Index15

The War on Drugs : A Government Con-Game

by R. Belser

There's a rather vulgar expression which nicely summarizes the War on Drugs: "don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining." In the history of the War on Drugs, we can examine one of the prime mechanisms by which government first creates a "crisis," then rides in to the rescue with an array of freedom-killing "solutions" -- solutions which (predictably) worsen the "crisis," and engender a fresh tier of agencies, laws, and policies. Just as predictable is the uncanny way in which the Propasphere melds with government in demonizing the supposed source of the problem -- guns, drugs, "violence," etc.

In the case of drugs, the government first criminalized the use, possession and sale of certain drugs in the 1914 Harrison Act (it's more than mere coincidence that a panoply of other freedom-killing and NWO-preconditioning legislation was enacted at roughly the same time: creation of the Federal Reserve system, of the popular election of senators, of federal income tax, alcohol prohibition...and -- some would say -- women's suffrage). A precedent was set whose full import and ramifications would not be felt for decades, but an ominous principle implicitly contained in the Harrison Act had been swallowed whole: the government had the right -- superseding any personal liberty guaranteed by the Bill of Rights -- to decide what was good for you and what wasn't, and to enforce its decision with felony-level punishment. Not only that; the government could invoke the "common good" to infringe upon a citizen's sovereignty over his own body and mind, in matters which did not involve either force or fraud committed against others (the natural limitations of governmental jurisdiction). Even more: government's intrusion could be as arbitrary as it wished and have little or nothing to do with actual social harm represented by an individual's actions in the area of victimless crimes.

Prior to the Harrison Act, heroin, cocaine, and other drugs were easily accessible by any adult who wanted them. The law of supply and demand -- in the absence of interposing legislation -- is such that these drugs were cheap (as they would be today). Yet their easy availability and low cost did not result in the creation of enormous numbers of addicts, nor was there "drug-related" crime in the sense we see it today. In the case of the opiates (opium/laudanum, morphine and heroin), there were many "functioning" addicts. Perhaps an exemplary case is that of Dr. William Halsted, the famous surgeon who developed one of the first effective mastectomy procedures and who was a co-founder of Johns Hopkins. While investigating the anesthetic properties of cocaine, Halsted became addicted to it and overcame that addiction -- after many failed attempts using other methods -- by becoming a morphine user for the rest of his life. You'll note my use of the word "user" rather than addict; certainly Halsted was addicted to morphine in the sense that he needed to take it daily in order to function, but the level of that "functioning" was such that he continued the practice of medicine and surgery for decades, with no diminution of his customary high output of journal articles and quality performance in surgery.

Of course, Halsted was an exceptional person to begin with, but in more prosaic lives, many people who were addicted to the opiates managed to fill their stations in life unremarkably, from the housewife imbibing "homemaker's ease" in the form of laudanum at the end of day, to the Chinaman smoking his pipe after a day's or week's work in the laundry. There were certainly dissolute types, living literally in the gutters, but it would be a gross error to attribute their condition to addiction. In fact, unlike alcohol, the opiates, taken daily in maintenance doses, do permit a high level of functioning -- as one can observe today in Methadone Maintenance patients, whose numbers include lawyers, accountants, and members of all the professions, as well as the lower-class constituancy one might expect.

The creation of a vast and lucrative black market followed drug criminalization as night follows day -- and was a development which was equally predictable. The illegality of drug use/possession/sale meant high prices for small amounts (heroin today is literally worth more than its weight in gold -- many times more). The logistics involved in growing, purchasing, smuggling and distribution meant that control of the drug trade would be contested among large and ruthless organizations...i.e., "organized crime." The artificially inflated prices of drugs mean that very few can afford to buy them using only legitimate sources of income. For women addicts, this means either prostitution or theft; for men it means theft, robbery, and dealing at the street level. Contrary to the Propasphere-created image of the sinister figure lurking by the schoolyard, most low-level dealers are addicts themselves, selling to "colleagues"; in an endless round of selling-to-Peter-to-pay-Paul, low-level dealers at best are in it to minimize as much as possible what they must pay for their own drugs. The usual end of this story is prison or death.

