This is Your Brain on Drugs - Japanese version

Remember the old public service announcement showing someone making eggs for breakfast and telling you how the frying egg was like your brain on drugs? Well, I guess that particular metaphor did not translate into Japanese culture. They prefer more athletic eggs. Watch.

Feds Don't Target Sick Users of Pot

So the Federal Government had to actually tell prosecutors not to indict the terminally ill for smoking pot to relieve their pain. That's a comfort to hear. Wouldn't want people pulled out of their hospital beds for being a danger to society.

But I have a better idea. Don't prosecute marijuana use or trafficking AT ALL. Just to be patriotic, let's make that for all U.S.-grown pot only. So all U.S.-grown marijuana can be grown, sold and smoked. And I don't smoke pot at all. So I have no vested interest in this debate.

The U.S. Government spends millions of dollars chasing pot smokers and traffickers. Let's tax them instead. Let's save the money we spend trying to stamp out pot use. It's a great idea. We can focus on serious problems facing our nation, like maids and construction workers who are in this country illegally.

Failures of the War on Drugs

Do you really want to stop illegal drug use? Focus on demand here in the United States. If all our efforts and money were used to arrest Americans fueling the drug trade with dollars, then the war would be won.

The punitive measures used by the United States to stop the illegal use of drugs are being criticized by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy. We are accused of weakening South American governments and their democracies because our policies cause more drug violence south of the border.

Since when are your governments our responsibility? Personally, I agree with the unnamed U.S. official in the article: there is violence because the overall trade is contracting, not expanding. Let's contract it a little bit more.



drugs, war on drugs, United States, latin america, Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, cocaine, DEA, drug enforcement agency

Drug War in Bolivia

The United States is accusing Bolivia of not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs out of that country.

How about the demand for drugs in this one?

We really can't control the flow of drugs as long as there is so much demand here in the United States. In fact, the only thing that the United States can really affect is the demand for illegal drugs by making it harder and riskier to purchase them.

Let's take all the DEA agents and all the money we are using to fight drug trafficking abroad and use it here in the States to attack demand. It would boost the economy by keeping those dollars at home. And we could stop blaming other countries for our own vicious appetites.