Moral Contradictions of the War on Drugs by Euan Thomson
We know policing increases drug harms but increase police funding for drug enforcement.
We move mountains to find viral vaccines but won't push paper to release replacements for contaminated drugs.
We ritualize and fetishize alcohol and coffee but criminalize traditions for opium and coca.
We train floodlights on crime stats for supervised consumption sites but won't hold a candle up to the addiction treatment industry.
We shed tears over unmarked residential school graves but shed responsibility as Indigenous people bear the brunt of drug harms.
We embrace harm reduction for sexual education but keep pushing abstinence for drug uneducation.
We mobilize for pharmacare to cover the drugs we need but stop short on the safe supply needed by others.
We know people who use drugs fear police but dispatch police to drug poisonings anyway.
We react violently on being told to calm down when we're upset but send police with guns to mental health episodes.
We loudly denounce capital punishment but jail people for drugs while Death waits outside.
We blame and jail people in the drug economy but let employers discriminate against people who use drugs.
We fund police access to analytical equipment for busts but not public access to the same equipment for safety.
We talk about supporting the worker but ignore that a quarter of drug deaths are in the trades.
We fund oil pipelines to nowhere but close the valve on safe supply.
We cut red ribbons for private addiction treatment centres but tie red tape around public harm reduction services.
We connect the dots on street violence and the drug trade but trade logic for copaganda (cop and propaganda) when prohibition comes up.
We write endless books and studies about organized crime but could simply trade it in for organized labour.
We holler about drug money laundering in casinos but look the other way when Gaming lands us in the black.
We insist people take personal responsibility for drugs but create conditions in which heavy drug use is all too rational.
We create conditions impossible to raise children but blame drugs when they're forcibly removed.
We celebrate community builders who cater to the privileged but subsidize community destroyers who displace the underprivileged.
We all use drugs for pain or pleasure but we socially murder those who do so in despair.
We say we want drugs off our streets but turned our back on the streets long ago.
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