As for Ahmed and those arrested as dealers, one thing I've realized teaching my prison class is that men like him are entrepreneurs and capitalists at heart. They may be from poor and black communities, but they like material things and often have more in common with Wall Street financial operators than they do with someone like me, a firm believer that self-examination and a greater dedication to social concerns would go a long way to saving America from itself.
To paraphrase the subtitle of philosopher E.F. Schumacher's famous book Small Is Beautiful, it would be good to see the problem of drug demand in the US addressed "as if people mattered." Right now all that seems to matter is patriotism, the flag and keeping up a weakening empire.
The Global War On Terror is ten years on and we still don't publicly address the question why would Saudi Arabians and other Muslims want to attack us? In the Global War On Drugs, we have a similar long-repressed question that needs to be publicly and politically addressed before a solution is even possible.
That question is: Why do so many North Americans fall prey to the demand for drugs? Why is demand such a huge problem? Why such a huge market here?
The Netherlands is a very small nation, but they have largely solved their drug problem. Several years ago in Amsterdam, a Dutch psychologist told me the key was how the Dutch mother instills in her child an "internal locus of control."
Amsterdam is an ancient port city and temptation is everywhere, and it's part of the Dutch social contract that the individual is responsible for maneuvering through them. For those who stray and flounder, guidance in reinforcing their inner locus of control is available (or court ordered) in the Dutch social system. For the Dutch, drug abuse is a social problem.
Here, the idea of addressing something as a "social problem" seems to suggest a communist plot. We're a frontier-based society with a deep-seated legacy of racism that has built up a virtual cult of winners and losers. We talk of the American Dream, but a lot of it is a matter of the cards one is dealt. As my father used to tell his kids: "In America you have the right to starve."
While winning is vital, escape and pleasure are encouraged at every turn. If you fall off the winner-take-all merry-go-round you're still an individual and you still have the option to escape and find pleasure.
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