Feds Should Seek Corporate Sponsors for Post “War on Drugs” Era
It took 40 years, 8 presidential administrations, and billions of dollars, but the plug has been pulled on one of the most recognizable public policy brands in Washington’s history: “the war on drugs.”
The phrase was officially retired from the public lexicon by drug czar Gil Kerlikowske during a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Kerlikowske, the former Police Chief of Seattle and current head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, blamed the “war on drugs” mentality for impeding the country’s progress in dealing with illegal drugs. “Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” Kerlikowske said.
The Government’s semantic shift is part of a new vision for U.S. drug policy – a vision that emphasizes rehabilitating drug users instead of imprisoning them.
Although Kerlikowske and the Obama Administration may have a vision of what 21st century drug policy should look like, they now lack a catch phrase for Americans to rally around. With “fight,” “war,” “battle,” “struggle,” “throw-down,” and “confrontation” all officially out as possible ways to describe America’s anti-drug efforts, the country may find itself unable to simply name the problem, much less solve it.
So, now, the Government not only has a drug problem, it also has a marketing problem.
And, who better to solve a marketing problem than corporate America?
Amazon - free super-saver shipping for a super drug-free America.
For years, corporations have successfully convinced unsuspecting Americans to purchase items they don’t need with money they don’t have. Alcohol and tobacco companies even have experience trying to convince the public not to use their products.
This marketing know-how could just as easily be used to rebrand our nation’s drug efforts.
Imagine – a Drug Free America, Delivered by UPS or how about Wal-Mart’s “Always Low Prices, Never High Associates.”
If corporate America joined the Government’s nameless anti-drug effort, we might see Taco Bell urging people to “Think Outside the Bong.” We may even see Verizon Wireless boasting that they have the nation’s biggest drug-free network. Can you “say no” now?
By enlisting America’s finest businesses to shape the public perception of America’s biggest problem, the Obama administration may be able to keep the next 40 years of drug policy from looking like the 40 years that preceded it.
Related posts:
How about:
“PROHIBITION – JUST SAY NO!”
“PROHIBITION – DIDN’T WORK THEN, DOESN’T WORK NOW.”
“PROHIBITION – NEVER WORKED, NEVER WILL.”
“PROHIBITION HAS BROUGHT NOTHING BUT TROUBLE.” – AL CAPONE
“AIN’T NOBODY’S BUSINESS IF YOU DO. – PETER McWILLIAMS
After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled making building prisons the fastest growing industry in the United States. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.9 million more guaranteeing those prisons will be bursting at their seams. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php