\documentclass{article}
\author{Joseph Barillari}
\title{A Modest Proposal \\ Concerning the War on Drugs}
\date{$ $Revision: 1.2 $ $ on $ $Date: 2002/01/02 06:37:16 $ $ (GMT)}
\begin{document}
\maketitle

For decades, the United States has been embroiled in a much-maligned
campaign, the ``War on Drugs.'' Encompassing harsh use and possession
laws, youth education programs, and anti-smuggling regulations, the
campaign has succeeded in imprisoning hundreds of thousands of
criminals and capturing billions of dollars in contraband. It has also
succeeded in spending billions of tax dollars on a war that has done
little more than make the drug industry more profitable, more brutal,
and more sophisticated than ever before; and has turned increasingly
large segments of the public against the campaign against drugs.

Everybody knows this.

As a moral perfectionist, I feel no need to revisit the rationale for
depriving US residents of substances that corrupt, deprave, injure,
and kill them, and induce them to corrupt, deprave, injure, and kill
others. The War on Drugs has a legitimate aim: preventing the American
masses from harming both themselves and each other.

The campaign, however, has been poorly planned and poorly
fought. Instead of attacking demand, Federal agents have fought the
supply chain by raising penalties for dealers and traffickers, while
giving users comparatively light sentences. A few programs are
targeted at the demand side, but they range from draconian and
ineffective (such as the infamous Rockefeller Laws of New York state)
to simpering and ineffective (such as the laughable DARE ``Drug Abuse
Resistance Education'' programs paraded before elementary-school
students by suburban police officers.)

The drug problem in America is entirely a demand-side problem. It can
be stopped, and can only be stopped, by eliminating the desire to take
drugs. All effective criminal laws work upon this principle: it is not
enough to merely restrain the public; one must also eradicate the
desire to commit crime. Whether by harsh punishments which deter
potential criminals, or by attaching social stigma to crime, or by
removing the personal incentives for wrongdoing, the most successful
anti-crime campaigns work by acting upon potential criminals. Crime is
a demand-side problem with demand-side solutions.

To capitalize upon this disciplinary axiom, we can fold the latter two
disincentives into a pronged approach.

\begin{itemize}

\item Phase out the DARE program. Phase in ``PAY'' -- ``Pure American
  Youth.'' Instead of teaching students to ``Just Say No,'' teach them
  to cast the first stone. Organize anti-drug youth clubs, but
  emphasize ``absolute purity'' in addition to ``zero tolerance.''
  Encourage bullying, teasing, and harassment of users, suspected
  users, or suspected children of users of drugs. Because many
  children are too na\"ive to recognize the telltale smell of
  marijuana, program officers should teach them a few simple
  heuristics: anyone who dresses oddly, smells strange, talks with an
  accent, or has a darker skin color is a suspect. Red flags go up if
  they have red-rimmed eyes or sniff often.

\item In the coeducational tradition of saltpeter-spiked mashed
  potatoes, add a pinch of Antabuse and naltrexone (an opiate blocker)
  to each carton of milk distributed by the Federal School Lunch
  Program. As an bonus, the DEA can give a boost to sagging
  agriculture markets by pumping federal dollars into the ``got
  milk?'' campaign.

\end{itemize}

Why target children? Because they're our most valuable resource -- in
marketing terms, at least. Children are the most impressionable
Americans, buying every TV-hyped product they can and forcing their
parents to buy the rest. All the drug war needs is a marketing
strategy developed by somebody other than Nancy Reagan.

The masses of pot-experimenters serving lengthy sentences in Sing Sing
are beyond help. We have to save Americans from themselves, before
they become the cynical drug-abusers of today, casually financing
Columbian warlords with their ``recreational'' habits. What we save in
prison costs, we can recycle into advertising. It's a win-win
scenario.

\vspace*{.25in}

\begin{texttt}
\copyright 2002 Joseph Barillari.

This document may be redistributed. It may not be altered.
\end{texttt}

\end{document}


% LocalWords:  Antabuse naltrexone