OF HOT DOGS AND HEROIN
Lenny Palmer
10/14/07


OF HOT DOGS AND HEROIN

One of the arguments I have tired of hearing is that “if we just clear our prisons of low-level drug offenders, we can deal with the real criminals out there.”

Let’s get one thing straight before we go any farther: there is no such thing as a “low-level drug offender.” Certain drugs are illegal, and if a person uses those drugs he or she is breaking the law. Not only that, but they are providing a valuable market place for the low-life scum that sell drugs. I believe EVERY drug user, “low-level” or not, should be jailed. Remove the user, and the market place dries up; therefore you remove the dealer.

Let’s put it in more simple terms: I live in the Chicago area, and everyone knows and loves a real Chicago style hot dog; served on a steamed poppy seed bun, with onions, bright green relish, tomatoes, celery salt, a pickle, sport peppers, and never any ketchup. They are a fabulously delicious treat desired by nearly everybody, so the City of Big Shoulders is littered with hundreds of hot dog stands. People want the dogs, and the market place provides them with the outlets. Now, let’s imagine the hot dogs are heroin, or crack cocaine, or methamphetamines, or any of the other dangerous illegal narcotics that poison our society. Millions of Americans who are too weak to deny the drugs are clamoring to purchase them, and like the hot dog vendors, the marketplace provides. Our cities, townships, villages and rural areas are infected with hundreds of thousands of street vendors capitalizing on the weak tits who cannot deny the drugs. The consumer is out there, and the seller provides. It’s that simple. Therefore if you remove the consumer, the marketplace dries up; that is the beauty and stark brutality of capitalism.

I realize that there are legions of excuse-makers out there who will read this simple argument and get up on their hind legs and wail that it is a cruel and heartless approach to our greatest American problem. We should treat the user with compassion, understanding, support groups, and state and federal funds. Bull! Did your mother, father, sister, brother, husband or wife treat YOU with love and compassion when they picked up a heroin needle or crack pipe and destroyed not only their life, but yours as well? They are selfish, uncaring individuals who have traded in their souls for the pursuit of drugs, deserving of no more compassion than a rapist, murderer or pedophile.

Hard words, I know, but hard words ring true. But let’s look at it from another angle:


OF HAMMERS AND HEROIN

Place a hammer on a table. Stand two adults in front of the table. One picks up the hammer and builds a house. The second picks it up and buries it into an innocent person’s skull. Whose fault is it that the second individual has murdered using a benign object? Is it your fault? The hammer’s fault? Society’s fault?

The obvious answer would be the man who picks up the hammer and uses it as an engine of murderous design, but our “compassionate” society doesn’t want to admit that, so they create a variety of convenient excuses to let the murderer off the hook, exacerbating the problem. Instead of blaming the man, they blame the hammer.

The simple truth is that drugs don’t seduce people, people seduce drugs; which is why one man passes by the crack pipe while another man fires it up. The crack pipe is a benign object; it has no dark design on the human soul, no ultimate plan for personal destruction. It just IS, and therefore cannot be blamed for any criminal intent. The responsible, and therefore, criminal, party is the human being who cannot resist the lure of the drug. He, not the drug, should be the object of our punishments.


SO WHAT’S IT GONNA BE?

I’ve laid out the argument for you in stark and simple terms: if you want to end the drug crisis in this country you must get tough with the user, and stop making lame excuses for bad behavior. If you’re not willing to do that then you must remove the crime, and legalize all, not some, of the illegal drugs. If an individual wants to kill themselves with heroin or crack cocaine, give them the opportunity to do so, and tax the drugs along the way. When we rid ourselves of Prohibition, it removed a major cash cow from organized crime. Maybe of we did the same with drugs we could achieve the same result. Would you be willing to see crack, heroin, crystal meth, et al, legalized?

These are the only two solutions to the problem. You must remember that when it comes to drugs and criminal drugs users Christian charity belongs in church and not on the streets; and those who have seduced the drug are not deserving of your love and understanding. If you can reconcile yourself to the crystalline purity of this truth then, and only then will you be able to make the correct decision.

So what is it gonna be?



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Lenny Palmer can be heard on WLIP 1050AM, Mon-Fri: 8-11am
and WKRS 1220AM, Mon-Fri: 3-6pm


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