“Popies for Peace”  cries  Common Sense  … “No !” screams powerful Governments
 

[Gleaned and compiled from articles by Jorrit Kamminga and Peter van Ham of Washington Quarterly; and John Simpson, World Affairs Editor of BBC]
 

Drug Problem: Why it Persists?   How it Survives?   Governments to be Blamed !
 

The fear of drugs is in every home.   On the road an addict may drive into you.   At place of work an addict may harass you.   In the house an addict may break-in to rob you.     And in the home your teenager could turn into one of them.

Governments enact laws to prevent use of drugs.   Innumerable laws are there in place.  Yet innocents are jailed along with criminals.

This injustice, the governments say,  and say it without compunction, ‘injustice cannot be helped and must be endured,   for ignorance is no excuse,   and we are fighting a war’. 

For want of better legislations,  the drug cartels thrive and flourish with money in abundance to enjoy the very best in life.  

US of America is spending billions of dollars to eradicate drugs in Colombia and  Peru in Soth America  and Afghanistan in Asia.  These are only three main sources mentioned here.   The United Nations too is involved along with many other organizations.  

The general view of independent observers are entirely different from those of the many governments.  

These governments are spending billions of dollars of ‘public money’ in these lost ‘drug’ wars in vain.

Here is what the BBC’World Affairs Editor’, John Simpson, said of this problem:  

The drugs business offers one of the best returns on investment of any commodity on earth.    It operates according to the pure, undistorted laws of the market.

And its greatest, though unconscious, supporters have been the governments of the European Union and the United States.

In Washington Quarterly, in a well written article, Jorrit Kamminga and Peter van Ham write :

Afghanistan must turn the tables on opium crisis.  

Establish a project to produce medicines like Morphine and Codeine. 

Tackling drug economy is central to  easing Afghanistan’s ills, and the only alternative is the ‘poppies for peace proposal’. 

Burning and destroying the basic plant only antagonises the farmer and throws him into the out spread welcoming arms of the drug dealers.

And the ‘great pretenders’ of freedom fighters in many 3rd world countries.  They use drugs for guns.   Why cannot our governments use drugs for medicine and peace?

United States of America is the leader in adopting a hard-line policy.   It spends billions of dollars  to eradicate cocoa and poppy plants.  They offer alternative crops to farmers for cultivation.  

The  farmers vehemently oppose the idea of alternative crops because drug plants bring in much more and steady income.

We all know alcohol to be one of the drugs that create problems in a society.  Home violence, road accidents, sexual offences and every disgusting crime under the sun. 

What most of us do not know is that Alcohol is the deadliest of all drugs known to man.   Medical, Forensic and Crime studies support this statement.   We did not pluck this out of the sky to support our presentation here.

 Yet alcohol is openly sold under license. Why cannot the drugs too be dispensed to users and addicts?   If there are valid reasons for such a closed-minded attitude by all the governments why will not they openly and emphatically explain their reasons?   Why hide?

Prohibition of Alcohol was enforced in the USA by a group of puritan politicians in the 1920s.  

This started an illicit trade in alcohol and fostered gangsters like Al Capone, Jessie James,  Pistol Ma,   Baby-faced Nelson and 100s of others.  Most of the were gunned down and a few were sent to prison. 

The biggest and notoriously famous Al Capone was sent to prison for not paying Income Tax.   Not for any of his criminal activities.   But for spending so much lavishly.   He could not account for the money he spent. 

The prohibition was withdrawn years later and billions of dollars in the pockets of high politicians and officials.   The ‘kennedy millions’ began in illicit alcohol deals. 

Bootlegging they called it.   

The American bureaucracy fought like rabid dogs to retain the prohibition. 
 

It brought in unearned income  more than three, four times their legitimate salaries. 

But saner thoughts prevailed and prohibition was  withdrawn and alcohol was once again distributed under license.

It is the very same situation with these hard drugs from marijuana, cocaine, heroin to variety of others.

Why does America persists in hard-line approach to drugs?

Why does America applies heavy pressure on Drug Authorities of the United Nations?   Not to go for ‘poppies for peace’ proposal?

Why will not America relent in its Hard-line Policy?

Even after its own lessons learnt in the Prohibition Law of early 1920s?

Isnt this ridiculous?  

A nation that is endowed with great thinkers  …  great leaders of men  …   behaves like the self-appointed  policeman of the world  …   refuses to take lessons from its own  past mistakes!

The answer is that same old …  “unearned income of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats”  …   in high places.  

Why?

The answer is the same old one:  the inexorable   “corrupt officials and politicians”  holding on to their avenues of  unearned income.