Puzzling about drugs and business

Meandering through the day's news this evening, I ran across an article that in retrospect seems like old news, over and over again. But this time something impressed me differently. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/10/thirteen-killed-in-execution-style-raid-on-tijuana-drug-rehab-center.html where it says "... A total of 28,228 people have died in Mexico in drug-related war deaths, and Mexican President Felipe Calderon has ordered about 45,000 troops to 18 states where drug trafficking organizations are battling for access to the U.S. market...." The "US market" is paying for this? Paying enough to power such horribly lethal battles in Mexico? Really? The "US market" has bought the deaths of 28,228 people in Mexico?

Well I have learned that calling something insane or nutty does not solve much. Even calling something irrational. Somewhere something re this has to make sense.

Apparently I am missing something about "drugs." The word has so many meanings, from the local "drugstore" to the mammoth pharmaceutical manufacturer's products to the stuff dispensed by pharmacies per doctors prescriptions, to ... "substance abuse drugs." In the context of the article I assume that it is the "substance abuse" category that is involved. More exactly drugs that are provided outside the normal medical business chain and tend to be materials grown by natural plants, that cause an altered state of mind.

Now, there are lots of ways to achieve an "altered state of mind." Go to a movie. Listen to a stirring musical composition being played well. Listen to binaural beat audio tracks. Take a doctor's prescribed sedative or tranquilizer pill. Meditate deeply. Attend an opera. Smoke a cigar. Down a significant amount of ethanol beverage. Make love.

There must be something quite different about these "drugs" that the "US market" is sending money to Mexico for, that is worth killing over 28,000 people to provide, however. What is it? Get addicted to something then have to pay the bucks to get relief from the addition cravings?

I'm addicted to pizza and yet I have to avoid it most of the time due to a wheat gluten intolerance. So I understand the "addicted" thing a bit. But this still seems it must be a completely different thing those 28,000-deaths-bought "drugs" provide. If it was just the relief from cravings involved, most people would get fed up with it and just kick it. Who needs another nuisance?

So there must be more to it. A really lot more.

And enough more to have some lawmakers in the past pass severe laws against the use of the subject "drugs." And that "enough more" is what I am puzzling over right now. Something is not being told up front by the powers that be.

I'm also familiar with the old saying that there are two things one does not want to know how it is made: sausage, and laws. And once on the books a law tends to stay there, especially if its enforcement provides fine jobs for enforcers. MonoSodium Glutamate, MSG, is not listed among these addictive drugs, and MSG clearly is addictive and harming the population neurologically and via obesity-caused injuries like diabetes, but there are no enforcers removing that substance from the grocery shelves; thus it is not related to harming the population. Must be something else.

So I refer to what I have learned in my 74 years so far, that might be relevant. I have been taught about "drugs" in hotline training, and by subsequent years of serving on a crisis hotline. I have personally known impoverished people who grew marijuana in their backyard so as to keep their glaucoma from making them completely blind. Decades ago I knew several people who routinely smoked the stuff; none of them hurt anybody or themselves as a result, as far as I could tell. In fact it seemed to mellow them out.

Yet, per the subject news article, 28,000 people have gotten killed to provide it. There is a non sequitor involved here. Got to be. The article says we Americans are paying for that mayhem, to provide us the "drugs." There just has to be a lot more involved, and apparently it is not being told.

Recalling more re "drugs:" I recall reading in a credible place that using a drug called "hashish" enables street vendors in foreign countries to determine shopper's intentions and thus provide data for haggling for a higher price for the merchandise. How does that stuff work? Clearly something is involved that was not taught in the conventional schools I grew up in. The stuff apparently enables the user to have a cognitive or perceptual skill that us non-users don't have, that provides the users with an advantage in business transactions. And maybe other things.

And I have experienced what seemed impossible, that a few folks who were said to be "drug users," to be aware of what I was experiencing, totally out of their sight. And clearly not by spy camera, either; was too detailed, for one thing. Many instances. Again, apparently whatever they were "using" was providing a skill that I don't have. And many others don't have either, at least assuming what is taught in school covers everything in life.

Thus this is beginning to point to substances that provide a competitive edge in human affairs. Why would harsh laws be passed to prevent that? If everybody has the same advantage, it would be fair. And if some are certain to have the advantage, then the solution is to enable all to have it too, to level the playing field.

But the game of life often is not fair. Rulemakers often strive to set the rules so they have an unfair edge in the game. Probably part of that is about those who crave to control others. The above-mentioned skills that seem to be provided by use of specific "drugs" would provide snoops and control-freaks a winner's edge in the game of life; but if some of those they are stalking also have access to those substances, they might not be assured of always winning, and that might be frustrating or even scary. Thus laws to attempt to prevent others from access.

Is this worth the "US market" being so enormous that it causes 28,000 deaths in our neighbor Mexico? Apparently so, since it happened.

To fix this, it seems that there has got to be a lot more transparency in the whole subject. Accurate and complete, no holding back. Enough so that everybody knows what is really involved. And that might embarrass some powerful folks, so it is not likely to happen. So the prediction pointed out by this might be that the "US market" remains stuck in the muck, with occasionally lots of exciting hoopla re the chasing of the "drug providers" so as to provide news reading drama to spice up the lives of the hordes of drudgery workers. What was it the Romans provided, "bread and circus," to entertain and calm the hordes of subject peoples? And the status quo, business-as-usual, remains, and life is good, for those in the know... and maybe with unspoken access to something we won't tell, those advantage-giving substances for some winners in business and other life games.

And this blog post is another one that is likely to get another black checkmark put next to my name. But it clearly is a subject that is in dire need of some fresh air. America is supposed to be able to deal with that. Clean up the act, take a shower, get on with life, now a bit better overall, more real.