(A Public Service Announcement from Suburra Publishing.)
Fact #4
Drug Criminalization Destroys Children
What is particularly
galling about the drug war is that it is defended on the basis of problems that
the war has caused. The most poignant example of this is fatalities caused by
illicit drug use. It has already been covered how decriminalization could
wipeout heroin overdoses, and cocaine deaths could be avoided as well.
In the mid-1990s nearly 20 teenagers died of heroin related overdoses in Plano, Texas. Friends of these kids were slow to act. When local authorities were asked why they did not announce that anybody reporting a drug overdose would not be prosecuted their response was that this, “would send the wrong message.” Since the death of Len Bias states have passed Len Bias Laws that allow providers of a drug to be charged with homicide if the user dies from its use.
Although casual drug users, and even addicts, appear to “mature out” of drug
usage naturally, criminal records are forever. Jack Cole, worked twelve years as
an undercover narcotics officer and intimately knew the people he sent to jail.
In his words his job was to, “do whatever was necessary to become people’s best
friend – their closest confidant – so I could betray them and send them to
jail.”
Cole was engaged in over a thousand arrests during that time period and believes
he “ruined” the lives of a “huge” number of kids. In Cole’s words most of these
young offenders were nonviolent casual users unlucky to cross paths with him.
Convicted young adults will no longer be eligible for government student loans,
will not be able to draw welfare benefits, and will lose the right to vote.
Perhaps most burdensome, for the rest of their lives they will be marked as a
drug user and a criminal in every job interview.
All information taken from You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, Book I by Robert R. Arthur. Detailed documentation of sources can be found therein.
Page last modified August 29, 2007.