October 14, 2012Dear Sir,When I was young, the first trumpet of the War on Drugs was sounded. It seemed then like dumb idea, but others with hopeful cries and hearts aglow, threw themselves into the fight. I am now old and its still a dumb idea. The enemy has been winning since the war began. In fact, in this war, the longer it goes on, the richer the enemy gets. The drug dealers do not want it to end because then the market size, by dollar value, will plummet. Legalisation, for them, is very bad. The war is good. Fortunately for them, their opponents, the police, the government etc, have convinced themselves that they can win and should win, because this is the only way drugs can be handled in a modern society by denying the human desire to alter its consciousness. I hate paying taxes for this laughable nonsense. Government is driven by false piety to make human vultures rich. But the general public is content and joyfully pays taxes to thrown away on useless effort. Perhaps Bermudians think they are very rich. They are not. But it’s a democracy; so be it.I do have a suggestion however. In study after study a real harmful effect of marijuana has been difficult to detect. A researcher working for the UK government found that having a habit of riding horses was more dangerous to your health than ecstasy. (He was of course fired for heresy when he refused to recant.) The War on Drugs is pointless, losing and wildly productive of misery, and human abasement. It is racially and socially devisive and makes a criminal of every kid who blew dope in school. (Did you, Oh Reader, ever inhale? If so; I accuse you: Criminal!) Governments in most countries love the war so much they won't give it up. Why don't we give it up. Here’s why:Bermuda used to be good at innovating. We innovated tourism and a fantastic amalgam of economic devices which have made all of us richer (though most of us have no idea how.) We have discovered since then that:a) other people copy us so our market dominance is ephemeral and not eternal; andb) since we object to educating our children properly in public schools we are unlikely to keep up with the rest of world we are unlikely to have the talent to come up with new innovations. We are on the level of the USA and they are behind everyone. Nowadays we just copy other people and being so small that doesn’t work really. The next “innovation” people like to talk about is gambling ... (cough) We’ll see.No we need an innovation that will take the world by surprise. We need to legalise drugs that aren’t really any worse than alcohol or cigarettes. Pot ... there are a few others. That will fill the cruise ships and hotels. Imagine, you may if you wish, sir, smoke some fine Bermudian weed (approved by the Bermuda Department of Agriculture think what it would do for farmers ) right on that gorgeous pink beach. Yes the blue and pink together is quite intense. Just wait for the sunset. Yeah. Wow.The rest of world would take ten to 15 years to catch up. By then, perhaps we would have come to our senses and privatised the public schools with vouchers for the needy. We need a stop-gap while we get off our fat Bermudian behinds and start getting the only Bermudian resource (people ) prepared for the new world. When the world catches up, we’ll have the work force capable of coming up with the next innovation.As another innovator, Peter Tosh sang: “Legalize it.”JOHN ZUILLPembroke