From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Wed Jan 12 2000 - 07:48:40 MST
On Tue, Jan 11, 2000 at 12:24:07PM -0500, Dan Fabulich wrote:
>
> Indeed, if anything, "opiating" the masses seems like EXACTLY the sort of
> thing we'd expect a totalitarain government to do.
>
> You might argue that the Government is acting foolishly, then, but not
> that it's covering its own backside by outlawing drug use.
>
> Am I missing something big here?
Yes.
Follow the money.
Who make money from the war on drugs?
In the USA, it's the DEA. The FBI. Wackenhut corporation (private
prisons). Every police force that auctions off goods seized under civil
forfeiture laws. Every police force that gets extra officers assigned
to it to protect the public from eeevil junkies or to operate the Drug
Squad. Every politician who gets a sound-bite out of being Tough on Drugs.
Every dealer who is able to sell his produce for a thousand times what
it really costs to product.
The War on Drugs turned hot in the USA around the end of Prohibition. It
was a great way for over-bloated police departments to avoid having
to downsize, and it could be played up on racist grounds. Post-WW2, it
could be exported to the rest of the world fairly easily. Everybody got
to play; even the CIA, who used it for money laundering to fund black
ops in the 60's. Today, Prohibition is a huge, sprawling, multi- billion
dollar industry. It also keeps the price of the produce artificially
high. It is in nobody's interests to discontinue the war on drugs,
except that of the consumers.
Yours in cynicism (and 'flu)
-- Charlie
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