[The following, written by Synthesis weekly columnist Julia Murphy, appeared in the Synthesis Weekly on Monday, June 2nd, 2008. Julia can be reached at ninjatreehugger@gmail.com.]

Addiction, The Economy, And Environmentalism, Part II
www.bloodforoil.org
From the Secretary General of the United Nations on World Environment Day of this year:
“Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions. Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit.”
How does this “addiction” manifest in our population?
MORE. Damn the hindermost. Feels good. And I feel so bad without it.
In the ubiquitous 12-Step paradigm, “We admitted we were powerless over (oil, consumption in general, crack rocks) and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Who’s the “we” here? Is it “We the People?” Is it the American Government? Is it the economy? Are the last two the same thing?
One perspective on the dynamic between the government/economy and the specter of drugs can be found at http://www.hermes-press.com/prisons_drugs.htm, which draws connections between a for-profit prison system and the economic incentive for burning (junkies) on both ends. The net result is an economy that realizes profit off the drug trade and then profit off the prisons where the junkies end up.
“A revealing feature of the South American “war on terrorism” is that, unlike the Taliban and al Qaeda, the Bush administration is not destroying the numerous South American drug terrorists. Why? Because the Bush administration and its plutocratic controllers are at the center of the $1.5 trillion per year in U.S. cash transactions that result from the international drug trade. The drug war is a front for pro-multinational military strikes against indigenous peoples.”

more after the jump

The essay is an interesting one (taken with a grain of salt).
And this from Dr. Patrick Dixon:
“Drug trafficking is now $400 billion a year, or 8 percent of all international trade according to the United Nations. That is more than the entire global trade in iron, steel and cars, or equal to all world trade in textiles…At any time around $5bn is sloshing around the international monetary system as dirty money, some of it filtering into legitimate business where “innocent” executives and shareholders also land up making their own profits…more than half of the world’s offshore money transits are drug-related. Around $1.5 trillion of external assets are invested offshore (1993 figures) representing around 30 percent of the entire wealth of all the funds invested in industrialised nations in normal bank accounts. Offshore investment funds have more than $1 trillion of assets under management.”
That’s 1993 figures. Where we at now?
Dixon claims that:
“Drug abuse is hitting productivity and profits. Market forces will provide the most powerful anti-drugs drive over the next twenty years… Companies and communities which root out addiction will win orders and jobs from those that take no action. The process has already begun. Market forces will bring changes no government could ever achieve.”
Yeah! Go Market Forces! The Invisible Hand will throw your dope down the toilet!

What does “rooting out addiction” mean? In this context, it means not allowing people who test positive to have a legitimate job. Where does that lead? Duh. I mean, don’t let ‘em fly planes, but it’s like a straight shot to that 20-cents-an-hour prison job; are you trackin’ me?
Thinking of it in terms of social science, the economy is the independent variable; addiction and the environment are the dependent variables. The independent variable produces a change in the dependent variables, which can be tested and predicted. So if the prevailing idea is that market forces will fix the drug problem — which in my opinion is wrong — then the idea that it will fix the environment is likely also wrong, being as the environment, unlike corporations, isn’t even protected by personhood.
The same idea that might fix the economy — or at least provide a solution for a pattern far more effective than any we’ve seen since the Industrial Revolution — might also be helpful in drug treatment. Christians have a mortal lock on rehabs in this town, which is fine. But the spiritual element of recovery might be strengthened and fostered by participating in large-scale restoration projects and other work that lets people make amends to the long-suffering earth; and in doing so, connects them to an understanding of growth and healing. That’s kind of like the 9th step (“Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others”) and it kind of clears the way for the rest of the steps.

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Tags: american government | american war | bush administration | cash transactions | dr patrick dixon | drug trafficking | drug war | economic incentive | grain of salt | junkies | military strikes | oil consumption | prison system | prisons | secretary general of the united nations | specter | terrible thing | war on terrorism | world environment day

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