Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
From: [an 174545] at [anon.penet.fi]
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 21:00:44 UTC
Subject: America's drug war is an addiction


The following posted without permission, for discussion purposes
only. From *The Case for Legalizing Drugs* Richard Lawrence Miller,
Praeger, 1991: 

"Even America's drug war is an addiction.   Drug war zealots accept 
drugs as an all-powerful authority: a dark one to be resisted, Satan
instead of God, but authority nonetheless. Compulsive behavior is
seen throughout the war effort. For example, belief in "drug
treatment" programs grows with every reported success even though
almost 100 percent of treated cases are failures. Thus we see the
power of intermittent conditioning, with drug war zealots acting no
differently from rats that keep pressing a bar even though only one
press in thousands brings a reward of cocaine. Retaining and
expanding drug treatment programs is compulsive, eating up financial
and human resources that could be used productively in other
endeavors. The call for more and more anti-drug laws, creating new
criminal offenses when officials cannot even keep up with old ones,
shows an addict's inability to achieve satiation; anti-drug crusaders
never feel they have enough anti-drug laws. If zealots do not get
enough sensation of accomplishment through the present level of law
enforcement, they call for it to be administered with more power and
more frequence--clear evidence that the tolerance phenomenon has taken
hold. Morbid craving is seen in the willingness to ignore more
important community needs in order to fulfill the desire to fight
drugs. Self- destructiveness is seen in efforts that promote the very
abuses (such as disease, crime, and corruption) that drug war zealots
claim to fight, while curtailing civil liberties that Americans claim
to cherish. Crusaders declare their goal is a drug-free America, a
goal guaranteed to perpetuate their addictive game because no country
has ever become free of drugs or addicts. Abstinence does not cure
addiction, but zealots propose abstinence as a simple answer. Belief
in a simple answer is, in itself, a sign of addiction."

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