J.G. Vibes
Activist Post
There is this idea in our society that has been bred into us
through the media, government schools and culture, where law must line up
perfectly with traditions and social convention. If something is frowned upon
or taboo, you can rest assured that there is someone out there who thinks that
it should be illegal.
When a particular activity or behavior starts to bother
people in the kinds of societies that we have today, all too often those people
are very quick to suggest that the proper solution to this problem is to throw
that person in a cage. That may sound kind of harsh, but that is exactly what
you are advocating when you claim that something should be illegal.
In a world as delicate and complex as ours, does this really
seem like a proper one size fits all solution for our social problems,
especially those where there was no violence, theft or fraud involved? There is
no dispute that violence, theft or fraud should be illegal because no one wants
to get hurt, or robbed or ripped off.
However, when you start getting into nonviolent crimes where
there has been no theft, is bringing aggression upon that person in the form of
kidnap and imprisonment really going to make anyone safer? Furthermore, is this
an ethical, humane or civilized way of treating nonviolent people?
There is no doubt that our society has problems that need to
be dealt with, but using imprisonment as a blanket solution for anything that
may come along is a totally irresponsible and lazy way to do things. In all
honesty, this approach ensures that the problem will never be solved, because
it prevents any real solutions from being developed and only works to make a
complicated social issue even more complicated.
There are also many side effects of these policies which
actually pose a serious threat to the health and safety of the entire
population. Many times these side effects are referred to as “unintended”
consequences, but all of the outcomes of these actions are totally planned and
expected.
In regards to the drug war there is a long list of unspoken
dangers, all of which were also experienced during alcohol prohibition.
Prohibition of any kind creates black markets, crime, corrupts police and puts
the general public at risk by creating an atmosphere of violence. Prohibition
has also proven to be completely ineffective, many times actually causing an
increase in consumption of the banned item. This can be seen with both alcohol
prohibition and the drug war, prohibition has always been failed policy in
every circumstance.
During prohibition, alcohol consumption rose and a dangerous
black market developed which bred notorious gangsters like Al Capone. When
prohibition ended the alcohol trade was no longer dangerous and consumption
actually declined. The drug war is no different. If drugs were legal there
would not be a vast black market that fosters gang violence, and people who had
a problem with drugs would have more viable options for treatment instead of
just getting thrown in a cage, something that typically exacerbates criminality
and does very little to help anyone.
There was once a time when things such as adultery were
illegal, and even punishable by death in some places. In most places in the
west adultery is now legal, but that doesn’t mean that it is socially
acceptable or encouraged. People have just developed noncoercive methods of
dealing with this problem amongst themselves, just as they would in dealing
with the problem of drug addiction in the absence of prohibition.
When those in power create laws that ban nonviolent actions
and inanimate objects they understand the implications of what they are doing,
but they put those policies into effect anyway because they have a great deal
to gain in this process.
This is why they are so reluctant to change these policies
even in the face of obvious failure and massive public outcry. The social
problems that are created by prohibition give the establishment a lot of busy
work and a constant excuse to violate the rights and privacy of those within
its grasp. This situation is just one of many preventable disasters that the
state foments and allows to continue as a means of justifying its own
existence.
Source: activistpost.com
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