May 14th, 2009 by Allison Kilkenny
Great news, patriots! The Obama administration’s new drugs czar says he wants to banish the War on Drugs! Pack your bong! Hug a crackhead! Tell Central America to come out of hiding!
Well, maybe not just yet. The War on Drugs is still with us, but it’s probably going to have a fancy new name, sort of like how the War on Terror is now the Overseas Contingency Operation. Maybe we can call it the Columbia Reconfiguration Hug Squad, or US-Central American Care Package.
Gil Kerlikowske wants to rebrand the idea that the United States is fighting a war on drugs because fighting a war against drugs would be idiotic and a total waste of time, money, and lives. The US would probably lose a war against an irrepressible, intangible idea like terror, or freedom in the case of drugs — freedom for individuals to escape their fucked-up existences. In fact, the US has lost these wars, just as it will lose any war where its strategy is to swing wildly in the dark, while throwing handfuls of cash at nothing.
When Kerlikowske and brand Obama rename the War on Drugs, their goal should be to pick a new name that will take our minds off the fact that the government has spent $18 billion on the War on Drugs Columbia Reconfiguration Hug Squad this year alone, and counting. And that doesn’t include money spent at the state and local levels. No one seems to have a clear idea of how much the entire program has cost US taxpayers, except a lone conference of mayors that once estimated the price tag at around $40 billion a year. Now, multiply that figure by about 30 years. Yikes.
