Chemical Weapons in the 'War on Drugs'

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 09:38 PM 6/23/98 -0700, Michael Eisencher wrote:
>On the contrary.  It is a smashing success.  What better means of
>controlling discontent than to dope a substantial portion of the working
>class and disenfranchised poor, then put a significant minority of them
>under the direct control of the State?  And to boot, another section of the
>working class is employed in building prisons, overseeing their occupants,
>or monitoring those outside prison who remain under the watchful control of
>the criminal injustice system.  It's a growth industry!   As an added bonus,
>while incarcerated, we can put those folks to work at slave wages (another
>oxymoron) and use their labor to drag down the wage standards of those who
>have yet to be jailed.  If they should happen to get out, they certainly
>pose no electoral problem, for we take away their right to vote.  I'd say
>the War on Drugs has achieved all that it was intended to.  Invest those IRA
>dollars in a business with a guaranteed future - Penal Enterprise, Inc.  

Amen!  And add to it that 'possession' - like medieval 'being possessed' is
impossible to prove as a matter of fact.  Possession is a claim - it only
exists when a person makes that claim.  If such claim is not made -
possession ceases it exist, and hence cannot be 'proved,' at least by
rationals means.  That something is found in the area I control, like the
basement of my house or the trunk of my car - does not mean that I
'possess' it for it could have been planted there by someone else.  

BTW, many Eastern European countries, whose legal systems were based on the
Napoleonic code, did not prosecute possession, but distribution and
'public' use of controlled substances.  That is, if the stuff was found on
me that meant nothing in court unless the cops could prove that I either
manufactured, stole or bought it, or when I smoked that in front of someone
else. 

That tells me that EE legal system was based on more rational premises than
the US legal witchcraft.  Substitute "drugs" with "demons" or "Satan" and
you will see that the so-called "justice" system in this country is not
that much different from medieval inquisition - both resting on the reified
concept of 'possession.'

Best regards,

Wojtek Sokolowski