In nearby Lackawanna, no less than 14 police and related agencies busted some 20 persons on drug charges today. This took a 6 month investigation and undercover operatives. Let’s suppose that some Americans don’t want their kids taking drugs. Is this the best Americans can come up with? To arrest and imprison people in the drug business? If you don’t want your kids to take drugs, teach them not to. Don’t use them yourself. Create a way of life that is satisfying so that drugs don’t offer the perceived benefits they apparently do. But imprisoning people is just brute force. It doesn’t get at the roots of the matter. We know that the consequences of this brute force and criminalization of drug use are horrendous, involving corruption, escalation of drugs, disease, powerful gangs, etc. The policy of force is just plain dumb. But that’s not even what I’m saying. I’m saying that the use of brute force as a means of prevention shows an horrendous laziness on the part of Americans and an inability or unwillingness to address their own social lives and institutions in such ways that their children will not be demanding drugs. If we dig down deeply into why Americans, young and old, have expanded their drug use, we will find many contributing causes that go back to institutions of government, education, religion, work, medicine, money, news, and business and other professions. These institutions are not working because their ethical and spiritual foundations are rotten. Imprisoning people will not restore the spirit.

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