The lunacy takes a turn for the worse...

Nevermind the terrible pack of distortions and reality-thwarting announcements from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, that stuff is chump change. As they say, action speaks louder than words:

This week? A raid at San Diego State University, netting seventy-five student drug busts, with violations ranging from simple possession, to distribution.

You've got to hand it to the federal drug warriors - they're diligent in pursuing prohibitionist policies. With the current budget and economic crisis, there might even be an argument that the federal government is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in student aid that will certainly be denied those students "busted" in the raids. That argument falls flat, however, when one realizes that the drug warriors will be wasting millions of dollars prosecuting and incarcerating college kids, who might be better served by either: a) getting them into treatment if they need it, or b) leaving them alone.

The justification? Two cocaine overdose deaths in the past year. Two.

• Alcohol is linked to 1,400 student deaths in college and 500,000 unintentional injuries each year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2002).
• Alcohol kills 6.5 times more youth than all other illicit drugs combined (Be Responsible About Drinking, Inc., n.d.).

So when is the D.E.A. going after the possessors and distributors of this scourge, alcohol? --Never, as drug policies in the U.S. do not reflect the reality: drugs don't discriminate, but our drug laws do. Not just in terms of racism, but also in terms of which drugs are illegal versus legal. Most illicit drugs remain so because they don't have a high-powered, money-backed lobby.

Back to a missed point: considering that the overdose deaths were in San Diego, the possessors and distributors were all in San Diego, how exactly did the federal agents find themselves with jurisdiction over this case? Don't they have international cartels to go after, or something?

I mean, last I checked, San Diego State University wasn't the home of the kingpins of cocaine distribution in the United States... but the D.E.A.'s lunacy evidently disagrees with my analysis.