link Hard drugs just minutes away for Vancouver users, study finds | CTVNews.
It’s been very popular to push the notion that the decades long ‘war on drugs’ is lost and that the vast resources expended to battle the drug problem has been wasted. No less than 4 previous attorneys generals and local mayors of all political stripes have come out in favour of revising tactics on addressing the drug problem. Apparently, criminal penalties are not the answer. Interestingly, this is exactly parallel to the decades long “war on fat” being waged all over North America. Actually, greater amounts of money have been spent on that on-going campaign than has been spent on the war on drugs. According to the website DrugSense.org, in the year 2010, $15 billion dollars was spent on the war on drugs (not sure how to validate this) whereas according to Business week, about $40 billion dollars is spent on the diet business every year. www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/01/the_diet_indust.html
While it is not yet criminal to be obese, efforts are being made to legislate what people are allowed to eat. We have Mayor Bloomberg of New York restricting salt levels and the size of soft drinks for example. Comprehensive labels are required on all food items describing composition and caloric content. As if that will dent McDonald’s sales. Let’s not forget the war on drunk driving. Very few aspects of our modern culture are more heinous than being tagged as a drunk driver, especially if involved in a serious accident causing death.
It’s hard to see how people cannot see the consequences of unfettered social recklessness. While on the one hand, we all want to be free to do as we please, the fact is, much of that freedom have consequences beyond our fleeting personal gratification. If people want to pursue recreational drugs, then a libertarian society would say, let ’em. The problem is that the consequences of such an attitude links to all kinds of undesirable outcomes like a long chain to a heavy ball. Even without the threat of criminal records or incarceration, the undesirable health effects on the individual and their families is undeniable. This is not victimless. Not to mention the assorted undesirables who traffic in people’s misery.
If as a society, we really want people to live and let live, then people should be free to consume what they want without restriction or guilt. If we’re going to decriminalize something as odious as drug use, then we should certainly stop the sanctimony regarding something as pleasurable as food and let people eat freely. Why would we spend so much time and money demonizing fat people but be compassionate to drug users? In the case of obesity, people don’t have the choice of eating or not, the only issue is amount. At least there’s a social benefit to eating and drinking. For instance, discovering fine restaurants or touring the wine country has a bit more cachet than a tour of a local meth lab.
The sinister nature of hard drug use is not just wild theory. It has brought down nations (think Chinese opium wars ) and has destroyed productive lives. I don’t recall that obesity has ever been the cause of the wholesale collapse of nations. With perhaps the exception of Michael Moore, no one is addicted to Big Macs. So it’s amusing that we have various and sundry celebrities and media types calling for the decriminalization of toxic chemicals and in some cases glamorizing the use of them, while we have government sponsored campaigns telling people what and how to eat. Better fat than fried is my opinion.
In societies of consenting adults, people should be free to do as they wish to themselves, but they must also suffer the consequences of their stupidity, sort of like skiing out of bounds or windsurfing in a hurricane or voting liberal. No amount of warning will dissuade adults from pursuing harmful activities. Think cigarette warnings. Think Barbra Streisand concerts. But you still have to protect the kids. Any society that doesn’t protect their kids will wind up having to be protected from them. If anything, the war on drugs should escalate to deter those preying on kids. But leave the food alone.