Conditioning (not at the gym dumbass)

     Funny how many people think they are so smart. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say "Advertising doesn't affect me" I would be a billionaire and they would still be totally wrong.

     Now my point is not about advertising, it's just an example of conditioning. It is merely planting a seed in your mind, which, depending upon your likes and dislikes, will either grow or flail, but once it's there, it's there. No different that what happens to you a zillion times a year with everything from news stories to speeches, to "scientific research", to partisan politics, conditioning of the human mind is a tried and true tactic, widely used to shape everything from consumer habits to societal thinking.

     The major breakthrough in the understanding of conditioning, of course, is Pavlov's Dog. Many will remember this from high school science classes. A quick summary of Pavlov's experiment in his attempt to prove that conditioning could be taught. His experiment basically started with him ringing a bell before feeding the animal. Eventually he started to ring the bell but delay giving the food while observing what happened with the dog after the bell was rung. Pavlov's "eureka moment" came when he observed that by ringing the bell, the dog reacted emotionally and physiologically as if it were time to eat. This was proven due to the fact when the bell was rung and food withheld, the dog would begin to salivate, the natural reaction of the body preparing for food intake (this is true in humans as well). I'm sure Pavlov would shudder to see where the results of his experiments have gone and how conditioning invades every square inch of our life.

     Let's talk about about conditioning. Lots of people own iPhones, for example. How many of them know why? How many could tell you how they even first because aware of the existince of something called an iPhone. Most of them will tell you they aren't affected by advertising. They'll never be able to tell you why they were among the first to try a new product, adopt a new style, get a popular haircut or always buy certain brands. But they will guarantee you they are not influenced by outside sources.

     Advertising is bad enough, but as the science of conditioning advances, it is creeping into every facet of society. One of the most unfortunate areas conditioning has come into play is in science. Scientists are human, and humans can be greedy. Just like cops and judges and politicians have allowed themselves to be bought off over the years, so to have a number of scientists. Yes there are groups of corporate interests who will pay big money to fund research that presents "their" viewpoint. Sad but true. If you think I am slinging you a line of bullshit, please explain to me the many hundreds, nay, thousands of studies showing the safety and benefits of smoking. I'm pretty sure most of us realize smoking isn't the world's healthiest activity, yet you can still find recent studies extolling the virtues of tobacco. Along with people who will swear they are right.

     Now we're seeing the same thing happening with climate change. The most legitimate research is being effectively challenged by funding of groups and individuals by large corporate and government interests who want you to think everything is normal, that humans aren't contributing to climate change and so on. There are people predisposed to believe them and just like it worked for decades with tobacco, it will sow enough of a seed in the minds of people who don't understand it to drag things on until we are forced to act when we've already reached a critical juncture, or worse, a precipice. I welcome those who would like to argue environment issues with me, I've been working on environmental issues for 30 years, I've held positions at the helm of groundbreaking citizen science organizations, I've spoken publicly in many forums to many people, I've taught children, I've run organizations to improve freshwater quality and I've sat on government panels. So if you want to talk environment, have at 'er.

     The last election was an exercise in conditioning, thanks to the tea party of Stephen Harper. Say the same things over and over and over and never deviate from the standard message and once people hear it enough many will believe it to be fact, from the sheer number of times they've been told. This tactic goes way back to the likes of Stalin, Kruschev, Mao, and yes especially Adolf Hitler. It's continuing, but suddenly failing in many countries with "President for life" guys, with the exception of Kim Jong-Il and a few others doing a fine job at conditioning their populations. If you don't think this is true, explain with many serious scandals, parliamentary problems, an absolutely failed management of the economy from top to bottom, the G8/G20 fiasco with millions on things in Tony Clement's riding, needed things like highway signs and outdoor toilets and gazebos that not a single leader ever saw, how anyone could vote for these organized criminals and hold their head up. How many idiots in the face of incontrovertiable proof of economic mismanagement would look you in the eye and tell you "Stephen Harper has handled the economy well". Plenty, I meet them.

     You have to be on your guard at all times. Fortunately we have available, at our fingertips a wealth of imformation, a deluge of knowledgable people we can contact through the internet, there are libraries and smartphones and so many ways to educate yourself before making up your mind on the surface of any single statement. Be skeptical and always remember that out there are a lot of special interests trying to make you their own Pavlov's Dog.

     There's always a bigger picture, keep it mind and you'll have a chance at finding truth in a lying society.

Doing something sensible (for a change)

     How out of touch are we? Very much so it appears, but thanks to the efforts of more and more people tired of this theatre of the absurd, it appears the movement to move drug policies forward into the 21st century could be gaining some traction. Don't get me wrong, I don't for a minute believe victory is imminent, because common sense is so very uncommon and almost no politician actually has the common sense gene.

