Once again he sees a legitimate problem and misdiagnoses the cause and solutions. We do in fact have way too many people locked up at great expense to society. The cause is overwhelmingly our foolish “war on drugs.” The solution is decriminalization of what is essentially private consensual behavior and treating drug addiction as a health issue instead of an offense under the criminal code.
Obama, being a statist who would probably like to expand our prohibitionist regime to include tobacco products, is incapable of grasping this.
When alcohol Prohibition came, this was a sad time for the churches who forgot what their own bibles were trying to teach them. Too easily damning the occasion of temptation tends to remove responsibility for dealing with temptation in the first place.
That said, a blanket medicalization of all street drugs might fail to find favor because of other oxen that would be gored, such as a rise in traffic and industrial accidents. I would prefer such a policy in the abstract. Doing it in the concrete may be harder.
addiction has a spiritual root, that manifests through repeated choices as a health issue.
Just as many other “health issues” won’t be cured or managed well without handling the spiritual root which is what we each make our individual choices from, our beliefs.
as you said “Once again he sees a legitimate problem and misdiagnoses the cause and solutions. “
another thought for consideration too: “private consensual behaviors” of many kinds, have public consequences in families and larger society.
again it comes back to beliefs (in higher power? all about self? etc etc) and what each person chooses to do with their beliefs which becomes how it effects those around them (family and larger society)
the cause of almost all issues is spiritual beliefs (there truly is good and evil in this world and we get to choose what we are influenced by)
the solution is for people (children to be taught) to have personal responsibility in their choice of what they believe and how they act those beliefs out, and own it when they mess up - make amends best as possible.
every “private” choice effects someone else, everything in this world effects some thing else since we are all always communicating with each other and the world around us whether we realize it or not.
The cause is young, feral, black males who refuse to obey the law. Before the war on drugs crime was already rampant in most cities with large black populations. People with no job will have to get money somewhere to buy what they want. Whether drugs are legal or illegal, the criminal element is going to rob people and businesses to get their money.
Like the recent case of the thug in Florida who got himself shot for burglarizing a home. His sister said "how else he goin' to get his money for clothes?"