Many articles have been written detailing the billions spent by the federal, state, and local governments on drug enforcement and the high percentage of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related offenses -- so it should be clear that drug laws have a large share of the blame for clogging the court system, diverting police resources from real crime and making prison construction a real growth industry. Occasionally such articles mention the contagion of corruption these laws leave in their wake. But almost every mainstream article/documentary ignores the worst effect of these laws: more than any other single tool, these laws have been used as a wedge to attack the foundations of the Bill of Rights -- and to prepare what the National Alliance's William Pierce calls the "lemmings" for a lifelong umbilical leash. The War on Drugs has been used to justify legislation which has gutted:

  -- 1st Amendment: Because the threat to First Amendment rights is broad, deep, and goes far beyond what what Propasphere media sources have revealed, I've gone into some detail to show how the War on Drugs threatens freedom of speech -- including Internet speech.

The Methamphetamine Non-proliferation Act
If H.R. 2987 passes, anyone whose web site even links to certain kinds of drug information could face up to ten years in federal prison. Groups ... that are devoted strictly to policy reform could be placed at risk through association. Web sites helping patients make decisions about marijuana as a medicine could elicit the heavy hand of the criminal justice system, as could sites helping to reduce the harm of drug addiction through safer-injecting techniques and other harm reduction measures.

The Senate version of the Bankruptcy Reform Act [S486] contains language that makes it illegal to teach or demonstrate the manufacturing of a controlled substance, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of a controlled substance. The provision is so vague that almost any drug-related speech could be subject to federal prosecution. Even harm reduction advocates who distribute information on how to grow medical marijuana, or how to use heroin more safely could potentially face up to ten years in federal prison.

This provision was aimed ostensibly at preventing the Internet publication of instructions on how to make methamphetamine. In reality however, it is a mandate so broad that it criminalizes any published speech about illegal drugs, even if that speech is aimed at reducing the harms associated with drug use. For example, the bill would apply to information about safe dosage levels of illegal drugs and which combinations of drugs pose dangers. It would apply to explanations about how to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. It would apply to instructions on how to identify psilocybin mushrooms in the wild, or extract codeine from Tylenol 3. In short, anything that could possibly be "intended" to encourage drug use.

Additionally, the bill makes advertising any information that could lead to the sale of drug paraphernalia a felony. This would mean that if one were to post the address of a head shop to a newsgroup, or the e-mail address of someone who makes water-pipes as a hobby, it would be a crime punishable by three years in jail, even though head shops themselves remain legal. Under this bill, even linking to a paraphernalia site is illegal.

Given the vague and inclusive interpretation of federal conspiracy laws, almost any information about criminalized drugs and any dissent against existing drug laws could be construed by federal law enforcement as furthering drug crimes. Any anti-Drug War website could be shut down directly, or indirectly because Internet service providers, who could also be prosecuted under the law, would refuse to host such sites. [DRC Newsletter, October and November 2000]

  -- 2nd Amendment: Gang shootings -- often the result of turf wars over drug territory/profits--have been used to whip up support for killing the 2nd Amendment. Such violence is the result of a recipe of volatile ingredients: adolescent Negro males with poor impulse control, "attitude," and not enough territory to be lucratively divided among all players. When the inevitable muders occur, the Propasphere first assigns blame to "guns"; when Dan Rathers and Peter Jennings want to look deeply serious and analytical, they assign the blame to "drugs." Somehow, their analysis never quite makes it to more fundamental culprits -- drug laws, race, and the Welfare State.

  -- 4th Amendment: Probable cause for search and seizure now have an interpretation nearly as flexible as Clinton's definition of "sexual relations," and pre-trial asset forfeiture has the (quite intentional) effect of stripping defendants of assets needed for legal expenses.

  -- 5th Amendment: Compulsory immunity negates the protection against self-incrimination.

  -- 6th Amendment: The right to confront one's accusers has been "adjusted" to accommodate the needs of informers -- i.e., snitches -- and the right to a speedy trial has become a joke.

  -- 8th Amendment: Excessive bail.

  --9th Amendment: The principle that, aside from those limited powers given to the government, all other rights are reserved to the people has been so violated by Drug War legislation -- as well as by more than a century of other eroding legislation -- that we are becoming a state in which anything not specifically allowed by law is ipso facto illegal.