     What got me thinking about this today is a twitter link to the website of Avaaz, an organization I quite frequently agree with. Especially in the case of this petition to end the "war on drugs" which, when looked at with any degree of critical thought has been an utter failure, has cost taxpayers and the economy untold billions of dollars, and will never be effective. Never.

     Most, if not all of the people who read this will not remember the successful prohibition of alcohol, well, that's because the prohibition on alcohol was a success, in a lesser degree, in the same way the war on drugs is. That is, utter failure with far worse consequences to society than the benefits that may have been gained by some form of orderly success.

     Most of the informal reasearch I've done traces the use of alcohol back to at least 10,000 BC, and the use of marijuana back a minimum of 12,000 years. Who in their right mind would believe that substances that have been in use for millenia would suddenly stop being used because some overly-righteous asshole decided they were bad and should be illegal. The second the penstroke hits the page making things like this illegal, it sets off a chain of events that causes horrific consequenses. If you haven't put much thought into this subject, please read on for a discussion of what these prohibitions do, to individuals and to society.

     The second someone came to the realization that they could ingest or inhale something that made them feel good it was game on. People like to feel good, some get it through adreneline rushes, some bask in accomplishments and accolades, others like to have a drink, or a few, or way too many. Some like to smoke weed, others prefer some other substance. The point is, most human beings crave outside stimulation that makes them feel good, and it is probably more convenient to achieve through 10 bucks worth of grass or a six pack or beer than it is through parachuting off the Eiffel Tower.

     That said, I won't go into any kind of long history lesson on the prohibition of alcohol, most are aware it happened, it was a disasterous failure, it ended, liquor is now sold on a mostly regulated basis and puts billions of dollars of revenue into government coffers every year. Even if they banned it again tomorrow, people would still drink, they would find ways to make or get alcohol, and would share it with like minded people either for camaraderie or for profit. The truth is, people will never stop drinking alcohol.

     Those are history lessons we know. Have you ever thought about what the consequences of the alcohol prohibition were? Worse, it didn't last near as long as the drug prohibition so the damage, while substantial, was nowhere near what the war on drugs has cost societies across the globe. Because these things are rooted in populist ideas, they are widely supported by influential segments of the population who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about and no capacity to think of the far ranging societial consequences of prohibiting anything that is widely used across the global population. From a law enforcement perspective, causes like alcohol prohibition and the war on drugs are popular and are great PR for policing agencies as they always garner headlines and the majority of them heap praise on these organizations for their crime fighting abilities. The unfortunate part is how it takes people and resources away from crimes that really matter. The prohibition of alcohol can clearly be linked to a more than substantial rise in crime and boosting the prominence of the mafia. As it is now with drugs, while prohibited, people still wanted alcohol and were willing to pay a premium to get it. Being entrepreneurs, criminals were interested in cashing in on that premium by providing the product. Greed is also a factor, in that, it will draw in people who otherwise would never have committed a crime in their lives to cash in also. This leads to huge profits for organized criminals who can use it to fund their other, more sinister criminal enterprises, thus the prohibition itself actually creates more powerful criminal orgnizations which contribute to a worsening crime situation by funding other illegal activities with the fortunes they make from selling a product everyone wants but some dumbass got elected by opposing it. Along with this, we create another whole class of criminals, those who use, posess, and minimally distribute the prohibited substance to others. A person who could have lived an entire lifetime without any stain on their reputation could be followed forever by a criminal record for merely catching a buzz. Not to mention how many people died from drinking something they shouldn't have, something they thought was the same as the illegal alcohol they'd been buying but turned out to be something poisonous. This is not great policy. This does not make society better. Prohibiting food will not make people lose weight.

     So now I come to the sustained, yet absolutely useless war on drugs. Think about the consequences of alcohol prohibition as I summarized it above, then multiply it by about 1000. That's probably somewhere close to the havoc the lengthy and continued drug prohibition has caused. Now the "law and order" industry has figured out how to milk this thing like a cow. Billions of dollars annually are pumped into the industry and the result is minimal effect. It doesn't work and never will work. Sure, they orchestrate drug busts to look big and sensational, they'll expend hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars to bring down 15 or 20 small and medium players and it gets headlines and publicity for months on end. The truth is, if they managed to intercept more than 10% of the supply they'd be over the moon. I'll guarantee you I could leave my house right now and go buy anything I want, from weed, to extacy, cocaine, prescription pills, heroin, whatever I want  in a city of about 130,000. I can also find most of that in just about any small community I visit, whether I know anyone or not. That's the reality.

     There is minimal funding for services to help victims of crime. Unlimited funding to stop that guy with a bag of weed. No one can be bothered devoting resources to looking for missing women or children but they'll happily spend thousands of dollars and a ton of man hours doing surveillence on someone who may or may not be trafficking in one one-trillionth of the drugs sold and consumed daily on this planet. There is a whole lot wrong with this picture, and the bigger the picture you look at, the more you can find wrong with it.

