~~~~~~~~~~~𝗙𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗬𝗟 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 𝗔𝗗𝗗𝗜𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦~~𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗜𝗙𝗬𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧'𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚!!

 

 

Pushing 77, I've been aware of the drug scene since my early teens, but never been a user and I've yet to smoke my first cigarette, although I'm a daily drinker of beer and/or wine.

I remember vividly when American psychologist Timothy Leary urged the San Francisco hippies in 1966-67 to "Turn on, tune in and drop out" and I can still spell lysergic acid diethylamide without looking the phrase up.

As for John Lennon's song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," I don't believe his explanation that the capitalized words in the song's title were accidental as the images provoked by the lyrics so closely resemble those someone tripping on LSD might see, but Lennon was, more often than not, disingenuous or simply coy. 

Today's enemy #1 on the drug list is fentanyl and some in the rightwing of the Republican Party(Is there any other wing?) want to send the U.S. military into Mexico to bomb the shit out of the Sinaloa and CJNG cartels, but what would that accomplish besides violating Mexico's soveignty?

Anyway, it was the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, Big Pharma, who created the opioid addiction in the first place, while China and India continue to make handsome profits producing as much of the precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl as they possibly can.

I was in the Philippines when President Rodrigo Duterte, mentally unstable like Trump, instituted his program of shooting on sight drug users and their siblings or family, with police murdering at least 6,200 during his tenure as president, mowing them down in the streets.  Even with those harsh penalties, I saw obvious users totally out of it on the sidewalk, so the heavyhandedness accomplished little.

If the answer is legalizing the shit, well, maybe that's better than the U.S. "War on Drugs" and the obscene enrichment of Mexico's drug cartels selling illegal substances while engaging in open warfare against their cartel competitors.