America's unjust war

Last Wednesday another "battle" was "won" by Indiana law enforcement in the "War on Drugs."\nIn Marion, various agencies including the Grant County Sheriff's Department, Marion Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency seized 5,500 pounds of marijuana worth almost $11 million, according to the Marion Chronicle-Tribune. Using data estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau for Indiana's population for 2003, that would mean that every two Hoosiers above the age of 18 could combine to have about "five (dollars) on it," as the song goes.\nThe government, inexplicably, continues to persecute and prosecute people who want to get "high" outside of the state approved modes of personal escape.\nThe morality which supposedly fuels the government's effort to curb illicit drug use falls on its face when one looks at its actions concerning alcohol and its use and distribution. \nFor example, as a bartender, I must pay $30 bi-annually to the State of Indiana so I may be licensed to sell a taxed and legal drug -- alcohol -- to the public. On the other hand, millions of Americans are incarcerated for using unaccepted chemical methods for various reasons, even simply for relieving the stress of everyday life. \nBasically, if the state does not have a hand in it, you can't use it.\nTo further this point, as held by an Indiana Supreme Court ruling in 1996, Indiana's tax on marijuana -- yes, it exists -- is not in violation of the constitutional protection from "double jeopardy," provided said taxpayer is not prosecuted for said marijuana. Ergo, if you let the state know you are going to get high and pay them their cut, you can smoke weed. \nTo the Indiana Supreme Court, then, extortion by the state is perfectly legal.\nSome believe if narcotics were made legal, doing so would be akin to a government sanction of drug use and would thereby send a harmful message to the children of America.\nIs there anyone on this campus or anywhere else in America whose primary motivation for drinking a beer is that Uncle Sam says it's OK? \nEither you want to do drugs, or you do not. We will not become a nation of "crackheads" just because we lessen the penalties for non-violent drug offenses. In fact, our children may become safer from drugs if they were legal.\nAlcohol and tobacco are taxed, regulated and subsidized by various government agencies. As materials that are closely monitored by the government, I can say without any doubt in my mind that when I was a 16-year-old kid, marijuana was much easier to attain than beer or cigarettes. (Even though, as a 27-year-old man, the statute of limitations has expired for anything of that nature I might have done back then, I must ask you to just trust me on this one.) \nEven disregarding the rampant availability of drugs, the notion that drug laws deter drug use is laughable.\nThe National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, (which can be found on the White House's Web site), shows that among 18 to 25-year-olds, between 1999 and 2001, more than 50 percent admitted to using drugs illegally at some point in their lives. Among 26 to 34-year-olds, up until 2001 -- the last year polled in the survey -- the number of people responding that they have ever used illicit drugs has not ducked below 50 percent since 1979. \nDeterrence indeed.\nIf we were to enforce our many drug laws in every situation, a majority of Americans in the aforementioned age groups -- statistically more than half of the people you know - should have been arrested, tried, convicted and possibly jailed for drug offenses. \nWould that have been justice? \nThe "War on Drugs" is a war on our own people, so no matter what, we are destined to lose.