kulda klaviatuurist

Kriminalistika õppejõud Jaan Sootak selgitab taas, miks narkootikumide osaline keelustamine on põhiseadusega vastuolus ja tekitab lisaprobleeme. Muide, Economist kirjutab samal teemal, kajana jätkab Foreign Policy. Nii emotsionaalses teemas pole ratsionaalsete argumentidega muidugi väga palju teha, aga abiks ikka. Pealegi paistab, et Ladina-Ameerikas tuleb varsti legaliseerimise-doomino-efekt (parem hilja kui mitte kunagi, ehkki kartellid on tänu war on drugsile ikka hirmutavalt tugevaks paisunud), kui USA mingi hetk järgneb, muutuvad emotsioonid meilgi. Aja märk on seegi, et kolm viimast USA presidenti on illegaalsete ainete tarbimist tunnistanud (ja arvata, et meie THI kordagi tõmmanud ei ole, oleks sama naiivne kui eeldada, et vast Clinton ja Obama kunagi ikka süstima hakkavad, sest et gatewayst on nad juba üle astunud).

Americans are a can-do people. They tend to believe that if something does not work, it needs to be fixed. Unless, that is, they are talking about the war on drugs. [...] 76 percent of Americans think the war on drugs launched in 1971 by President Richard Nixon has failed. Yet only 19 percent believe the central focus of antidrug efforts should be shifted from interdiction and incarceration to treatment and education. A full 73 percent of Americans are against legalizing any kind of drugs, and 60 percent oppose legalizing marijuana.
This “it doesn’t work, but don’t change it” incongruity is not just a quirk of the U.S. public. It is a manifestation of how the prohibition on drugs has led to a prohibition on rational thought. “Most of my colleagues know that the war on drugs is bankrupt,” a U.S. senator told me, “but for many of us, supporting any form of decriminalization of drugs has long been politically suicidal.”