More than any other single ploy, the War on Drugs, with its TIP (turn-in-a-pusher) lines and use of informants, has acclimated the public to accepting as a way of life the reporting on one's neighbors to "the authorities." It has entailed the creation of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and the naming of a "Drug Czar" and is on the verge of involving us in another Vietnam -- this time in Colombia. But the most frightening aspect of the War on Drugs is the exponential growth of Big Brother regulations, the majority of which have been put into effect without even being noticed. A good example of this kind of thing, which drew attention and oppostion only because it was publicized by the Internet, was the Know Your Customer Law, a regulation which was proposed by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). This would have required every bank insured by that entity (i.e., almost every bank) to create a "customer profile" of every one of its customers, based upon that customer's usual pattern of transactions, to flag customer accounts showing deviation from that accustomed pattern, and to then report that customer and turn over his banking records to the FDIC, IRS, DEA, and other government agencies. Even though a wide-spread Internet-based campaign to prevent this law from being adopted was successful, something on the order of 88% of all banks have agreed to meet the provisions of this law voluntarily. The telling thing about this, is that this is but one regulation formulated by just one governemnt agency, and that we even heard about it before it could become law was a fluke. Its justification, of course, was the need to bring attempts at money laundering (mostly from the drug trade) to light. There have been so many incursions of this sort during the course of the War on Drugs, that the Constitution resembles Swiss cheese; i.e., a lot more holes than cheese. And until recently, the mindset from the Drug War has so permeated our society, that physicians have been reluctant to prescribe morphine even to terminal cancer patients; heroin is still not available to them.

When you see all branches of the NWO -- the UN, ZOG, the EU -- speak as with one voice on an issue, it should be enough to make you suspect that the "other side" of the issue -- whatever it might be (immigration, the "global economy," etc.) -- has merit. When it comes to the War on Drugs, all of the above are adamant in their opposition to decriminalization. For one thing, the supposedly noble objectives of the Drug War (saving people from themselves) have provided yet another platform from which these entities can issue international, border-nullifying policy positions, with a long list of regulations, agencies, and so forth as mortar to solidify the architecture our would-be masters have been constructing for some time, with the knowledge that inertia and time will favor them. The idea, of course, is that the more ad hoc "crises" over which these One World Government planners can involve their respective nations in agreements, sovereignty-annihilating international police forces, etc., the more quickly the NWO can become an over-arching reality. As with other such tactics, this one relies upon gradualism-- accustoming the peoples of the different nations to a relatively slow and incremental abridgement of personal and national autonomy.

The War on Drugs, like other initiatives taken by the NWO, incorporates itself into the fabric of society in a manner congenial to the parasite-mediator class (in which the Jews play a leading role, as always) in just the ways you'd expect: so-called "substance-abuse" treatment centers have proliferated like a night-blooming fungus throughout the country, entire careers in the "helping professions" have been based upon supposed expertise in the field, and great gobs of Medicaid money and other "transfer payments" have lined the pockets of psychiatrists, program directors, and and other professionals whose business it is to create nothing, repair nothing, build nothing, and to produce nothing...nothing, that is, but reams of paper filled with jargon, psycho-babble and little if any meaning. All this forms a huge part of that monster spawned by liberal-left politics, the Welfare State, and its chief industry, "social work". It's interesting to speculate about what would be the fate of the "substance-abusing" Edgar Allan Poe, were he alive today and sucked into the maw of this system. Or of Dr. Halsted. Perhaps the anonymous creator of a bumper sticker I recently saw was pondering such things when he wrote: Reality is for people who can't handle drugs.

Exactly what would be the consequences of repealing drug prohibition? Well, for one thing, a lot of bottom-feeders would be out of work. Entire bloated federal and state government agencies would lose their justification for existing. There would be plenty of prison vacancies which could be filled with serious miscreants; property crimes would drop. And the main factor fueling gangs and gang warfare -- drug profits -- would cease to exist. Those who had nothing better to interest them than vegging out on drugs (or alcohol) would do so -- as they always have done -- but at sharply reduced cost to the general public. Would there be a great increase in the number of addicts? It's hard to believe that there would; drug laws have never really kept those interested in drugs from consuming them and in fact have made drugs, enveloped in the mystique of the forbidden and criminal, more attractive than they might otherwise be.

But as powerful a force as the enormous profits to be made from drug prohibition is in keeping drugs criminalized, the real reason you won't see decriminalization is that it provides irreplaceable services to the NWO. Like "guns" and "racism," the word "drugs" needs only to be articulated for the tumblers to fall into place in the brainwashed minds of the West.