From: [w--li--h] at [ix.netcom.com](William House)
Newsgroups: alt.activism.death-penalty,alt.activism,talk.politics.drugs,alt.christnet,soc.culture.african.american
Subject: America: Addicts of Drug War.  (Was: DP No Deterence.  (Was: Death Penalty Facts disprove Irrational Vengeant Sadism)
Date: 6 Apr 1996 16:17:08 GMT

Subject: America's drug war is an addiction

Yes, 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, 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.

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.

The fight against drug use is compulsive, eating up financial and
human resources that could be used productively in other endeavors.

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.