"Anti-Drugwar Strategy: Overview
by Brian C. Bennett
You Can't Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
If you want to win a war, you generally need two things: a plan, and an army.
If you have a great army, but no coherent plan, you likely will not prevail.
Likewise, if you have a great plan but your army stinks, then you're not likely to prevail either.
Obviously then, to "win" the drugwar means we'll need a great army and a great plan.
I've been asking some of the leaders in drug law reform over the past several years where I can find the gameplan so I can help more effectively.
I don't get any replies -- because there simply is no plan.
There is, however, a growing army assembling for the effort (a "coalition of the willing" as it were), but they are not actually driven by a defined common interest yet.
Indeed, they are actually somewhat antagonistic to each other for various reasons and to varying degrees.
The vilification of people who use drugs has permeated so deeply into our societal consciousness that, sadly enough, even those claiming to be dedicated to helping to change things wish to remain free of the "taint" they believe is imposed on their efforts by any association with casual drug users. Of course, the "stoners" themselves (some 26 million of them) are hidden away in the shadows, afraid to step forward and be identified.
Clearly the people and organizations considering drug law reform are a house divided.
These issues are the Achilles' heel of the drug reform movement.
Obviously, uniting the army is going to require a slightly loftier goal than merely "legalizing drugs" (itself a point of dissention among reformers), but at the moment, that is how the "man on the street" thinks of these issues.
The way to win, I believe, is actually to figure out how to connect to everyone's "inner American" -- that part where we actually believe in all that crap we've been taught about how we are all created as equals and have the same rights. If we don't have the right to do things to ourselves, then we really have no rights at all.
To me this is the core reason for drug law reform: we don't have the right to punish people for doing things to themselves.
And the data itself proves that we really don't have a reason to do so either.
Uniting for a Higher Purpose
Winning the drug war is going to require the efforts of literally millions of people.
At the moment, there are several hundred organizations and several thousand people working on the task -- not nearly enough!
Their efforts are dictated by their specific interests, rather than a common goal. For example, some focus on medical marijuana, or commercial hemp, and don't care about (or worse, are actively antagonistic toward) casual marijuana users.
Meanwhile, organizations devoted to ending marijuana prohibition specifically, play the old "well, if you think I'm bad, look at them" game, as they point toward crack-heads, tweakers, and other assorted drug users.
Pathethic isn't it?
If you have the balls to stand up for your right to smoke plants, then it ought to occur to you that vilifying other people who use different drugs than you makes you a "prohibitionist."
The drug czar is right: don't be a hypocrite.
All of this is symptomatic of the underlying core problem faced by our society :We are failing at our duty to treat each other as equals.
Thus the battle isn't over drug use at all -- the battle is for control over our bodies and minds. If people can be subjected to what they are currently subjected to in the name of "saving them from drugs," there is simply no limit to the abuses that can be heaped upon other future denigrated sub-groups. And if you don't get to choose what you do to yourself, then you really don't have any "rights" at all. How can you have a 'right' to do anything else in the world, if you don't even have the right to touch yourself as you see fit? You don't. And that's the problem. It isn't about drugs, it's about the right to choose for yourself. The same idea applies to the question of who is "allowed" to marry whom. Thus, the potential size of the army can be raised exponentially by focusing on our nations' failure to protect equality for everyone.
The Three Central Principles
Ending the drugwar is actually not the goal (surprisingly enough) of a large number of the various reform groups.
Some position themselves as being in favor of 'decriminalization,' allowing say, punishing drug users (oops, make that only the marijuana users) with a simple citation, a small fine, and no permanently blemished record.
They are quite content to let the users of other drugs rot in prison. Others propose a slow piecemeal approach in line with the notion that "society isn't ready" for (fill in the blank).
Those perpetuating the war, naturally, oppose any alteration of the status quo, and actively derail any and all attempts at reform by pressing the hot buttons that the children must be protected, and that there is a horrifying epidemic of drug-fueled mayhem being perpetrated against the rest of us. They are winning the game based on the completely false notion that legalizing drugs will lead to calamity and social destruction on a scale unparalled in the history of mankind.
But to come up with a real solution, and to evaluate any proposed ideas about what to do requires that they be evaluated against what I consider the three essential facets of the issue of self-intoxication:
* Biology 101 --
Humans (as well as a rather large variety of other critters) are biologically hard-wired to seek pleasure and novelty.
Read this, and repeat it to yourself until you get it:
it is impossible to alter this simple fact.
* Economics 101 --
"Where there is a demand, a market will rise to supply it."
People like drugs.
Why? See Above.
* American History 101 --
America was established as the place where people could live as self-determining beings.
