We are not serious about ridding ourselves of drugs. We’ve been touting a “war on drugs” since 1971. Nixon’s concept was dead-on. Yes, it was a reaction to the wantonness of the ‘60’s, and an unpleasant adult’s attempt to restore adult control over the dangerously immature. But it is impossible to measure the destruction of lives that could have been avoided over the fifty-plus years since: the loss of fertile minds, the waste of generations of inner-city youth, the corruption of law enforcement and even the judiciary, and, now, the virtual abandonment of moral authority by governments at all levels.

The instinct to protect ourselves and others from mind-corroding drugs is now conflicting with a new, unprecedented concept of “rights.” America was founded in a time of moral adjustment and intellectualization of models of governance. Smart people, sensitive to history and the writings of philosophers both current and precedent, and fresh from the struggle of revolution, conceived of a constitutional republic where qualified citizens would vote for three levels of government: local, which elections already existed, state, which had existed for domestic issues despite top-down controls from England, and the new, federal, yet divided, central government. Overarching was the logical fear of creating a new tyranny to replace the old one: government could not be trusted to govern itself.

None of it worked without a shared morality among the citizenry and, most basically, moral self-governance. The Founders expected, and observed, a general ability to govern oneself, and the social agreement of when self-governance had failed. How distant those concepts are.

The Constitution, revered in theory and acknowledged in breach, has become the means to separate individuals from all external moral forces, starting with one’s parents. Not the original intent, but enough lawyers and psychologists, teamed with power-hungry political weasels, have managed to literally talk us out of our heritage. Shame on us.

We are now at the critical knife-edge of history where a civilization finds the courage to defend and restore itself, or passes from history to join the other failed attempts to organize societies with a measure of individual freedom. For the new power-meisters, morality and moral stricture are the obvious enemies of the individual’s enjoyment of life, and they are happy to take the votes of the threatened and pass laws that prevent morality from interfering very much. So long as “things” hold together – things like infrastructure, utilities, law-enforcement and food and energy supplies – individuals’ new friends in government will continue to find ways for their voters to avoid responsibility, taxes and work. Maybe. It’s all crap.

Meanwhile, human potential is dissolving in mixtures of chemicals, both legal and, nominatively, “controlled.” Parents are crying over suburban kids dying from heroin, boys and girls, while legislatures rush to legalize marijuana. The edge of logic has become fuzzy. Lives of otherwise responsible people are being distorted, ultimately twisted, by cocaine. Oh, but not “crack” cocaine! No, no, no; that’s for stupid people.

And the ‘War on Drugs’ goes on, accumulating statistics. What is missing is the will to actually stop the drug business. Succeeding will ruffle a lot of feathers.

Suppose a tough governor and a tough U. S. Attorney, working for an adult, a-political Attorney General, agree to designate a venue like a group of urban counties, and said governor agrees to take the heat for allowing a federal “state of emergency” in those counties. Under that declaration a special form of “martial law” would establish a camp, or camps, where National Guard troops will hold everyone arrested for even minor drug infractions. There they may be held indefinitely until the source of their drugs is identified and proven, on the presumption that ALL drugs have crossed state or international borders and are subject to federal penalties.

Detention camps will have ‘detox’ facilities. Addicts obviously are in possession of drugs on, or in their persons. They will be detained until their sources are identified. Then their sources will be arrested and detained until their sources are identified. And on, and on, until serious distributors are detained. As each level of source has been identified, the corresponding identifiers will be released to normal legal processes with all evidence gained under martial law admissible. We are either going to save our children – and society – or we are not.

Is it inevitable that individual freedom shall destroy our families, communities, schools, police and judiciaries? Because of our cleverness with words? Or do we have the right to cleanse society of corruption and disease, and to raise succeeding generations in clean, nurturing environments? Let’s choose rightly.