ALCOHOL / DRUGS

Without alcohol or drugs we could not function as a society. Without that opportunity for escape, for release from the stresses and tensions of everyday life, people would go mad.

They would discover religion.

But not of the nice Jesus and Mary variety. No, it would be of the Al-Qaida and Taliban variety.

Religious fundamentalism thrives in countries which ban alcohol and drugs.

Such is the nature of the insane world we live in. That to deal with life people have to drug themselves. With medication (legal or otherwise). Or with an angry and vengeful God.

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The height of insanity is that people risk everything to get their medication from a drug dealer, when, in many countries, they can get stuff which is just as potent off the State. All you have to do is feel a little bit stressed or depressed and you get a prescription from your doctor. Simple.

The State is the biggest drug dealer of all: prozac, valium, morphine, etc. Given that supplying drugs has been criminalised, why does no one serve a warrant for its arrest?

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What is truly hilarious is that in many countries, particularly in the West, there is this huge drive to keep drugs such as marijuana and ecstacy illegal. And, all the while, alcohol remains readily available. Not to mention all the goodies that are available on prescription.

This is not to judge one drug as being better than another – as they all serve the same purpose, ultimately: of relieving pain (mental, emotional or physical) and/or escaping reality. It is more a question of why you would choose to make some drugs available and others not available.

Conspiracy theorists, and those who want to legalise drugs, would scream “Money! Power!” But they are obviously tripping, so take no notice …

I would suggest that the best way of making headway – if you do want people to stop using drugs – is to, first of all, stop with this whole double standard that, if there is enough money involved, “it is okay to supply as much as we can. Particularly, as we are the government and we know best”.

And, more than that, if there is a massive drugs problem in a society, then the primary job of the government is to make life more bearable and more tolerable for its citizens. Such that they don’t need to constantly try to relieve their pain and to escape reality.

And, yes, with enough wit and imagination the government could come up with a whole ream of ways to do this.

But that would involve dismantling the whole education system. As, for many, many people, it is at school that the sense that life is unbearable and intolerable truly begins.

© Phillip A. Klein March 2008