An old colleague of mine sent me an e-mail today about a new form of Crystal Meth that's on the street called "Strawberry Quick." Here's a link to a news story about it:
Candy flavored meth meant to entice kids.
Now... first of all, the title incensed me. There are chocolate flavored beers. Sour Apple, Berry flavored and Lemon-Lime flavored alcoholic beverages out there. There are mixed drinks out there that taste just like Sweet-Tarts, Jolly Ranchers, etc. Yet no-one would even think about selling these to children. Or would they?
What is the war on drugs? It is power to control. It is the government's attempt to control the people of the nation by telling them what they can and can not do to themselves. I will be, if not THE first, one of the first people to say that if you corrupt or steal the innocence of a child, you need to be punished severely. There are MANY ways our society does this. That is the war we SHOULD be fighting.
Think about it. Would you sell a car to a child? No? Why not? They do not possess the maturity, knowledge or wisdom to use a car correctly and function within society. They've not been educated properly. Therefore, who would sell a drug to a child?
Think about this. The government is confiscating all the drugs in these drugs busts. What happens to them? Who can truly say? Do we want to be faced with a government that MAY have enough sleep-inducing, hallucinogenic, thought-impairing agents to keep society in check, if necessary? Is this a good thing?
How is it that people can not see the real problem here?
1) Inventor creates Widget! Everyone thinks the widget is great! It's fun, it's cheap, it's a fantastic item.
2) Widget sales go mainstream, people begin to use them in ways no one ever thought!
3) Reports of bad effects happening when using the widget from physical impairment to death. Society takes pause.
4) The Widget's existence is soon blamed for the misuse. People begin to take sides saying it's the widget's fault while others say it's the user's fault for trying to use it for something it wasn't intended to be used for.
5) More and more come rallying to the cause on both sides as the war escalates.
6) The cries become so loud that organizations begin to form to fight one side or the other. Meanwhile widget sales skyrocket. Now, people are REALLY interested.
7) The governing body of the people steps in, hearing the cries of it's "children," and proclaims the Widget as "BAD!" No More Widgets!
8) Widget sales and production go underground. People begin to make cheaper widgets, that are not as good (and possibly more dangerous) as the original widgets. They then sell these widgets at ridiculous prices... why? Because they can.
9) The governing body brands these people as outlaws and begins to wage a war against them using the money from their "children's" pockets to fight this war.
10) Resources from all over begin to become scarce as the war proliferates. So much money is being spent on fighting widget production that other needs for the governing body's "children" begin to become impaired. More money is needed to fight the widgets and to backfill the resources we lost.
11) People begin to work harder to support their families in a time where resources are scarce and taxes are high as we fight the widget menace. People start spending less time with their families in order to provide for the family they spend no time with.
12) Soon, the governing body begins to "win" as more and more people view widgets as a bad thing. They have been educated and therefore demand begins to drop.
13) Widget producers, now stuck with a shit-load of widgets, begin to look for a new target audience... someone uneducated.
14) Widgets start showing up in the hands of children, completely unprepared for what they've been given. Society is outraged. Outraged at the widget producers, outraged at the government for not doing what it said it was going to do.
What's the next step? Do you know? Do we keep fighting the war against something that will not go away? Do we continue to try to destroy the darker side of life? Do we let it escalate until our technology destroys ourselves?
Or do we finally stop fighting? Do we finally embrace that which we can not change and begin to learn from each other? Do we finally ask the inventor: "What's the best way to use this?" rather than blame the inventor for putting it there in the first place?
Think, people. It's not illegal yet.
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