Weed is for Degenerates

Delving deeper into the War on Drugs with John Paul Barber

Mr. Barber, please give the readers a little background of your personal experience of Uncle Sam's War on Drugs, your arrest for selling cocaine, trial, and so on.

There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about my arrest. I was set up by one of my customers who was trying to get out of some trouble he was in. I didn't go to trial, I took a plea bargain for 75 months. If I'd went to trial and lost I'd have probably gotten 15-20 years. The sentences are so stiff on the federal level, only an idiot would opt for a jury trial.

Other than a few mouthy black female prison guards, I never had any trouble or was treated unfairly by law enforcement or the federal prison system. The worst part about my incarceration was being a White minority in a majority black prison. I had to constantly be on my toes. Most blacks assume Whites won't fight back. They assumed wrong with me. I spent a significant amount of time in solitary confinement for fighting. Eventually I learned to prefer solitary over general population because I could actually relax in there. As glamorous as it looks on the big screen, playing Tarzan is no fun in real life.

I understand a close relative of yours has struggled with drug addiction. Can you tell us how this has affected your family?

Yes, I have a close relative who had a terrible problem with methamphetamine and opiates. It was an awful thing to watch and I'm 100% confident she's suffered permanent brain damage from all the abuse she put her body through. Even though she's been clean for five or six years now, she's still not the same upstairs. I actually have quite a few relatives with drug and alcohol problems. I do believe there's a genetic component to addiction but I don't think addiction is a "disease" as the medical and psychiatric community would have you believe. Some people are just born with stronger levels of will power than others. You either have a strong mind or a weak mind. Although I've experimented with drugs in my younger days I never had an addiction problem like some of my relatives who I share genetic traits with. Whenever I felt like something was getting in the way of me taking care of my responsibilities, I stopped doing it. My guilt overpowered my hedonism. If only my guilt had overpowered my greediness, I wouldn't have sold poison to my people and went to prison.

Years ago a group of researchers did a study where they put a child in a room with their favorite candy bar. They told the child they were going to leave the room and come back later. They gave the child two options: 1) The child could eat the candy bar right then or 2) The child could choose not to eat the candy bar right then and wait until the adult came back. If they hadn't eaten the candy bar, then the child would get a second candy bar. This was a test to see how well these children could delay gratification for a greater long term payoff. Then these researchers followed the children into adulthood to see what choices they made in life. Almost exclusively, the children who had the ability to delay gratification did well in school, didn't get on drugs, didn't go to jail, got good jobs, and had a higher overall quality of life. The opposite was true for almost all of the children who ate the candy bar immediately.

This study gives us a window inside the human mind and how it works. In my opinion, most people who grew up to be drug addicts would have gobbled up that candy bar before the adult had even gotten the door shut. So, are some people more genetically prone to addiction? I think yes, but there's not an "addiction" gene. Just mental weaklings.

What is your approach to child rearing with respect to drugs. Have you been open with your children about your experience and other family members' experiences?

My children are still too young to understand what drugs are. They know what taking medicine means but I don't think they could comprehend the concept of "getting high." I have told my oldest daughter that I've been to jail before but I just told her it was because I broke the law and was acting bad. I do plan on explaining to my children about my past when they get older. I wouldn't be much of a father if I didn't. Maybe hearing some of my stories will help prevent them from straying down the same path I did.

The quantity and power of drugs available, opiates in particular, cannot be compared with alcohol, to which humans have thousands of years of exposure, or other naturally occurring drugs which historically have been rather hard to come by and less potent. You touched on this in your earlier letter, is there some balance to be achieved between prohibition and drugs free-for-all?

As I stated in my original letter you previously posted, law enforcement should take a hands off approach to drug dealing and using within the US. Still keep it illegal on the books and leave it as an underground activity but just don't enforce the drug laws. It hasn't done a bit of good with regard to deterrence. We have worse drug abuse problems now than ever before and have spent trillions of dollars after 40 years of the drug war. Law enforcement would have better results going after these drug addicts for committing thefts and other crimes to support their habits. We need harsh penalties for this kind of behavior.

It's more effective and efficient to use our resources to cut off the supply coming into the United States. I mentioned The Wall on the Mexican border as being a good example of something that would have a big impact on cutting off supply lines.

Another huge problem we have is Fentanyl coming into the country from China. A lot of it is coming in through the mail. There has to be some way for the federal government to crack down on this. Having drug dogs sniffing every package coming in from China could be done for a fraction of the money we spend going after junkies and dope peddlers.

We also need more drug interdiction at our ports. Cargo containers from all over the world are coming in by the multitudes every day with God knows what inside. Not only is this a good argument against free trade and globalization, but it's also something that needs to come under extreme scrutiny by the DEA and Customs agents. Another example of how resources could be allocated toward something that would produce results instead of filling up our prisons with junkies and dealers.

Do you think cannabis should get special consideration, as is now becoming widespread politically?

Marijuana legalization isn't something I dwell on a lot. That ship has already sailed. More and more states are legalizing it and I see that trend continuing. The Bible Belt will be the last region of the country to go along with it, but they'll eventually succumb since their state legislators won't be able to resist the sales tax revenue that can be generated from pot sales.

Personally, I think weed is for degenerates and I don't care what the latest study at Pothead U says, it is harmful to you long term. It makes people have a "don't give a fuck" attitude that leads to less productivity over time. That said, I think we do need to stress to our youth that there's a big difference between marijuana and hard drugs and how they affect your life. We tell kids don't do drugs, and that all drugs are bad. Well, most of them will smoke pot at some point as teenagers and they think "Hey, this isn't such a big deal. They must've been lying to me about all those other drugs too. I think I'll try this heroin. I bet it's no big deal either."

Do you think there are larger economic incentives at play? Junkies are revenue units for all sorts of medical and social services. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from replacement drugs and all sorts of auxiliary drugs.

Yes, I do think there are larger economic interests at play. The obvious ones are, as you mentioned pharmaceutical, medical, and social services. Also the prison and law enforcement sectors base most of their business model on our drug laws. Since most politicians are attorneys, they don't have any incentive to get their tentacles out of this system either. All their buddies still practicing law are making a killing negotiating plea bargains for drug crimes.

We also have our US military protecting the poppy fields in Afghanistan. When the Taliban were in charge, poppy farming was outlawed and punishable by death. Why are we not only allowing poppy farming but encouraging and promoting it? Always remember that the #1 national security issue for the US government is maintaining the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. It's our greatest strength. I'm assuming we've brokered the same deal with Afghan cartels that we brokered with Saudi oil sheiks: We'll provide you with military protection but you can only accept US dollars for your product. This keeps our currency in use and in demand and prolongs dollar hegemony.

But the largest economic interest is one most people probably don't realize. The liquidity provided by organized crime/drug cartels to the financial sector is huge. Without black market economic activity (most of which is drug related) the global economy would probably collapse. In fact, during the 2008 financial crisis, drug money was the only liquid cash available. It's probably what kept us from falling into total ruin.

Thank you so much for your valuable perspective, John Paul Barber.

-Lynn

(c) 2017 Lynn Lockhart & John Paul Barber