SAM Oregon

Pro marijuana activists will have you believe that the war on drugs has failed. They will tell you that too many people are being incarcerated for minor drug possession charges. Too many lives are being ruined for criminal records that they don't deserve. But here's the problem with their argument. Is it really societies fault that someone can't obey the law? Is it really societies fault that someone chooses to do drugs? We live in a world of no accountability. It is never your fault, it is always someone else's fault.
 
Now here is my take on the War on Drugs education.
 
For the past 30 years the Us government has been trying to eliminate drugs from our culture. They have been fighting this war with law enforcement and drug awareness education. The only thing wrong with the education they have been using is that it was not scientific based education. It was more of a fear mongering scare tactic education. Look at the PSA's of the 1980's, two in particular that come to mind was the "This is your brain on drugs" and the "Parents who use drugs have children who use drugs" commercials. Those are all fine and dandy until you actually look at them. Lets take a look at the "This is your brain on drugs" PSA. It started with a hot skillet and a narrator saying "This is drugs", then they crack an egg open a put it in the pan. As the egg sizzles the narrator says "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" Yes I do have questions. Where is the science to tell me why this analogy is correct? Where is the science to tell me that any of the anti drug PSA's of the 80's and 90's were correct? We must take the scare tactics out of drug education and replace them with evidence based science. Science that we now have and will be using.
 
Now for the Law Enforcement side of the war on drugs.
 
Legalization groups such as NORML and Drug Policy Alliance are telling you that a good majority of state inmates are nonviolent offenders that are in jail on marijuana possession charges only. They would be wrong. The Yes on 91 campaign, which was highly funded by NORML and Drug Policy Alliance, claimed that 12, 808 people where in Oregon prisons on marijuana possession alone. When you look at the Statewide Drug Law Arrests by Type of Drug and Activity - 2012 you will see that 12,808 number under marijuana arrests. But Oregon State Police Lt. Gregg Hastings said that 10,054 of those people were cited for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana -- "a violation (but) not a criminal offense." You see in 1973 the State of Oregon decriminalize possession of less than an ounce of Marijuana making it a violation and not a crime. It has since been treated like a parking ticket. You are cited and released. No arrest, no court and no jail time. So now you can take away 10.054 from the original 12,808 and that gives you 2,754 people in jail for marijuana possession. But how many of those people were arrested for other more serious crimes but pleaded to the lesser crime of possession of marijuana? Well we can verify that because once the more serious crime is thrown out of the equation it disappears. But I can tell you that it would be most of them. Because remember that Oregon decriminalized possession of less than an ounce back in the 70's. A federal study had been done and found that less than 1% of the people in prison for marijuana possession were there for possession only. Now that we've discovered the truth behind marijuana arrests lets look at the root of the problem. Is it really the fault of the police that people are getting arrested for drug possession or is there another group that is at fault?
 
The war on drugs doesn't start with people getting arrested for drugs. It starts with them getting in to drugs in the first place. Why are they getting into drugs? Most of that problem is on parenting. Yes part of the problem is the failed war on drugs, but the remainder is that parenting has failed. Whether it is that the parents were not there for their children or the parents themselves were on drugs. Either way they failed their children by not teaching them right from wrong. Am I saying that everyone on drugs had bad parents? Of course not. For those people it could be the wrong crowd or a lack of will power.
 
Blame must be placed where blame is due. It is not the governments fault that you started using drugs. Did they spend a ton of tax payer money fighting drugs? They sure did. The place for most of the blame for the failed war on drugs comes down to a lack of proper science based education. We have that now and that's what we're going to be getting into the schools. We can't just show them an egg in a frying pan and expect them so say 'Oh I get it". We must show them the science that says why their brain on drugs is like an egg in a frying pan.