarians. The government gets control of everybody. The non-drug user thinks he is not affected. Family and friends can accept behavior by attributing it to the drug and anyone providing it to their otherwise innocent loved ones. The addict is thus manufactured with an excuse for harm and behavior that enable him to deflect and postpone the inevitable day that it must end.
The responsibility for personal choice is now transferred to others. The compulsive user gets to keep doing what is so pleasurable until others exercise control for them. Business booms from rehab centers to the justice industry. Illicit dollars flood offshore banking institutions. The rich get tax-free dollars and the poor slobs who believe the big lies are jailed actually believing they did something wrong. The public thinks they are building a better society. No one objects their lose of personal liberty because they have been ‘taught’ to fear it. The consumer’s power in a free market is now in the hands of people who are criminals by definition and uncontrollable by any lucid view of reality. This market is relegated by law to the most vicious and violent people in any society, bestowing unimaginable wealth and power. Those selling on the street are victims of a policy that creates a temptation more powerful than any drug, lots of easy money.
If personal behavior that does not infringe on the safety or equal liberty of others is not one of our guaranteed unalienable rights, then what is?
Rick Wolfe