A Kid Asked Today, “Why Don’t They Make Cigarettes Illegal If They Kill So Many People?”

Posted by Tony Bylsma on July 23, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education | Be the First to Comment

I gave my usual answer, “They couldn’t make tobacco illegal if they wanted to. We don’t have enough police or a big enough army to enforce a law like that.” She and about thirty other faces kept looking at me; it was obvious, to them anyway, that wasn’t a satisfactory answer.

I said, “They tried to make alcohol illegal, back in the 1920s, and it didn’t work.”

“You mean ‘Prohibition.’” another student said.

“Right, for 13 years it was federally illegal to make or sell alcoholic drinks. But, do you think that stopped people from drinking?  All it really did was make more gangs, and the last thing we need is more gangs.”

Then, after I left the school and I was driving back to the office, I was thinking more about it.

Tobacco prohibition? We don’t need more laws about drugs. There are already so many laws on the books that you can’t possibly learn them all. We need lawyers who study them constantly, and even the lawyers have to specialize because there are just too many laws!

I keep expecting to get out of bed some morning and there will be a cop, writing a ticket because I broke some obscure ordinance, “Wrong foot sir.”

Laws against drugs haven’t rid us of drug abuse or addiction anyway, nor will they ever.  And forget about the “War Against Drugs”.  That makes a lot of sense. What should we do, line the drugs up against the wall and shoot them down?  “Kill the crack!!”

No, the only way out of the soup of drug abuse and the blight it visits on humanity is through drug awareness, and with fully educated and aware citizens.

Drug pushers won’t be able to hook a kid who is fully aware of the damages and dangers of the product he is selling. He’ll have to slither off to find some new slimy occupation.

We won’t win with restrictions, only with citizens who are more aware .

TheRoadOut