Relatives of victims of this insensate "war on drugs" will light candles. Together will be relatives of police officials that died and relatives of adolescents, men, womyn and families that were caught in this un-declared civil war. Many of them agree today that neither side was the enemy but that both were trap in the struggle of governments to govern people. To rule and control was a must in order to distract from the issues that had erode the quality of live in Puerto Rico.
Many theories have sprung regarding why did it all happen? How can we ensure it does not happen again. Most agree that the war on drugs was mainly a war on the poor, of sectors that traditionally had been economically neglected.
Other theorists point to the fact that the sole use of the phrase "war on drugs" was consistent with the militarization of our Society. Words like "operation", "surveillance", "target", and "penetration", were commonly used. War slang was part of our everyday vocabulary.
Others point to the fact that the Pentagon had to justify its ludicrous budget. Their budget was threatened by the end of the cold war. Struggling for survival the Pentagon claimed jurisdiction on the drug issue and promised to aid the police. The timing was good, by then the police department had become a paramilitary organization. Therewith The Pentagon managed to justify their budget and expanded the war mentality that already permeated the drug issue.
Since early in the 1980's critic criminologists had warn about the dangers and social costs of the War on Drugs. Some of these critics went as far early as to establish indeed the criminalization of poverty as one of the evident aims of industrialization.
Historically we can look back and ponder on why the activity of money laundering never had a war declared on itself. A critic eye may also consider why were only drugs produced in the third world criminalized while drugs produced by pharmaceuticals with more and worse side effects were medicalized and therefore legalized.
Tomorrow at the memorial, mothers will give testimony of sons and daughters that were handcuffed and displayed in front cameras for the big circus that some newscasts became. People that for a joint or two lost their jobs, their careers, their chance of ever getting a decent job or grant to study because the stupid and hypocrite "moral war on drugs". Some of the most poignant testimonies are those of relatives and lovers of people that after short stays in the infamous Puerto Rican jails, committed suicide. In the name of "rehabilitation" we were forbid to look for problems outside of the individual.
Many questions still remain unanswered. Why did we choose to look the other way while we saw more and more dark people in our prisons? Why were they younger and younger? Why were the sentences for drugs used by the poor (crack) longer and then lighter sentences for the drugs of the affluent(cocaine). Why were addicts to drugs manufactured in the third world treated different and with a lot less compassion that addicts to "legal" depressants, anti-depressants, hallucinogens, or what ever haves you. You name it they've done it and sold it to us. What happened to the group of scientists that in 1982 denounced that 155 North American transnationals exported to the third world 550 types of drugs and/or medications with side effects so severe they weren't allowed to be sold in the United States? Talk about a threat to others' national security. Why did an adolescent would spend more time in jail for possession of 20 or 30 dollars worth of pot than all the corrupt legislators caught in the story of the Puerto Rican legislature together? Why was Mano Dura, so well received by some people?
There is now a call for the dismantling of all those nefarious neighborhood watch groups. A call for all those private police services to disassemble their paramilitar theatre of operations. When did we stop watching government and started watching ourselves? When did we became eager to be little brothers to Big Brother?
The gaze that fixed, classified and disciplined, became the weapon, the homogenizing gaze, enforcing hegemonic codes, phallic codes, codes of the asphyxiating "normal", codes of economy and color, codes of mandatory heterosexuality. The gazed that penetrated looking for the Other in us, blinded us from seeking an ethic solution to gubernability problems.
The policing of our social life was nothing but the enforcing of the order of the powerful and the protection of their profits and assets. Public policy was nothing else than the regulating and control of "non-productive" social life. "Producing" for whom?
The absurd fear of drugs, spreaded like a virus. Illegal drugs were demonized in preposterous ways. Private foundations, private companies and even some so called community based organizations greedy and eager to prove they were worthy of money grants, got together demanding drug testing in the workplace. Drug testing in the schools, drug testing everywhere. The courts in most cases were a part of this egregious violation of intimacy. In the obvious struggle for control of the lives of workers far beyond the paid hours, suspicion prevailed over common sense.
Finally WE SAID NO to economic, cultural and political subordination. We decided to change the gaze from ourselves back to the processes of being governed. We stopped locking up, re-forming, and silencing. We concluded that our criminology was indeed a crime. Criminology had replaced the inquisition.
After a year of the medicalization and decriminalization of "illegal" drugs it is still painful to look back and grasp the social costs of the "war on drugs". We must commit to change our culture from one of forgetting to one that does not forget.
Finally, there is a rumor that tomorrow the government will issue a statement asking for the forgiveness and understanding of its citizens regarding past "mistakes" in the approach to the drug problem. This writer must riposte to that: TOO FUCKING LATE.
POR: Georgie Irizarry - yoryie@ibm.net