     I was born near the end of the baby boom. I was a teen in the 70's. I know a lot of people who tried drugs, a lot who used for a time and have stopped and many who continue to recreationally enjoy putting various substances into their body for the sheer enjoyment of it. Some of these people are regular everyday working stiffs, others are wealthy business people, still others hold esteemed positions in our society. I believe it is their business what they enjoy in their spare time, we are all responsible for our own conduct. I do know some people who have had problems with addiction, however I will qualify that by saying they are pretty much the same people who, if they weren't addicted to drugs, would engage in some other kind of self destructive behaviour. I know many people who have had their lives stained with a criminal record that will follow them forever and cause them to be excluded from working in places they would be an asset, who otherwise are decent, upstanding citizens who wouldn't think of breaking a law. I will also admit, I know a few people who never grew up and I continue to see their name in the paper because they've made a living selling drugs and have no other skills and the occasional stint in jail is just a cost of doing business.

     The worst of the war on drugs is not just the criminal enterprises it has spawned, but the idea that most people do not understand they connection between prohibition and creating powerful criminal organizations. Not the guy down the street who sells a few bags of weed to suppliment his income, these people are ruthless, organized, monetized, and their interests do not stop at drugs. Drugs are a cash cow to fund other operations, and the lengthy prohibition on drugs, their use and possession, has created something that makes the mafia look like a freaking joke in comparison. This has gone on long enough that many of these drug kingpins are richer and more powerful than most countries in the world, many of them have their own private armies, they have important figures in their pockets. These people are not unsophisticated in their operations. If they need to spend a billion dollars on a new way to smuggle more of their overpriced product into a place where millions of people are more than willing to buy it, they will, as a cost of doing business. Just the fact it is illegal and so many people want it raises the stakes, and inevitably, leads to turf wars and violence. With the mafia, it was generally held to mob family on mob family violence. The length of time drugs have been prohibitied have led it to become something else, something far more sinister, where rivals now engage in violence for violence sake, and it's no longer targetted hits but random drive by shootings or bombings or whatever kind of violence they prefer at the time. It's no longer just the serious organized criminals, the idea of the "gangsta" life has been glorified so much so that an entire generation is growing up to the realization even if you don't bother to try hard to be a productive citizen you can have piles of money and piles of fun by engaging in various criminal activities, even if that includes spraying a crowd of your percieved rivals with automatic gunfire at the age of 15, or 13, no different than the child soldiers in countries we condemn for human rights abuses. As long as these substances are prohibited by force of law, yet wanted by such a significant proportion of the population, the situation will continue to worsen.

     The time has come to be sensible about how we deal with intoxicating substances. People are not going to stop using them. Period. Fact. Thousands of years of history teaches us this yet we ignore that because it doesn't conveniently fit the argument for the status quo. Rather than being a massive cost monetarily and societally, sensible regulation will create benefits we should have been taking advantage of for a long time.
First and foremost, it cuts a massive source of funding for criminals off. It also allows the better allocation of resources to the prevention of crime, it frees up police to deal with crimes that are under funded, to purchase better and more modern equipment and advanced training, and allows for more effort to be put into victim services. It takes a huge load off the court system and allows more serious crime to be put through the system in a more expedient fashion, possibly leading to less plea bargains and more convictions for the serious ills of society.

     Economically, the war on drugs makes no sense. I've said before and will say again people are never going to stop using intoxicating substances, so we are continually flushing money down the toilet trying to enforce the unenforcable. Under regulation, producers would become legitimate tax paying businesses in an industry that is instantly worth billions of dollars a year in this country alone. Then there would have to be a retail system, also made up of tax paying business people who would require employees, who would also be tax payers. Add to that the spinoffs available to equipment manufacturers, distribution and transportation networks, packaging designers, and everyone else who would now be doing legitimate business within the legal system. Finally there would be tax revenue, and plenty of it. It would probably be a conservative estimate to say they'd take in a couple of billion dollars a year and the product would still be less expensive at the retail level than it is today on the black market.

     I submit we should stop the madness, it can only get worse if we continue to do what we are doing. The negatives of prohibition are many and varied. This is not an issue of morals. It's an outdated and misguided policy that has no basis in fact or reality. We rightly express outrage at countries that think it is acceptable to allow men to legally rape their wives yet we have no problem with ruining a 19 year old kids life forever because he had a couple of bags of grass in his car. That criminal record will exclude him from work, from travel, from many of the things most people take for granted.

     The time has come for a stop to the damage of the war on drugs. The collateral damage is far too great to accept once someone begins to explain exactly what it is.

    Thanks, comments for and against are most welcome.