This article was originally published in April 2008, anonymously on a friend’s website. It generated hundreds of comments and tens of thousands of visitors (mostly from reddit). The website it was published on is now defunct, so I thought I’d re-post the article here on my blog.

Enjoy…

When I was in elementary school, during the “Just Say No” days, I remember hearing about drugs and being utterly confounded by the message. If drugs are so bad, I thought, why the heck (I didn’t say hell - it was a bad word) did so many people risk their lives just to get high? Something didn’t make sense.

In sixth grade, I was confronted with marijuana for the first time when a friend of mine tried it. Still believing the propaganda, I was very concerned and nearly turned him in “for his own good.” After all, he couldn’t be thinking straight… could he? Well, yes, he could. Contrary to my expectations, my friend was perfectly happy, did well in school, and did not start hanging out with the wrong crowd. Something didn’t make sense.

In high school, things started to get heavier. People I knew were not just smoking pot; they were snorting coke, dropping acid, and more. Being the straight kid, I even acted as a trip sitter on a few occasions.

Finally, I saw some of the negative impacts drugs could have. Of course, the reality of the negative impacts were nothing compared to what anti-drug propaganda would have had me expect. Upon smoking pot, eating shrooms, rolling on X, or whatever - none of my friends went crazy, had their life destroyed, or any such nonsense. The vast majority of the time, all they got was a good time.

Things started to make sense. Kids do drugs because they realize that adults have lied to them about it. If they are to discover the truth, they have only one course of action: Do drugs.

Yesterday I heard a story on NPR in which children were asked what they thought about drugs. Each child parroted back, with conviction, all the same false information I believed at their age. They said things like “you’ll die” and “you’ll lose all your friends.”

What will these kids do when they find out it’s not true? Drugs. When it is discovered first-hand that drugs aren’t so bad what, then, will these kids do? More drugs.

Duh.

Don’t get me wrong. I did see a few who “crossed the line” and actually abused drugs. However these kids had a lot of problems, drugs being only one of them. Unfortunately for them, the stigma of drug use would prevent them from seeking help even after they realized they had a problem. Making matters worse, “help” would often put the focus of treatment in the wrong place; they were treated for drug use when the focus should have been more holistic. Even if they got sober, they still tended to be depressed and self-abusive - just without drugs.

So what is the War on Drugs really accomplishing? Or, rather, is it being waged effectively?

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Tomorrow marks the 76th anniversary of the ratification of the 21st amendment to the US constitution, also known as Repeal Day. As you may know, the 21st amendment repeals the 18th amendment which began prohibition. I’ll drink to that.

The prohibition movement succeeded thanks to heavy lobbying by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party. By banning alcohol, they claimed, we would see the reduction or even elimination of of society’s ills: prostitution, murder, and even racism. Protesters against alcohol did everything from singing hymns to customers in saloons to taking a hatchet and smashing bottles. Amazingly, both organizations still exist.

This, of course, begs the question: What the hell were they thinking? After prohibition, virtually all the ills of society that were supposed to be reduced or eliminated had gotten far worse; even public drunkenness. Organized crime got out of hand, and respect for the authority of law plummeted.

Whoops!

With all that fervor over something that turned out to be essentially a non-issue, it makes you wonder about the policies of today.

What about the war on drugs? A quick Google search will tell you it’s about as popular as the war in Iraq. Would ending the war on drugs be similar to the end of prohibition? What, if anything, makes this form of prohibition different?

What about smoking bans? I don’t smoke but I find smoking bans that affect private businesses pretty troubling, albeit convenient.

What else?

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Not feeling so great about income taxes today, I researched a bit of history and found this video:

There, now I feel better. Wait… no I don’t.

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Dan Dennett talks about toxic memes and their virus-like ability to wipe out entire cultures. Dennett’s assertion that memes are, in some cases (communism, capitalism, Islam, Catholicism, and many more), essentially deadly parasites is an interesting perspective.

As interesting as Dennett’s ideas are, I tend to take a more simplistic view. While memes may be wiping out cultures, languages, and traditions I don’t blame the meme as Dennett does. I think it’s as natural an occurrence as ordinary, every-day pack behavior: The dominant “pack” – or culture/society/sect in our case – will ultimately be the most genetically successful.

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I was browsing around Project Gutenberg today and came across a 1910 translation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, translated by Lionel Giles. It turned out to be the same translation I was first exposed to.

I remember my stepsister buying a very old copy for herself at a used book store in Key West. I’d heard of the book (who hasn’t?), but this was the first time I had actually had my hands on a copy. I read the first two pages in the parking lot and subsequently resigned myself to read as much as possible on the ride home, even if it made me motion sick.

This particular translation begins with the legend of Sun Tzu’s rise to the rank of General and follows with a lengthy, some-times-interesting/some-times-boring discussion of the main text’s history. The legend of Sun Tzu’s rise, which involves beheading the king’s two favorite concubines (much to the dismay of the king), stuck with me for years. At first the story seems simple, but there are many subtle lessons in it that are likely to be missed on the first reading. It was worth the motion sickness.

Though I was unable to make it to the actual Art of War text during our drive back to Marathon, the desire to read the book stayed with me for several years until I finally bought and read The Art of War: Complete Text and Commentaries, translated by Thomas Cleary, which includes The Art of War as well as several related texts. When I finished the book, I immediately flipped back to the beginning and began reading it again. It is that good.

I am very happy to have rediscovered the Lionel Giles translation. I spent some time today reading the introduction once again, and came across a passage in critique of Confucianism that I thought was especially relevant to the War on Terror and it’s prominence in the debates for next year’s elections:

“Military weapons are the means used by the Sage to punish violence and cruelty, to give peace to troublous times, to remove difficulties and dangers, and to succor those who are in peril. Every animal with blood in its veins and horns on its head will fight when it is attacked. How much more so will man, who carries in his breast the faculties of love and hatred, joy and anger! When he is pleased, a feeling of affection springs up within him; when angry, his poisoned sting is brought into play. That is the natural law which governs his being…. What then shall be said of those scholars of our time, blind to all great issues, and without any appreciation of relative values, who can only bark out their stale formulas about ‘virtue’ and ‘civilization,’ condemning the use of military weapons? They will surely bring our country to impotence and dishonor and the loss of her rightful heritage; or, at the very least, they will bring about invasion and rebellion, sacrifice of territory and general enfeeblement. Yet they obstinately refuse to modify the position they have taken up. The truth is that, just as in the family the teacher must not spare the rod, and punishments cannot be dispensed with in the State, so military chastisement can never be allowed to fall into abeyance in the Empire. All one can say is that this power will be exercised wisely by some, foolishly by others, and that among those who bear arms some will be loyal and others rebellious.” –Ssu-ma Ch`ien, (91 B.C.E.)

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