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The Drug Fashion Police
by Louis Andres
I’ve lived in Rotterdam for half a year and thus far avoided overdosing on marijuana. I wasn’t sure if I could do it at first. After all, elementary school and American law enforcement have long warned me about its dangers, and here I am in a country where it’s legal. Indeed, I’ve repeatedly awoken covered in vomit and spirits, but I’ve never OD’d on pot. I’m not so sure about the other Americans here, though; they’re loud and unaccustomed to liberal acceptance and indifference. What’s worse, they commit unforgivable fashion faux pas with horrifying consistency. The weed leaves sewn into the hemp hats or pressed on their “Team Smoke” t-shirts can identify the Americans and Canadians here. Seeking out “cultural exchanges,” they spend most nights blindly wandering Concordia and Schiedam Centrum looking for others to share war stories and celebrate the legal and very mediocre drug. This communion typically consists of five or six Americans, two Canadians and one Russian or some other ambiguously Eastern Europeaner in a black leather coat. Conspicuously missing in this debauchery are people of tact, haute couture and Dutchmen, the hosts of this bastion of legalization. The truth of the matter is that I live in a “liberal” country. But in qualifying as such, there’s still a shit load of Polo wearing yuppies.
Beyond the conservative fashion of the locals, The Netherlands further mirrors the States in that politicians deny ever having tried weed, not because it’s illegal, but because it’s something reserved for the lower classes; like spending your Saturday nights at the cockfights across the border. The vast majority of the population prefers good old booze. After all, Heineken, Grolsch, Amstel, Dommelsch and Oranjeboom are all proud Dutch creations. That’s why my quest for cultural exchange is spent passing drunken hours speaking with the Dutch or Germans or hitting on ambiguously Scandinavian girls, who I woo by claiming to be close friends with Peter Forsberg. Meanwhile, my baked compatriots sit stunned in the corner, staring at chairs and begging the bartenders for more peanuts. I try to avoid them, but my American-ness will forever shamefully tether me to the archetypal conversation about how the legalization of weed is the mark of a truly advanced culture, and how “The Man” fucked us good.
Sadly, I’ve come to realize these simpletons may have a point. A cross-country survey showed higher rates of use amongst Americans than Dutchmen. Everywhere drugs are legal, there is no significant rise in the level of use amongst the population, and that even goes for dilettante American flakes passing the semester here. Teenagers here try pot, and some get into it and don a Rasta hat while machinations of epidural denigration run through their squalid little heads. But the vast majority get bored and give it up, just like the good old US of A. While it’s good to know that we’re not the only country in the world with this type of shameful youth, it begs the question: why does our government spend billions of dollars a year to thwart their “Rasta jives” and fail miserably?
America’s refusal to legalize pot has wasted money and created a counter-culture existing solely to “stick it to the man,” culture of deadbeats who’ve obsessed themselves with a drug, which, if legalized, would be about as exotic and exciting as a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. It’s embarrassing, and worse, it makes us look like lightweights compared to other parts of the world.
In South America, smoking pot is for small fries, something mericons, and longos do when they can’t cut it with the whisky, or when they’re too broke to afford something better. When I was in Chile my roommate came home with an eight ball his boss had given him as a bonus for working some overtime. It was strange; he wasn’t that excited or paranoid about having the fistful of powder. I ran and locked the door, while he put on his pajamas, then sat snorting and watching M*A*S*H with us. I had always learned that cocaine was a morally reprehensible drug, devoid of any purpose in this world. And that people who do it have AIDS-related heart attacks and/or mental breakdowns. However, after M*A*S*H, he lazed off a bit, and then went to bed, as opposed to hosting an orgy or shooting someone. His behavior was only odd, in that, cocaine is, like pot in the Netherlands, viewed as something shameful and reserved for lower classes–he made sure to repeatedly remind us that he was quite wealthy. Those who aren’t wealthy, the natives of Bolivia, have used coca leaves for five thousand years. It cures cold and hunger pangs and provides many Bolivians with some of the few vitamins and minerals in their diets.
This again puts America in an interesting predicament; the government and educational system have been caught in a lie, a very expensive lie. Marijuana and cocaine are not evil concoctions from the devil but rather mundane natural herbs that have co-existed in societies without detrimental effects. Cocaine only became addictive after European scientists figured out how to concentrate it into a powder, which is still abused regardless of its legal status. The idea that Americans are paying billions of dollars to wankers at the ATF, FBI and various local authorities to essentially do nothing, isn’t exactly accurate. America’s war on drugs has successfully created violent, overcrowded prisons and drug cartels that make the Italian mafia seem like a lemonade stand. Colombian drug cartels are given power and money only by virtue of the world government’s refusal to regulate the market. The fact that drugs are illegal only pushes up the price of drugs, earning drug cartels more profit, while filling American prisons with otherwise honest citizenry.
A certain segment of any society will run a risk for addiction whether it is pornography, junk food, alcohol, prescription drugs or illicit drugs. But there are positive aspects to these people of addictive personalities–they devote every last penny to their addictions. If America were to legalize certain drugs and impose heavy addiction taxes, which would pay for advertising, education and rehabilitation, we could save ourselves the nonsense of the galaxy of industries leeching off the completely ineffectual laws. More importantly, we could rid our schools of the contamination of moustachioed men, cockily standing with thumbs in their belts, expressing the dangers of reefers and the importance of their jobs, to a school of naïve seven year olds, or savoring masturbatory power trips and threatening to imprison or expel high schoolers for smoking pot. After all, couldn’t a drug task force better serve society by retooling itself to educate children about the inherent faux pas of roaming Europe in dreads and colorful drug-related t-shirts, while begging the locals to hang out and smoke up?
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Volume 2, Issue 3 contents |
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