How much are we spending on the Drug War? How about the FDA? According to the Drug War Clock at drugsense.org, the Drug War cost the US $15 billion so far this year. In addition, President Obama’s budget request for the FDA topped $4 billion. Unfortunately, these programs not only cost an insane amount of money and keep the government all up in our shorts, they apparently do more harm than good. I have long noticed that government-controlled drugs seem to be killing people. Heroin felled quite a few stars back in the day: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious and John Belushi to name a few. Celebrities of today, however, die from drugs that are highly regulated and controlled: Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy all died from prescription drugs.
It seems that the more we spend to have the government protect us from ourselves, the more we suffer at its hands. It could be gross incompetence, or it could be that government and its controllers are self-protecting entities who are not going to make us safe if our fear is the source of their power. The current mentality of citizens who fear an end to the Drug War or who cannot envision free market regulation of drugs reminds me of what I have heard about the behavior of the abused child. The abused child clings to his parent thinking, “If this is how someone who loves me treats me, how would someone who doesn’t love me treat me?!” It’s time to realize things will NOT be worse without government control of everything from the food we eat to the thoughts we think. Unfortunately, this study will probably be used to justify more government control, not less.
Here are a few highlights of the CDC study from the Sydney Morning Herald (sometimes you have to go out of the country just to get away from the spin!)