The goal is to treat everyone else as an equal, and for the government to actively protect against encroachments of individual liberty.
We're getting a big red "F."
Any and every proposed or existing solution, law, idea, approach etc about what to do about the "drug problem" needs to be evaluated in terms of how well it accomodates the fundamental principles outlined above.
Any "solution" in which two of these principles is violated will absolutely fail.
For example, prohibition itself fails because it violates all three of these principles.
"Decriminalization" isn't a "solution" because it violates Economics 101, and American History 101.
When all of the data, facts, opinions, pronouncements etc are considered against these three criteria, the only solution that will work is to stop persecuting people over what they do to themselves, and allow them unfettered access to the market in the goods they desire.
It isn't a question of legalizing drugs, it's recognizing our inherent (dare I say suggest "god-given") right make our own choices, and the inviolate nature of these three simple principles.
Drafting the Army
The key here is to make it as easy as possible for people to understand the situation and more importantly, to motivate them to actively help get the job done. Talk about a Herculean task!
People are primarily motivated to help only when they have sufficient reason to care personally.
That motivation is inversely proportional to the extent to which they are directly affected by any given cause.
Thus if someone has a family member with cystic fibrosis, it isn't surprising to find them helping to raise money to find a cure for it.
But with drug laws, it isn't really very easy to get people to care about those most directly affected.
Worst of all, there are 26 million potential recruits out there (past year marijuana users) who are sidelined because they simply can't even let their own family members know who they are.
Those very family members have been co-opted into supporting a war against them.
It isn't really their fault. They have been brainwashed about the drug use issues for their entire lives -- just like every one of us.
And the basis of the brainwashing is not "facts" -- it is emotionalism.
Thus, no matter how many facts you try to pound into someone's head, until they actually feel like they have a direct reason to care, they are going to believe that drug users are evil people who beat old ladies to steal money for the drugs they will buy and then sell to somebody's children.
Changing that impression requires first that people who are drug users get involved in their own emancipation, and that the entire dialogue surrounding drugs and drug users be drastically altered.
Altering the Dialogue
Over the past 40 years, the drug war has been ratcheted up in intensity mostly through the use of government "findings" and statistical "facts." Naturally, people who knew better started rebutting what was being claimed and have done so vociferously and untiringly.
If this were a simple logical issue though, the job would already be finished. The problem is that the issues are too complicated for the average person to understand, and they simply don't have the time to get educated about something they believe doesn't directly involve or affect them.
Comprehension is what we're really after, and for that, the way forward is to provide the proper context for interpreting what is being said.
[As the author of this piece Brian C. Bennett continues "speaking".]
The old "keep it simple stupid" adage applies.
That is the guiding force behind my own work on my website.
I want to make it as easy as possible for anyone interested to truly comprehend what is going on with drug use.
The data make it abundantly clear: there really isn't much of a problem.
But people actually have to be exposed to the information in order to understand that.
Oops, and then there's that 100+ years of propaganda to contend with.
In a Nutshell
To win the war on drugs requires that we end the war on drugs.
What I hope I have provided here is a good framework for accomplishing that goal.
I work with anyone and everyone who asks for my help, and that is why a good number of the drug reform organizations have linked to my site.
My plan for victory is simple and involves three avenues of effort:
* Providing a more lofty goal than "legalizing drugs" and uniting people to accomplish that goal
* Altering the dialogue by putting things into more coherent perspectives, and of course using every avenue available to spread the word
* Helping to draft an army by inspiring others and providing them the ammo they need to help get the job done
But none of this can happen without a large number of people getting actively involved. It is time to do so, indeed it is well past time.
So Who's With Me? "
http://www.briancbennett.com/strategy/overview.htm
......................................................................................................
D.A.R.E.: THE NEVER-ENDING FOLLY
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=17437
......................................................................................................
An excellent recent example of "altering the dialoge" would be the strategy used in the recent Denver election that legalized possession of up to an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana by adults.
The Denver proposal seemed to draw at least as much attention for supporters' campaign tactics as it did for the question of legalizing the drug.
Supporters argued that legalizing marijuana would reduce consumption of alcohol, which he said leads to higher rates of car accidents, domestic and street violence and crime.
"We educated voters about the facts that marijuana is less harmful to the user and society than alcohol," said Mason Tvert, campaign organizer for SAFER, or Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation.
"To prohibit adults from making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana is bad public policy."
Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project said he hoped the approval will launch a national trend toward legalizing a drug whose enforcement he said causes more problems than it cures.
"The movement" has now become very mainstream and is maturing.
IMB
......................................................................................................
"Government exists to protect us from each other.
Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."
