I was reading Mike Archer’s comments in Abbotsford Today about how the old media (newspapers, television news) needs to learn “how to simply tell it straight” on important issues such as drug legalization which lead to the following commentary by me:

I wrote and submitted several letters/commentaries during our recent blitz of hand wringing and “the sky is falling” reporting that took place during the weeks when gang warfare filled the pages or airtime in the best “if it bleeds it leads” traditional media practices.

I pointed out that if you want to “lock ‘em up” you need a place to incarcerate them which we lack as our prison system is currently full and overflowing. Thus in order to carry out a program of long prison sentences would require an investment of billions of dollars in new prisons and more millions of dollars on a yearly basis to operate the prisons.

It was pointed out that arresting all the drug dealers in BC would have only a transitory effect since within a matter of days new people would have stepped in to reap the lucrative rewards that our policy choices have pumped into the illegal drug trade.

An exploration was made about the manner in which our greed based society, with its economic and cultural inequities, lack of options/opportunities and emphasis on greed, self-centeredness and ME, ensures a steady and ready supply of people willing to be employed in the illegal drug trade with its high material rewards.

Economic analysis revealed that what are termed “successes” by law enforcement pump more money into the illegal drug business providing the illegal business with more funds to spend to import/export/distribute the product (drugs) and increase the economic rewards to those employed in the illegal drug business.

Economic analysis also revealed how important the illegal drug business is in cushioning the effects of the worldwide economic meltdown on the BC economy and the other positive effects on the BC economy of having a major billion dollar agricultural export crop that is recession proof. Even in good times the large cash flow created by the illegal drug business is a major positive factor in the BC economy; whether from the illegal drug business or from the law enforcement employment resulting from keeping these drugs illegal.

The fact that calling it a “drug war” was inaccurate and misleading was examined since the war is not on drugs but on the addicts who use drugs. The victims of illegal drugs are further victimized by the war being waged against them by society and its agencies.

Supply/demand capitalist theory makes clear that the only way to successfully reduce the illegal drug trade is to reduce demand, to stop waging war on the addicts and instead render to them the aid they need to get into recovery and out of addiction. That our policy must focus on putting in place the infrastructure and supports to successfully get addicts into recovery and wellness.

The falseness of the argument that legalizing drugs would lead to increased drug use was revealed by the fact that anyone anywhere can find the illegal drug of their choice. Thus those who would turn to drugs have, leaving no flood of new addiction to occur since those who would be addicts are already addicts.

The insanity of continuing to do the same thing over and over decade after decade was noted.

All this leads to the conclusion that we need a major change in policy to legalize drugs in the same manner prohibition was repealed. Especially in light of the reality that alcohol is the most abused drug, abused more than all illegal drugs combined.

With the economic reality Canada and the world faces we as a society cannot continue to waste resources on ineffectual policies. We no longer can afford the luxury of pursuing a costly and failing policy simply because we are emotionally and ideologically attached to the policy.

We need to have a rational national discussion on legalization.

Yet the traditional media did not print even one letter that questions the intelligence of our current policy.

In their arguments that there should be an internet tax with the monies raised going to support newspapers, newspapers and staff cited newspapers being “important to our democracy”.

How can newspapers and other traditional media claim to be important to democracy when they refuse to examine the reality of the issue of our policies on illegal drugs?

Obviously they can’t.

Which is why you are correct when stating “If it is to survive at all, the old media has to learn, once again, how to simply tell it straight.”

Not to mention being willing to address issues of national importance even if such an examination is not considered “politically correct.”

Mike Archer’s comments:

A story broke in the Vancouver Sun April 15, that read more the like the screenplay to a Burt Reynolds movie about rum-running in the 1920’s than it did a major drug bust in 2009.

The story was about an Abbotsford man who was caught transporting 150 kilos of pot across the border. Every newspaper story I read on the subject called him a farm boy and ran with photos of what looked like three good ‘ole boys who had made a bad business decision.

The Vancouver Sun editors even went so far as to include s sub-head over the story that said: “Jansen basically a ‘law-abiding’ citizen, lawyer says.”

The connections between this story and the stories about gang violence and death, about which we’ve been so concerned, don’t much enter into the whole impression a reader might get from the packaging. If these were good kids who made a bad mistake then I guess the much-demonized Bacon Brothers are just good kids who made worse mistakes.

They’ve both been playing the same game. Why are the two stories treated so differently?

How does ‘basically law-abiding’ go together with ‘trucking 158 kilos of pot across the border’?

These are either drug dealers or folk heros. Let’s make up our minds.

We’re staring a depression in the face as bad as The Great Depression and we can’t seem to get our stories straight about the world we live in. Everyone acknowledges that prohibition didn’t work; in fact it created crime and violence. Our modern version of prohibition isn’t faring any better, nor do we seem to remember how they worked it out nearly a century ago when they faced the same situation.

If ever there was a time for straight talk it is now. The old media has forgotten how to do that. The media (including the new media) is always playing to its perceived audience. Right now the traditional media is wandering blind in a dark cave where none of its tools will shed any light on the situation or tell it where its audience has gone.

Self-censorship is a cardinal sin for a journalist and yet we have reached a point where the old media seems more like packaged information looking for an audience, prepared to be repackaged in an instant depending on the audience.

But consumers of information have become more savvy and more impatient. Today, content matters more than the packaging and an industry that has concentrated on nothing else for decades can’t remember how to do it. The new media has yet to find its place but it will be on the right track if it dares to tell the truth. Abbotsford Today’s Vince Dimanno said as much in his column The Truth Politicians know the media game better than those in the media and are very successful at manipulating it to serve their own ends. If it is to survive at all, the old media has to learn, once again, how to simply tell it straight.

For those who don’t remember how it all got worked out a century ago; the guys who made bad decisions became folk heros, the guys who made worse decisions went to jail or got killed and, oh yeah, they ended prohibition and legalized booze because the ‘war on booze’ just didn’t work.