by Bobby Brown

Created on: May 18, 2010   Last Updated: May 26, 2012

 The late comedian George Carlin once said during a stand up routine (paraphrasing): " If firefighters fight fires  and crime fighters fight crime then what do freedom fighters fight?" In Bradbury's  dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451 it was the firefighters who started the fires. The same concept is at work in our current misguided policy called (rather ironically) the War on Drugs. The war on drugs has actually increased the number of drugs on our streets over its forty year history and it has

burned through over one trillion dollars in that time. For those reasons alone the U.S. should abandon this quixotic endeavor, but there are several equally compelling reasons to do so.

Before any serious discussion on why the US should give up on the War on Drugs can be had it is necessary to see the blatant hypocrisy that is built into our current drug laws, hiding is plain sight as it were. There are some drugs which are used "recreationally" and are perfectly legall while others are not. Alcohol, nicotine and caffeine are all drugs and are all used in this manner while other drugs like marijuna, cocaine and heroine are illegal. Amazingly the legal drugs will kill more people, destroy more families, cause more disease and suffering than all of the illegal drugs combined-several times over in fact. Surely the public's safety is not being address with the current policy! Even more surprisingly, the illegal drugs weren't always illegal. There was a time when drugs like cocaine, heroine and marijuana were legal and socially acceptable.It was during this time that one of the most recognized brands on Earth, Coca-Cola, got its start. Coca-Cola got it's name from the cocaine that was part of the original formula. It was created during a period of time (before the Prohibition Era) in which the consumption of alcohol was demonized. A popular cocaine-laced drink called Vin Mariani was banned in many communities opening the door for John Pemberton to start selling his non-alcoholic cocaine laced beverage. Of course now the formula only uses caffeine since cocaine use has been made illegal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola

When Amendment XVIII was passed criminalizing the sale and production of alcohol it created a black market economy for bootleggers, rum runners  mobsters and gangsters to provide the drug to their consumers (Some of the most prestigious families

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