Pass the Dutchie

(I am not a DJ but this piece is dedicated to http://www.mariaganja.blogspot.com/ - for belaboring to read and comment on the entries and for being a non-biological mother of all mothers)

“I love my drug buddy, my drug, my drug buddy”
Lemonhead, “Drug Buddy”

Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cartel engineered Colombia’s underground economy before the druglord calendared a violent rendezvous with St. Peter. At one point, he seduced his government to grant him freedom in exchange that his country’s foreign debt be put on his tab. It’s mortifying, how loaded was this guy to even have the capacity to pay a fraction of Colombia’s foreign debt, much more foot the entire bill?

The war on drugs is a layered campaign and we can attempt to understand its failure by hemming it into straightforward socio-economics.

At the core of the drug business are political institutions – law enforcers, members of the judicial and executive branches who are in the payroll to bungle on their profession.

Then the trajectory moves to the market. For 4 decades now, the Dutch government made a distinction between the hard drug and soft drug markets. Consequently, prohibition on cannabis was relaxed and hash was on the menu of every coffee shop in Holland. A former Dutch czar bragged a strong argument - that by making it an accessible and ordinary commodity, “we have succeeded in making pot boring.”

Is ganja even a soft drug? Shooting from the hip, I can contest that it’s an herb/hemp, organic and healthy, no different from pito-pito except in the preparation. You roll one, you boil the other. What’s the difference between a spliff and a cigarette or tobacco, for that matter? Tada-ding!!

If marijuana is decriminalized, profit suffers. If it becomes legal, I can plant it in my own backyard. This is pure and simple the dictate of capital.

In one of GMA-7’s news programs, it ran a story of how, due to the economic crunch, marijuana is substituted by dried eggplant leaves. Interviewees claimed that the latter had the same calming effect as the former. If this goes on, would eggplant leaves be illegalized? It’s absurd.

Are potheads threat to society? Here’s the kick: Do they imperil the governments’ war on terrorism? Are they exploiting our mineral resources? Are they selling the nation’s patrimony? Should they bear the brunt of persecution?

There are casual users and there are junkies. Is jail time the only option? There’s rehab for the junkies and for the casual users, just give them space. Leave them to their peace. If medical studies are correct that indeed, prolonged marijuana use can hurt, these casual users are not injuring anyone but themselves.

Lighting up is what body massage or a glass of beer or whiskey to others. When the prolific American filmaker Robert Altman was interviewed one time how he relaxes, he made no qualms in saying that at the end of the day, as the sun descends from its pedestal, he sits on his porch, smokes pot as he reflects the events of the day. And he has an impressive body of work to show for it.

Why congest our rotten prison cells with people locked up for possessing a joint or two? In the US, about 2/3 of inmates are slapped with drug charges, mostly small fish. More significantly, they are serving time for “victim-less” crimes. Can you imagine how spacious the prisons will become if there’s a shift in the government’s pot policy?

Hard drugs are a different story altogether but just the same, I would still go for rehab instead of the arrest-imprisonment approach favored by the government. Put a chain on them for theft and other crimes but don’t jail them primarily because they are junkies.

God knows I have been chastised for taking this position by hardcore anti-drug sentiments of a few I have encountered. I try to understand where they are coming from and I can’t even begin to plead for a more humanistic view of junkies. It’s frustrating. These people talk about redemption and they can’t even, on the cloak of pretense, muster some compassion.

I am not saying that junkies should not be criticized but there’s a thing called human frailty. We can’t even begin to understand the demons they are slaying. Do we honestly think that our loved ones who unfortunately are engulfed in an abyss of their own creation (or so we convince ourselves) just elected one day to do shitty stuff to hurt us?

No, our harsh judgments would not help. Our support and understanding might, I say might, turn their lives around.

As for the war on drugs, Europe, particularly Portugal, Holland, and Germany has shown some innovative approaches that actually work – in terms of crime reduction, health benefits, and believe it or not, decline in consumption.

A synthetic drug called Methadone (it’s to heroin what a nicotine patch is to cigarettes) is available everywhere, even in mobile clinics. Clean needles junkies need to shoot up can be bought in vending machines or if they have no money, they can swap their old needles for new ones at police precincts. If you’ve got shaky hands and your drug buddy is indisposed, you can actually request a doctor to insert the syringe on you.

Let’s not wait for the spread of AIDS or an HIV epidemic to be more rational about needle use. I mean, we just have to be realistic that a “drug-free” society is like asking Satan to govern in Heaven. I hope I am wrong but it’s just not going to happen.

The least we can do is reduce health risks. Avoid ODs which normally happen with unregulated drugs and when junkies hide in dark-lit alleys to shoot up and can’t find their veins.

In the early 90s, the Swiss government set up a heroin-prescription program and the results are quite positive. Putting junkies on prescribed dosage apparently “sobers” them up. More importantly, the element of rebellion is gone. Partially, drugs’ attraction stems from the delectable idea that it’s forbidden. Once you relax the restriction, you take away the adrenaline rush. Then doing drugs becomes boringly conservative and ordinary.

Junkies, I bet they don’t smell nice. But there’s a band called Cowboy Junkies which does.