Unfortunately, drug use is not a simple choice. There are no sweeping consequences for participation in the drug culture as it exists in the �real� US that proactively create desirable alternatives for any one actually in the process of decision. Sure, there is a huge potential for immediate negative consequences- death, disfigurement, incarceration. But what are the immediate positive consequences for the largest number of first-time users who back away from the experience?

For middle-class suburban teenagers, and inner-city youth, the �Just say no� palette is pretty dark, containing all the grim colors of adolescence in a culture of irresponsibility: Continued disaffection and apathy of your peers, continued shirking of responsibility by any public officer who might have offered a leadership model, continued social stagnation, continued poverty, continued danger from and to your peers who did not choose to opt out of the drug dealing career path, continued isolation and estrangement from any potential source of empowerment (schools, parents, social authorities), continued self-doubt and lack of validation just because you thought about drugs. Where is the on-going, life-affirming, active approval for the decision just made?

Our policy in the reinvented US should be simpler to administer and understand. Replace the drug culture with a social responsibility culture. Let society as a whole reject or approve the choice made. If you chose to take mind-altering substances, you may not participate in society. Let�s say in this mythical setting, "You can not hold a driver's license, operate motor vehicles, work in any occupation involving heavy machinery or public safety, be in the military, medicine, entertainment, professional sports, law, vote, or be responsible for children. But the drugs are free, or nearly so, subsidized in whole or in part by the government with no criminal penalty for your use, transportation, or sharing with other adults."

"Don�t approve of the government, or not satisfied with the �Eagle� brands? Hey, go on and grow it in your back yard. Cook it in your kitchen, as long as you live in a neighborhood zoned for drug laboratory operation (probably not the choicest real estate in town). Breaking any of the other laws, or interfering with another person's right to choose responsibility over drug use, results in extremely swift and negative consequences in civil court, up to and including life imprisonment for a few situations designated truly criminal; say, giving drugs to a child, or committing violent acts under the influence."

"A first offense would result in your being given the option of 'deciding' to continue drug use, or to submit to a variety of mandatory education and rehabilitation programs, including community service and regular urinalysis. A decision to continue, or failure to comply with the mandatory programs, would result in draconian measures to ensure public safety from irresponsible actions. Employers in any of the above categories would be notified, and subject to severe fines if you were allowed to continue in a responsible position."

"You would lose the privilege of participating in society in any meaningful way, including your vote. Your children would be remanded to the custody of sober/straight relatives/foster homes, police 'boots' would be locked on to the wheels of your vehicles to prevent your use, driver's licenses confiscated, supplementary allowances instituted to ensure that you were able to purchase drugs without turning to crime."

"A decision to use mind-altering substances would be an abrogation of all other decision-making responsibilties. Nothing but the most menial and labor-intensive employment would be available to you, but then your expenses would be exceedingly low. Cheap and durable clothing would be provided, as well as inexpensive basic quarters, as well as free nutritious, if slightly boring, food. More expensive habits would be discounted through a stamp-purchase program or government subsidy."

"Secondary civil violations would result in house arrest with drugs delivered to your door until you asked to be allowed to work. Tertiary civil violations would result in incarceration, with mandatory drug use until you asked to be allowed to work and pay for your own rehabilitation. If at any time you would wish to turn your life around, 'pay as you go' counseling and rehabilitation programs would be available to you at a moderate cost. You would have to earn the right to become a member of society once more."

"The cost of drug addiction would be removed from our over-burdened justice system, as competition with government-subsidized or free narcotics drives international drug cartels into bankruptcy. The damage done to children and public safety by drug addiction would be the principIe focus of government programs, as arguably should have been from the beginning. Mass transportation becomes a reasonable priority for suddenly available public welfare and law enforcement funds. Don't give a penny of welfare or government subsidy to drug-addicted parents- let them eat kibble. We would build neighborhood child care centers and better schools, employing responsible adults from the neighborhoods to care for everyone's kids."

It seems the drug problem would be pretty much over with, in short order. Under this set of circumstances, it is unlikely that drug use would be as attractive an alternative lifestyle to young women and men- and therefore, unlikely to increase over time. Sports figures, entertainers, celebrities, authority figures by definition would be drug free. With the profit motive removed, there goes organized crime.

So why aren't we doing it? Because it's immoral? Because it's undeserved luxury? Because it will cost money?

