Charles Bowden's "twelve-pack nation" and the health care bill

As of this writing, the fate of the health care bill remains undecided. After a year of passionate debate and seemingly endless fact-mangling on all sides (not to mention a few bitten fingers in last year's town hall debates), Congress is about to clear its throat and speak on an issue that has been as much a "third rail" of American politics as Social Security itself. No matter which position one assumes, the core issue is, of course, about money: who gets it, who deserves how much of it, and how much of it is going to be coming out of our wallets for the costs of our collective well-being.

No matter how the ideas are couched in rhetoric from the far-left to the far-right (those opposing views don't seem to merge anywhere, like a political Mobius strip) the clash of values is undeniably, uniquely American. One would assume those who consider ours a Christian nation (no ironic quotation marks) would be the first to suggest the health of all Americans to be a national aspiration, a charitable goal worthy of unanimous consent -- a Biblical view of charity extending from those who can afford the luxury of choice to those who cannot.

Not so much, it seems. The perceived "leveling" of health-care availability, couched in terms of "socialized medicine" and other less-flattering phrases by some, plays into so many unspoken issues in America of class and privilege that the right's "Kumbaya moment" with the left won't be happening over health care today, if ever. There is just too much money at stake, from the insurance-company CEO to the pharmaceutical manufacturer to the individual health-care payer, and too much political gain to be had by appealing to a political base. Compromise and "reaching across the aisle" is, apparently, a posture for the other guy to assume. Administration concessions on the proposed bill haven't gained a single Republican "yes" vote, and if the measure fails to pass, substantive health-care reform will go to the far back of the line and wait for another election cycle.

And all this, of course, is by way of dealing with our country's already legal drugs and existing medical and insurance structures. Imagine what it might take for agreement on what to do about the other side of the coin: that nebulous, confounding and never-ending "war on drugs" that saps the Treasury, derails any attempt at a solution, and continues to fill American prisons to overflow. The solution could be as simple as decriminalization, as complex as legalization -- there's the money issue again -- but it's too much of a miracle to think that the country might pay for a health-care plan in part with the taxation and regulation of its now-illicit drugs.

Reporter Charles Bowden has written about effects of continuing drug wars in Mexico (his latest book is Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields), and he sees inherent irony in America's approach to its own illegal drug trade. Interviewed March 16 on the Democracy Now website, Bowden puts it very succinctly: "we're a twelve-pack nation that won't let anybody smoke a joint." He makes the case that "there isn't a serious war on drugs. Rather, there is violence nourished by the money to be made from drugs," then goes on:

"We’re spending $30- to $40-billion a year on narcotics officers in this country. Every state in the union, if you get out of the house and drive, is now studded with little prisons, some private. They’re all dependent on the — on laws outlawing drugs. The income from drugs in Mexico exceeds all other sources of foreign currency, except possibly oil, and that’s debatable. In other words, if President Calderon succeeded in his claimed goal of eradicating the drug industry in Mexico, Mexico would collapse in a minute. That’s what I mean.

I mean, why don’t we face the fact that drugs are like alcohol? They’re part of our culture now. They’re not going away. If we want to make them illegal, we can continue to live the way we have: imprisoning our own people, creating a police state, having prisons everywhere. But no matter what we do, they’re going to be in the neighborhood, just as they are.

There was an interesting government study released a while ago that said 232 American cities now have the presence of Mexican drug organizations. Well, look, I’m a little older, possibly, than some of your listeners, but if you bought a joint in 1975, it wasn’t coming from Finland or some place. They’ve always been here. It’s a market. All we’ve got to decide is whether it’s legal or illegal. That’s it. It’s like gambling. It’s got a life of its own."

De-fusing an unwinnable war on drugs is too much to hope for at this point. First let's find at least 216 people this weekend willing to hold hands in the Capitol and sing "Kumbaya." Then all of us -- Republicans, Democrats, Independents -- can begin the real debate on the meaning of the words.