Feeding Your Children to Lions: The Only Way to Keep Them Off Drugs

Alright, alright. The title is a little misleading. But check this out - the D.A.R.E program of Brantford, Ontario requested $1,500 toward the $3,620 (U.S.) cost of a lion costume.

And look - they wanted to use this for 11-12 year olds. Are you kidding? If some asshole dressed as a lion came into my classroom when I was 12 years old to talk to me about the dangers of drugs - I'd probably want to do anything to not end up like him. And if that means using drugs - so be it. I'm not dressing up like a fucking lion for a living when my favorite rock stars and presidents have all admitted to trying drugs.

Luckily, the police services board realized this was a waste of money. "I like the idea of a real lion to scare the kids not to use drugs" joked one board member. Ahh yes, because drugs are more dangerous than putting your child in the same room as a lion - the king of the jungle.

Its true that the board did not approve funding for this yet and likely won't be doing so with the economy in the shape its in. But here is a concerning comment from the same board member that joked about using real lions:

"We don't want to send the message that we don't support D. A. R. E."

That comment likely means that had there not been a budget crisis at the moment this costume would have been approved. When is it ok to throw away money on stupid efforts that we know will not reduce drug use? We cannot base policies and funding on groups like D.A.R.E. simply because their intentions are good and we're afraid to send the message that we don't support them.

I'm all for reducing drug use/abuse among young people. But lions don't talk and they don't use drugs - so grow up and use your head when requesting to use thousands of tax payer dollars.

Or they could just get Stephen Seagal to teach kids about drugs and violence... The man that breaks people necks with the flick of his wrist.

When will we get our Tax Day?

I, like many others, found myself scrambling this week to get my taxes filed on time. My home state of North Carolina is one of about 22 states that have taxes on illegal drugs. Several other states have had their illegal substances tax laws struck down in court, mostly due to their violation of the Double Jeopardy clause of the Constitution. The Reason Foundation did a really cool report on this issue last year, and DRCNet has published some good analysis about illegal substances taxes in The Chronicle.

I'm not very familiar with other state laws, but North Carolina's law was overhauled in 1995 to comply with a 1994 Supreme Court ruling, Montana v. Kurth Ranch, which struck down Montana's tax on illegal drugs. Some of the changes include ensuring that the purpose of the tax is generating revenue and not punishment, revising the tax structure to ensure the tax is never more than the retail value of the drug, and creating a smaller tax rate for unusable parts of the marijuana plant such as seeds and stalks. If you're interested in a more detailed explanation, check out this PDF.

The changes to NC's tax law were good changes. They represent very commonsense elements that should be involved in drug taxes, except for one very crucial point. You must be arrested to be subject to this tax. It's a testimony to how absurd our public policy regarding drugs is when just about the only people in the country who actually ask to be taxed are given such strong legal incentive not to pay.

The ideal solution is to legalize all drugs and collect the taxes from the peaceful, legal transactions. Check out LEAP's report by Jeffrey Miron of Harvard University which estimates that the tax revenue from legal drugs combined with the no longer having to pay to enforce current drug laws, will create a gross increase of about 76.8 billion dollars a year. That is roughly equal to the Department of Health and Human Service's entire budget. With that money, we could double what we spend on treatment and prevention programs, and still have money left over.

Higher Education Act Supports Drug Abuse

After a full 10 years of contacting representatives, gathering signatures, writing articles, and spreading the outrage, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, along with hundreds of supporting organizations was sure their determined efforts would finally pay off and that Congressional leadership would follow through with their pledge to repeal the counterproductive Aid Elimination Penalty of the Higher Education Act. However, we have yet again been terribly deceived.

If you’ve ever wondered why you’re asked about drug offenses when applying for federal financial aid through FAFSA, thank Representative Mark Souder (R-IN), who somehow managed to slip the AEP into the Higher Education Act in 1998 without any debate or vote. Since then, this amendment has denied over 200,000 students federal financial aid, and in turn access to education. While we assume the reasoning behind Souder’s action was that he thought it would decrease drug abuse, it’s done the exact opposite by forcing students to drop out of school, therefore increasing their risk of drug abuse and criminal activity.

Regardless of the penalty's intentions, it has blatantly attacked hard-working students, people of color, and the lower and middle class. Since the FAFSA already requires satisfactory academic progress in order for a student to be eligible for federal financial aid, the AEP only affects hard-working students who have been doing well in school. While African-Americans make up a fairly small portion of the population, racial profiling leads to an absurdly disproportionate higher number of African-Americans arrested for drug offenses. And since middle and lower class families are depending solely on financial aid, it’s easy to see why wealthy families may not be too concerned.

Many members of Congress who were on our side initially have informed us that they became terrified of facing negative attacks, fearing they’d be labeled as “pro-drug”. In reality,it is precisely the Aid Elimination Penalty they are supporting that continues to increase drug abuse and decrease education. Anybody who is against racial profiling, increasing drug abuse, and decreasing education should be against this penalty. Please fill out this pre-written letter and demand an explanation from your local legislators! Unless they hear from their constituents, they won’t realize what their people want and will continue to follow their misguided instincts.