There's an argument that you can't legislate morality. I suggest that we actually do succeed in just that each day that we do not allow GM to sell crack ( or do we? I haven�t read through the back issues past last year ). After all, the profit margin on a shovelful of crack easily exceeds that of an entire Chrysler LeBaron. Don�t think for a moment that large corporations wouldn�t give the Medillen cartel a real serious contention for America�s wallets if we as a society didn�t feel that drug trafficking and it�s attendant social damage was morally unacceptable. Simply removing all legal consequences for the manufacture, distribution and recreational use of drugs is not a solution...

Legislate morality? Each day we allow irresponsible individuals access to automatic weapons. Each day we do not allow the Federal government to be sued for reckless endangerment of millions of citizens through inadequate preventive health care. Each day we allow countless numbers of young people to go without adequate adult supervision in order to kill ourselves working harder for less money, reaping teenage pregnancy, apathy, and suicide. Each day we allow the sale of alcohol and tobacco without proactive legislation to prevent public endangerment. These are moral choices. We have made these moral choices through the force of law, as a society. Surely the individual�s ultimate right is to participate or not participate in that society, with society protected from the outcome of that decision.

Do we really think that drugs are a luxury, a good thing? Nothing in Scripture, in the Koran, in the Talmud suggests that living in a stupor is intrinsically desirable. It is more evident in these works that a direct, working experience of sacred life requires sobriety, and a certain amount diligence on our parts. Apart from theism, the 'American work ethic' celebrates the opportunity to take on responsibility, and equates success with prosperity earned through intelligence and drive. From these perspectives, a decision to pursue excess and intoxication is pathetic, weak, and derisable. The drug-dependent individual lives in spiritual squalor and emotional styrofoam, not luxury.

Will this rob the taxpayers? When undue protest arises from all quarters for a change that appears to benefit the public, we must look carefully at who gains from the current situation, and who would suffer from the changed policy. We only need to look as far as our elected officials, and the political action committees and lobbyists who control them. It�s my opinion that we'll find time and again that the loudest protests will consistently come from those corners where today's drug profits and bloated enforcement budgets have lined the dark corners nicely with a thick cozy quilt of blood debt and public money.

"...My position certainly is not that the Old Testament doesn�t condemn homosexuality. As a matter of fact, it does. It tells us how the Israelites were instructed to live and behave, as their salvation was completely dependent upon their observation of the law of Moses. The penalty for homosexual love was death. Death was also the penalty for adultery, working on the tenth day of the seventh month, consulting a medium, cursing using the Lord's name, performing autopsies, eating rare steaks, getting a haircut short on the sides; not standing up when in the company of an elderly person would cause "the land to vomit you out", and required exile. I am reasonable sure that some number of the most shrill folks condemning homosexuals are guilty of wearing cloth woven of more than one material (check that garment tag) and eating a ham sandwich now and then (unclean animals). If you believe that your salvation depends on the Law, you have to follow the whole Law, not just what's convenient.

Fortunately, as a Christian, I have been delivered of slavish behavior and can count on being completely responsible for my relationship with God, through Jesus. After all, it�s a New Covenant, sweeping away the old. As I recall, my principle instructions (see above verse) in the New Covenant are: a) to love the Lord with everything I've got and b) to love you. All of you. "On these two hang all the Law and the Prophets..."

Here's a thought: Just concentrate on the words of Christ in which all four of the gospels agree. Notice that he wasn't spending a lot of time in the company of the Law-abiding. If he were here today, would he be spending time with you? Notice the compassion he continued to show for the most reviled and down-trodden of society. If he were here today, would he show such compassion for you? Notice that those closest to him failed to recognise him again and again. How arrogant is it to think that we will succeed in recognizing him when those closest and most blest by his company failed?

We�ll try and overlook the fact that the current canon of gospels and letters was selected from a library of such works numbering in the hundreds through a series of largely political decisions by the early Church in its first four centuries, or that the books of "the Apostles" were largely ghostwritten by multiple authors long after the death of Christ and the life spans of the Twelve. Notice that even where the Gospels agree, there is still some confusion of time and place. Scripture has gaps in it that the proverbial camel can be driven through. That�s one of the tenets of my faith, that Perfection is communicating with me through the imperfect device of human words, human history and my own weak mind and heart. I am a slacker, but I keep trying. Let's all read Scripture a little closer, eh?"

LK