I was reading today about the the Columbian peasants place in the Cocaine industry in Duncan Green's "Faces of Latin America."

It discusses how, if it wasn't condemned by the American government, the coca plant would be an ideal export for an impoverished area. It is reliable, grows abundantly, and requires little maintenance. The chapter continued on to discuss the ineffective American war on drugs and it made an interesting comment about how if Cocaine was legalized, the Columbian peasants would suffer from Big Business intervention, and tariffs and taxes.

I am showing my Canadian bias here, but I just don't get the extent of the whole "war on drugs" thing going on in this country. Half of the job postings I see here state that they will check the criminal backgrounds of and drug test applicants/employees. It just seems Orwellian and invasive.

When I was working for the government, we would occasionally get phone calls from
US companies with Canadian branches who wanted to drug test their employees. I think it's invasive and characteristic of the police state America seems to be. Thankfully "Mandatory employee drug testing is illegal in Canada because it discriminates against drug-dependent candidates under human-rights laws because addiction is defined as a disability" (Find the article the quote is from here ). The focus in Canada seems to be treatment, rather than imprisonment. The article I quoted from discusses the new deal between construction employers and unions to drug test employees when there is a problem on-site. It is a dangerous precedent, although it may be overturned. However, the deal states that an employee will not be terminated, they just must get medical clearance and, if necessary, treatment.

Although I want to say, good luck with keeping construction workers! When I worked on the road crew, sometimes half my job was to keep the blowtorch away from the guys on heroin.

I remember once friends of mine were smoking up in an alleyway outside of a bar in Vancouver and they heard someone clear their throat behind them. They didn't turn around, so this guy cleared his throat, "A-hem!" a little more insistently. So, they turned around, and a police officer stood a few feet away. And he said, "guys, could you at least move down the block? This is a little embarrassing."

In contrast, if that had been in the US, especially since a couple of them were visible minorities, their lives could've been basically ruined. Due to recent changes in priorities in Washington State enforcement laws, that's not really the case anymore, but elsewhere it could be, especially due to mandatory sentencing laws. One of my favourite US laws is the one that says that students with criminal records can receive federal funding for school, save for any students with drug convictions.

It's not like I'm a huge drug advocate. I'm not, I don't think they're that great, and I think they can do more damage than good, I just don't see the point of ruining peoples' lives over something minor as drug use.