Amerika

The Home Office has admitted that the street price of both cocaine and heroin has fallen by nearly half in the last ten years, making the most dangerous illegal drugs cheaper than they have ever been.

That means a line of cocaine can cost as little as £1, with an average price per line of between £2 and £4.

The average price of a pint of lager is around £2.75, although some pub chains have reacted to the credit crunch by cutting the price of a pint as low as 99p. A glass of wine typically costs £3.50.

The Telegraph

That illegal drugs are now cheaper than legal drugs suggests we have a big problem.

A synthetic drug that is up to five times as powerful as cannabis is being sold legally in Britain, as incense.

It has already been made illegal in Germany and is also banned in the Netherlands.

The drug is based on the chemical JWH018 which mimics the effects of tetra hydra cannabinol or THC, the main active ingredient of cannabis.

BBC

What we don’t have is a solution, at least not in the way these idiots suggest:

The war against drugs is failing and the U.S. government should break with “prohibition” policies that have achieved little more than cram its prisons and stoke violence, three former Latin American presidents said on Wednesday.

The respected former presidents urged the United States and Latin American governments to move away from jailing drug users to debate the legalization of marijuana and place more emphasis on the treatment of addicts.

“The problem today in the U.S. is that narco-trafficking is a crime and so any politician is fearful of talking about narco-trafficking or talking about policies because they will be called soft,” he said.

SOSD

They’re right in that US politicians cannot even approach the issue. And they’d love it for us to legalize pot and spend out time on addicts. That would strengthen their nations and weaken ours, and that’s how the game of international politics is played.

I’d suggest a radical new plan:

Districting.

Those who want to take drugs want to live in micro-societies that support this idea. So I think we should designate some local cities and possibly states where drugs are not only legal, but sold openly with no age restrictions and indeed, no restrictions of any kind. And no mercy. Give them medical quality drugs and if they die, pick up the bodies. If they thrive, the gods wanted them to use drugs.

This way, however, they get to live around others who want to take drugs and they both don’t screw up places where people want to be away from drugs, and also get to see what a drug-friendly community looks like. Everyone was too stoned to stop that forest fire? Well, it’ll be a hot night tonight, but at least you don’t need to remember your lighter.

I have seen the exact manner in which the junk virus operates through fifteen years of addiction. The pyramid of junk, one level eating the level below (it is no accident that junk higher-ups are always fat and the addict in the street is always thin) right up to the top or tops since there are many junk pyramids feeding on peoples of the world and all built on basic principles of monopoly:

1–Never give anything away for nothing.
2–Never give more than you have to give
(always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait).
3–Always take everything back if you possibly can.

The Pusher always gets it all back. The addict needs more and more junk to maintain a human form . . . buy off the Monkey.

Junk is the mold of monopoly and possession. The addict stands by while his junk legs carry him straight in on the junk beam to relapse. Junk is quantitative and accurately measurable. The more junk you use the less you have and the more you have the more you use.

….

Junk is the ideal product . . . the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. . . . The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client. He pays his staff in junk.

Junk yields a basic formula of “evil” virus: The Algebra of Need. The face of “evil” is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: “Wouldn’t you?” Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite. Assuming a self- righteous position is nothing to the purpose unless your purpose be to keep the junk virus in operation. And junk in a big industry.

If you wish to alter or annihilate a pyramid of numbers in a serial relation, you alter or remove the bottom number. If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start with the bottom of the pyramid: the Addict in the Street, and stop tilting quixotically for the “higher ups” so called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk equation. When there are no more addicts to buy junk there will be no junk traffic. As long as junk need exists, someone will service it.

…

The smallpox vaccine was opposed by a vociferous lunatic group of anti-vaccinationists. No doubt a scream of protest will go up from interested or unbalanced individuals as the junk virus is shot out from under them. Junk is big business; there are always cranks and operators. They must not be allowed to interfere with the essential work of inoculation treatment and quarantine. The junk virus is public health problem number one of the world today.

Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness, by William S. Burroughs

The problem with drugs is the secondary effects. Let natural selection take over: if everyone has a farm, those on drugs will either survive or not, but the rest of us don’t deal with the crisis impact of drugs.

Unfortunately, in an organized society, the virus of abuse spreads very quickly and causes massive socialized problems.

Having drug-legal zones, and possibly putting all criminals on drugs in those zones, would enable the rest of us to get on with life without having to waste our time on people who have failed it.