Saturday 11 June 2011

America (And Canada) Must Look At Itself Now With War On Drugs

The War on Drugs has been going on for a long time in American either officially or unofficially. There are two overriding themes to this war. First is that drugs only exist in America because of foreign drug traffickers and big crime bosses. Second, and more recent, is that drug users are helpless victims who never actually wanted to use drugs but practically had drugs rammed down their throat.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s drug education was far from the reality. We were taught that drugs are horrible things that make you feel instantly bad and that you cannot control your actions when on drugs. Thus forcing you to keep doing more drugs. Furthermore, we were warned about people referred to as "pushers" who would try to force us to buy drugs. They got the name "pusher" because they would push drugs on you. I have never in my life encountered one of these pushers despite working in a bad part of town. Never once has someone tried to "push" me to buy drugs from them.


Much of the money and focus of the War on Drugs has been to keep foreigners and big crime bosses from bringing their product into America. The thought amongst politicians is that if they can stop the flow of drugs from entering the country they have mostly won this war. After all, look at where the big illegal drugs were coming from up until the turn of the century. Heroin coming from Turkey, Pakistan, Burma and Thailand. marijuana coming from Mexico and cocaine coming from South America, mainly Colombia.

One drug though is bucking the trends. That drug is crystal meth. You do not need to grow this drug in large fields like you do with opium. It does not require a high altitude and tropical climate like cocaine does. It can be made anywhere with fairly simple ingredients. Crystal meth is being made all over America in bathrooms, sheds, garages, basements, etc. It does not require a large space to make. Apparently it can be made in a two liter pop bottle.

Crystal meth has become popular in the traditional dug using areas. You know them. Run down areas of cities where there are a lot of the homeless and hookers. It has spread though. The ease of access of crystal meth has made it popular in areas once considered to be drug free. In small towns and rural areas. Popular in states like Missouri, Montana and Iowa. Places people go to escape the vices of the city. Many of the people making the drug are not doing so for profit. They are making it for their own consumption. So now, we are left with a drug that cannot be blamed on foreigners and big crime bosses.

I encourage you to watch the following clip. It is from the Montana Meth Project and is easily the best collection of anti-drug commercials ever made. Be warned though, some are disturbing:

12 comments:

  1. Weird man, really disturbing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Woah, I'm never going to do meth ever again. :) haha

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Yehlyre, you right!
    +follow

    ReplyDelete
  4. Man, no offense, but after reading three paragraphs, this came across as a misguided rant that instead of using facts used to encounters of one person working in the hood.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good thing that the only "drug" I use is weed.. hehe just kidding.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ugh.,. its so sad to hear this crap.

    If they legalize and control different drugs like they do Alcohol and tobacco we wouldnt have these issues! :/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eh, good thing I don't do any.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Haha, this reminded me of that terribad cartoon movie that was on ABC, featuring tooons of cartoons of the late 80's/early 90's. WTF was it called... I just remember there was a boy & a girl, & the boy smoked some pot & transformed into an evil, stealing little bastard.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm So happy I live in the Netherlands...

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are pretty morbid ads.

    There is something wrong with the drug war. There's not enough being done as far as education is concerned and too much effort is concentrated on punishing the users instead of trying to contain the sellers and stop the suppliers.

    ReplyDelete
  11. lol ricardo ... the amount of brits that make the short journey over there for this very reason!

    ReplyDelete