It is exciting to read what the superpowers get up to in our GCC neighbourhood. Billion-dollar military warships are cruising the Arabian Gulf and Arabian Sea. However, from time to time, to justify their presence there is a drug haul at sea, ‘$780,000 hashish haul in raid at sea’, (GDN, January 11) along with ‘US Fifth Fleet vigilant after near-collision’, with our Russian brothers.
I have been reading about the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz since 1972, I even went to boarding school in Switzerland in 1973 in the event our school, Bahrain DoD (US department of defence) School, was to be closed; the school didn’t close, and the Strait of Hormuz remained open as it has been for thousands of years, to my knowledge, the strait has never, ever been closed. So why all these military ships?
Why are all these drugs simply not legalised? Is it because there are vested interests that wish the status quo to remain, is there so much money at stake, does the US military benefit from the public (tax cows)?
Legalising drugs, selling them, with tax, and an honest explanation what these drugs will do to you, will ultimately scare away the vast majority of people. There will always be drug addicts, as there are alcoholics and cigarette addicts. However, as we can learn from the American prohibition fiasco, 1920 to 1933, crime and alcohol abuse increased dramatically with the prohibition on alcohol; remove prohibition and all is OK. The same would happen with all drugs; remove the stigma, legalise it, with a detailed and honest explanation of what will happen to you if you take these drugs, this will make these drugs superfluous, less desirable.
Have faith, people have a self-preservation instinct, they do not want to harm themselves (only the military machinery does that).
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