-Ronald Reagan
by Brian C. Bennett
You Can't Tell the Players Without a Scorecard
If you want to win a war, you generally need two things: a plan, and an army.
If you have a great army, but no coherent plan, you likely will not prevail.
Likewise, if you have a great plan but your army stinks, then you're not likely to prevail either.
Obviously then, to "win" the drugwar means we'll need a great army and a great plan.
I've been asking some of the leaders in drug law reform over the past several years where I can find the gameplan so I can help more effectively.
I don't get any replies -- because there simply is no plan.
There is, however, a growing army assembling for the effort (a "coalition of the willing" as it were), but they are not actually driven by a defined common interest yet.
Indeed, they are actually somewhat antagonistic to each other for various reasons and to varying degrees.
The vilification of people who use drugs has permeated so deeply into our societal consciousness that, sadly enough, even those claiming to be dedicated to helping to change things wish to remain free of the "taint" they believe is imposed on their efforts by any association with casual drug users. Of course, the "stoners" themselves (some 26 million of them) are hidden away in the shadows, afraid to step forward and be identified.
Clearly the people and organizations considering drug law reform are a house divided.
These issues are the Achilles' heel of the drug reform movement.
Obviously, uniting the army is going to require a slightly loftier goal than merely "legalizing drugs" (itself a point of dissention among reformers), but at the moment, that is how the "man on the street" thinks of these issues.
The way to win, I believe, is actually to figure out how to connect to everyone's "inner American" -- that part where we actually believe in all that crap we've been taught about how we are all created as equals and have the same rights. If we don't have the right to do things to ourselves, then we really have no rights at all.
To me this is the core reason for drug law reform: we don't have the right to punish people for doing things to themselves.
And the data itself proves that we really don't have a reason to do so either.
Uniting for a Higher Purpose
Winning the drug war is going to require the efforts of literally millions of people.
At the moment, there are several hundred organizations and several thousand people working on the task -- not nearly enough!
Their efforts are dictated by their specific interests, rather than a common goal. For example, some focus on medical marijuana, or commercial hemp, and don't care about (or worse, are actively antagonistic toward) casual marijuana users.
Meanwhile, organizations devoted to ending marijuana prohibition specifically, play the old "well, if you think I'm bad, look at them" game, as they point toward crack-heads, tweakers, and other assorted drug users.
Pathethic isn't it?
If you have the balls to stand up for your right to smoke plants, then it ought to occur to you that vilifying other people who use different drugs than you makes you a "prohibitionist."
The drug czar is right: don't be a hypocrite.
All of this is symptomatic of the underlying core problem faced by our society :We are failing at our duty to treat each other as equals.
Thus the battle isn't over drug use at all -- the battle is for control over our bodies and minds. If people can be subjected to what they are currently subjected to in the name of "saving them from drugs," there is simply no limit to the abuses that can be heaped upon other future denigrated sub-groups. And if you don't get to choose what you do to yourself, then you really don't have any "rights" at all. How can you have a 'right' to do anything else in the world, if you don't even have the right to touch yourself as you see fit? You don't. And that's the problem. It isn't about drugs, it's about the right to choose for yourself. The same idea applies to the question of who is "allowed" to marry whom. Thus, the potential size of the army can be raised exponentially by focusing on our nations' failure to protect equality for everyone.
The Three Central Principles
Ending the drugwar is actually not the goal (surprisingly enough) of a large number of the various reform groups.
Some position themselves as being in favor of 'decriminalization,' allowing say, punishing drug users (oops, make that only the marijuana users) with a simple citation, a small fine, and no permanently blemished record.
They are quite content to let the users of other drugs rot in prison. Others propose a slow piecemeal approach in line with the notion that "society isn't ready" for (fill in the blank).
Those perpetuating the war, naturally, oppose any alteration of the status quo, and actively derail any and all attempts at reform by pressing the hot buttons that the children must be protected, and that there is a horrifying epidemic of drug-fueled mayhem being perpetrated against the rest of us. They are winning the game based on the completely false notion that legalizing drugs will lead to calamity and social destruction on a scale unparalled in the history of mankind.
But to come up with a real solution, and to evaluate any proposed ideas about what to do requires that they be evaluated against what I consider the three essential facets of the issue of self-intoxication:
* Biology 101 --
Humans (as well as a rather large variety of other critters) are biologically hard-wired to seek pleasure and novelty.
Read this, and repeat it to yourself until you get it:
it is impossible to alter this simple fact.
* Economics 101 --
"Where there is a demand, a market will rise to supply it."
People like drugs.
Why? See Above.
* American History 101 --
America was established as the place where people could live as self-determining beings.
The goal is to treat everyone else as an equal, and for the government to actively protect against encroachments of individual liberty.
