The Drug Trade

When a psychologist sees a repetitive pattern of behavior, one of the questions that should be asked is: "Is the behavior purposive? What does it actually accomplish?"

Many times the answer isn't an obvious one. A patient in a bad marriage who is "putting off" a divorce, may "accidentally" leave a opened condom packet in his truck where his wife can find it. When she does, the predictable happens, and the marriage comes to a hasty and messy end. Sometimes we refer to this as the "dynamite stick up the kazoo trick". The man professes shock and horror, and he is probably both shocked and horrified. But at the same time an important goal was attained and quickly at that. On some level the "accident" was purposive.

So with that prologue, we come to the drug trade. It is obvious that on the governmental level we want the drug trade to continue. As evidence, we protect the opium crop in Afghanistan. We could stop the importing of drugs in a variety of ways; the most obvious, of course, being to make recreational drugs legal and perhaps even free (or at least cheap). England has successfully accomplished this with heroin. We don't do those things. We are entitled to ask whether the behavior is purposive and what it accomplishes.

The most prominent feature is the flow of money out of the US and to some very poor countries. Historically, very poor countries have had very unstable governments, with an unruly populace prone to revolt. The flow of huge amounts of US dollars into those economies stabilizes them, raises their standard of living, and gives the poor something to lose. Here in the US the sale of drugs and their use functions as a political tranquilizer. Stoned people don't revolt and usually don't even vote.

Maybe it's simpler than that, and the motivation is just greed. Money travels a long way, and undoubtedly, as recent history has proven, some of it finds its way back into the pockets of the governing class. Whatever the real reason, we could stop it and we don't. We should keep asking why.