The war on drugs is an unmitigated global disaster. This is a widely established fact and can be defended on many different levels – financially, outcome based, or morally for instance.
Vice ran a story the other day about a small town in Southern California which ran a sting in a high school which involved manipulating students into ‘selling’ drugs to an undercover police officer. They arrested 22 students, many of whom were simply trying to help out a ‘friend’ who pestered them every day to get drugs for him. It is an horrendous story and highlights the horrific nature of the war on drugs and the way the laws are used to manipulate and control populations, often simply for financial gains – of law enforcement agencies, of prison systems, or any other number of individuals, organisations and corporations.
This story got me wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to use the war on drugs itself as a form of political protest?
It is possible these days to log on to marketplaces over TOR which allow people to purchase drugs with crypto-currencies like Bitcoin. With anonymous connections, and anonymous financial transactions, purchasing the drugs is completely untraceable. Receiving the drugs though… that is not so straight forward.
What if the very people who continue to promote the war on drugs, and continue to stop reformation of the laws, and continue to incarcerate people who have hurt no one etc started to receive illegal drugs, of a quantity which would result in jail time perhaps, into their personal homes, offices, and other places directly associated with them? How would law enforcement react? I wonder if they would even respond to an anonymous tip off?
Actually, there is a good reason to fear this idea being used in reverse, because I expect that if a kg of cocaine got sent to a respectable politicians house (in many many small envelopes that is), the police would go over there and help him get to the bottom of whoever is harassing him in this way! But if someone sent a kg of cocaine to a poorer black man’s house – that poor guy would be in prison before he even had a chance to speak. And this is precisely the problem with the war on drugs. The arbitrary choices involved in who they prosecute and who they support. If you or someone you know is dealing with drug-related challenges, you can see Pacific Ridge site for guidance.
Anyway – it was just a pondering. Could ‘Anonymous’ start sending drugs to politicians as a form of political protest?