We're getting a big red "F."
Any and every proposed or existing solution, law, idea, approach etc about what to do about the "drug problem" needs to be evaluated in terms of how well it accomodates the fundamental principles outlined above.
Any "solution" in which two of these principles is violated will absolutely fail.
For example, prohibition itself fails because it violates all three of these principles.
"Decriminalization" isn't a "solution" because it violates Economics 101, and American History 101.
When all of the data, facts, opinions, pronouncements etc are considered against these three criteria, the only solution that will work is to stop persecuting people over what they do to themselves, and allow them unfettered access to the market in the goods they desire.
It isn't a question of legalizing drugs, it's recognizing our inherent (dare I say suggest "god-given") right make our own choices, and the inviolate nature of these three simple principles.
Drafting the Army
The key here is to make it as easy as possible for people to understand the situation and more importantly, to motivate them to actively help get the job done. Talk about a Herculean task!
People are primarily motivated to help only when they have sufficient reason to care personally.
That motivation is inversely proportional to the extent to which they are directly affected by any given cause.
Thus if someone has a family member with cystic fibrosis, it isn't surprising to find them helping to raise money to find a cure for it.
But with drug laws, it isn't really very easy to get people to care about those most directly affected.
Worst of all, there are 26 million potential recruits out there (past year marijuana users) who are sidelined because they simply can't even let their own family members know who they are.
Those very family members have been co-opted into supporting a war against them.
It isn't really their fault. They have been brainwashed about the drug use issues for their entire lives -- just like every one of us.
And the basis of the brainwashing is not "facts" -- it is emotionalism.
Thus, no matter how many facts you try to pound into someone's head, until they actually feel like they have a direct reason to care, they are going to believe that drug users are evil people who beat old ladies to steal money for the drugs they will buy and then sell to somebody's children.
Changing that impression requires first that people who are drug users get involved in their own emancipation, and that the entire dialogue surrounding drugs and drug users be drastically altered.
Altering the Dialogue
Over the past 40 years, the drug war has been ratcheted up in intensity mostly through the use of government "findings" and statistical "facts." Naturally, people who knew better started rebutting what was being claimed and have done so vociferously and untiringly.
If this were a simple logical issue though, the job would already be finished. The problem is that the issues are too complicated for the average person to understand, and they simply don't have the time to get educated about something they believe doesn't directly involve or affect them.
Comprehension is what we're really after, and for that, the way forward is to provide the proper context for interpreting what is being said.
[As the author of this piece Brian C. Bennett continues "speaking".]
The old "keep it simple stupid" adage applies.
That is the guiding force behind my own work on my website.
I want to make it as easy as possible for anyone interested to truly comprehend what is going on with drug use.
The data make it abundantly clear: there really isn't much of a problem.
But people actually have to be exposed to the information in order to understand that.
Oops, and then there's that 100+ years of propaganda to contend with.
In a Nutshell
To win the war on drugs requires that we end the war on drugs.
What I hope I have provided here is a good framework for accomplishing that goal.
I work with anyone and everyone who asks for my help, and that is why a good number of the drug reform organizations have linked to my site.
My plan for victory is simple and involves three avenues of effort:
* Providing a more lofty goal than "legalizing drugs" and uniting people to accomplish that goal
* Altering the dialogue by putting things into more coherent perspectives, and of course using every avenue available to spread the word
* Helping to draft an army by inspiring others and providing them the ammo they need to help get the job done
But none of this can happen without a large number of people getting actively involved. It is time to do so, indeed it is well past time.
So Who's With Me? "
http://www.briancbennett.com/strategy/overview.htm
......................................................................................................
D.A.R.E.: THE NEVER-ENDING FOLLY
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=17437
......................................................................................................
An excellent recent example of "altering the dialoge" would be the strategy used in the recent Denver election that legalized possession of up to an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana by adults.
The Denver proposal seemed to draw at least as much attention for supporters' campaign tactics as it did for the question of legalizing the drug.
Supporters argued that legalizing marijuana would reduce consumption of alcohol, which he said leads to higher rates of car accidents, domestic and street violence and crime.
"We educated voters about the facts that marijuana is less harmful to the user and society than alcohol," said Mason Tvert, campaign organizer for SAFER, or Safer Alternatives For Enjoyable Recreation.
"To prohibit adults from making the rational, safer choice to use marijuana is bad public policy."
Bruce Mirken of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project said he hoped the approval will launch a national trend toward legalizing a drug whose enforcement he said causes more problems than it cures.
"The movement" has now become very mainstream and is maturing.
IMB
......................................................................................................
"Government exists to protect us from each other.
Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."
-Ronald Reagan
Last edited:
