"Drugs are bad!"

"Drugs are evil!"

"Drugs are a scourge that must be stopped!"

"We must protect our youth at all costs from drugs!"

These mantras have been recited endlessly throughout the drug war. Even before Richard Nixon declared war on drugs, it has been the policy of the American government and many others to paint drugs as the source of so many evils. It has helped justify decades of a failed policy that has ruined countless lives, wasted billions of taxpayer dollars, and usurped the liberties granted by the constitution. By any measure the drug war has failed. It hasn't stopped drug use and it hasn't helped drug addicts. Yet every time the issue comes up the policymakers in Congress, law enforcement, and the DEA offer the same solution. They just need more money to combat the problem. But is that the only solution? Is there a better way?

As it turns out, there is. In 2001 the government of Portugal took a bold new approach to combating drugs. It decriminalized the use and possession of illicit drugs. This includes hard drugs like cocain, heroin, marijuana, and LSD. This means that people can no longer be put in jail just for using drugs or having up to a 10-day supplies. They can only be jailed for selling and distributing drugs. This effectively redirects law enforcement from seeking out users towards seeking out the suppliers, which are often the violent gangs and drug cartels. It is a complete reversal of the hardline stance the DEA has taken over the years. What they refuse to admit, however, is that this approach works.

Five years after the new laws were enacted, the number of deaths from drug overdoses dropped from 400 to 290 annually. The number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles dropped from 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006. This is all according to a study done by the Cato Institute. It effectively blows apart the argument made by anti-drug crusaders that claim deciminalization or legalization would increase the amount of drug users and drug-related health problems. Instead, Portugal has found a much more humane approach by treating users and addicts as victims of a health problem. Instead of throwing them in jail, those who break the law are brought before what is known as a "Dissuasion Commission" that consists of three people (a lawyer, a doctor, and a social service worker). These people have the option of recommending treatment, fining the user, or not giving them any sanction at all. Essentially, if a person wants to get treatment they can without fear of being thrown in jail. Or if they want to keep messing their lives up, they can do that as well. It's their body and it's their choice.

Overall, the law succeeded. It helped reduce the amount of drug-related incidents and offered help to those who were struggling with their addiction. Even Walter Kemp, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, admits that decriminalizatoin in Portugal "appears to be working." It also disproved another fear by anti-drug zealots. Portugal did not become a drug mecca. It is still a functioning country with a functioning society. It just isn't throwing people in jail for ingesting substances some people call 'evil.'

The effectiveness of this policy have been covered by many credible sources including Scientific America, the Economist, and Time Magazine.

5 Years After: Portugal's Drug Laws Show Progress

Portugal's Drug Policy: Did Decriminalization Work?

Portugal's Drug Policy: Treating not Jailing

Yet has anybody in Congress or the DEA come forth to acknowledge this? Of course not. To them admitting that Portugal's policy worked would mean admitting that their policy isn't working. Nobody in any government agency will ever say that what they're doing isn't working. If that was the case they would lose their precious funding. The only time they will admit that their efforts aren't working is when they need more funding. All to often the government is happy to accommodate them because they earn bonus points with their voters by acting as though they're taking a stand against drugs. The reality, however, is that they're causing a great deal of harm by furthering a policy that turns non-violent drug offenders into criminals and robs them of their civil liberties.

It is government arrogance at it's best. Someone tries a policy that works better than theirs and they refuse to even acknowledge it. They would rather keep doing the wrong thing because it's so much easier. It shows a complete lack of humility and responsibility not just on the part of politicians, but on those who vow to uphold the law.

The fact remains. People have been using drugs for medical and recreational reasons since the beginning of civilization. It's not going to stop anytime soon and anybody who tries to stop it is going to lose. People use drugs because they do exactly what they want them to do. They bring pleasure, euphoria, and fun. There are serious risks involved in using drugs, but it should not be up to the government to decide whether or not an individual should take that risk. People are responsible for their own bodies. If they want to mess them up, that's their decision. It should be up to their family, their community, and their neighbors to support them and not the government. Portugal offers a clear alternative that not only works, but it champions the tenants of freedom that every American values. It is up to the leaders in Washington to swallow their pride and humble themselves before the light of freedom to do what is right and not just what is politically viable.

Is it harder to believe or not to believe? The intuitive response is to assume that belief is more difficult. It seems logical on the surface. To believe in something in the absence of evidence is a great challenge. It’s easy to assume how hard someone would have to push themselves to accept it. It’s one of the reasons people of strong convictions are so admired on most societies. It seems as though they’re stronger in their ability to accept a premise that some may deem impossible.

But is that really the case? Is believing in something really as hard as people make it out to be? Most modern psychological studies are remarkably consistent. Belief is much easier than non-belief. To blindly accept something, whether it involves religion or politics or government, is far more preferable than to question or to reason.

It starts at a young age. It has been will documented that children in their infancy are highly impressionable. It is their tendency to adopt and accept the wishes of elders and authority figures. In a strictly survival context, it makes sense. If children always questioned authority figures, it would be distracting and dangerous for both the parents the child. By having the child blindly believe, it helps humans be more social and coordinated. That leads to advantageous survival functions that evolution has favored since the days of hunter gatherers.

It isn’t just children’s impressionability that makes belief easier. Even as rational adults, people are subject to peer pressure. A classic example is the Asch Conformity Experiment where three test subjects, one of which was a random volunteer, were asked to decide which line out of three was longer. Two controls voted on one that was obviously shorter, thus pressuring the volunteer to make a decision. Should they conform to what they know is wrong or act on their own? Most would assume a rational person would do what was right, but that was not the case. Nearly 75 percent of participants went with the group, doing what was clearly wrong for the sake of conformity.

The Psychology of Conformity

Religion and government hijack these two deeply held traits. For religion, belief in a supernatural deity is easy. Nobody has to know anything about anything to believe. They don’t have to have any special knowledge or special skills. They don’t have to do anything other than blindly believe and in return they get acceptance from other believers and hope that they will be rewarded when they die, even though there’s no evidence that they do. It’s a cheap, easy way to feel good about one’s self and it is often abused, fostering irrational superstition, bigotry, corruption, greed, and sometimes murder. The hijackers of 9/11 truly believed that their invisible god that they never saw or experienced was real and that this god would grant them 72 virgins in the afterlife for murdering innocent people. It’s an appealing belief and one that is much easier to accept than question when it is preached with the fiery rhetoric of dogmatic clerics.

Psychology of Religious Belief

Every religion is guilty of abusing humanity’s susceptibility to belief. Government is just as bad as religion. They play off that same childhood tendency to believe in one’s parents and authority figures even when what they’re doing is obviously wrong. It came full circle in the build-up to the Iraq war. Everybody was drunk with patriotism, blindly believing in the government’s assertion that Iraq posed a danger. Anybody that questioned this was deemed unpatriotic and cast aside, a clear show of the power of peer pressure.

In every state, democratic and authoritarian, leaders use their status against people. From the communist states of China and Russia to the ancient powers of Rome and Egypt, authority figures have used and abused the capacity to believe. Free societies are supposed to open these figures to questioning, but it is rare that people do so because it is so much easier and so much more convenient to just believe.

Disbelief, it turns out, is much harder. It creates a lot of discomfort in people because rejecting something is often looked down upon. Rejecting the government or rejecting religion just doesn’t seem as noble to people. Some dare to call it heretical. It’s also hard to reject the appeal of some beliefs. For many, it is very nice to believe that there is a just and loving god who will reward those that die after living a righteous life. But no matter how much someone believes in something, that doesn’t make it true. There’s no proof that there’s anything after death. There’s no proof that there’s a god of any kind or that supernatural forces exist. Not believing in them is hard because it means rejecting some mystery from the world.

In many ways, it is those that believe the strongest that are the most dangerous. The religious fanatics and authoritarian bureaucrats are so convinced they will not even consider questioning themselves. It takes a great deal of hubris, arrogance, and narcissism. To not question is not only irrational, it is cowardice. From the priests to the kings, they may have the power of influence. But at their very core, they are cowards of the highest degree.

Recently, a group of youtube enthusiasts who specialize in making videos that counter bogus claims made by creationists and religious fundementalists banded together to stop what has been a disturbing trend from the side of religious groups. In the last year groups like Answers in Genesis, Illustria Media, Eternal Media, ande Creation Science Evangilism have been harassing users who make videos that counter their bogus claims about creationism, science, and religion in general. Their main tool is to use the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a law passed in 1998 meant to protect copyrighted material on the internet. Youtube enforces this law by banning users who wrongly post copyrighted material without permission and do not adhere to the fair use policies. And they were making false claims that video makers, many of whom were just individuals who did these videos in their spare time, were illegally using their material. But in reality they weren't. They were only using clips and parodies, which are perfectly acceptable for fair use. But to them it wasn't about saving copyrighted material. It was about silencing those who disagreed with them.

This phenomenon epitomized the dangers of religious dogma and why it is a threat to the free society. Groups like Answers in Genesis and Eternal Media are so ridged in their beliefs that they don't wish to counter or debate them, they want to silence any criticism that may threaten them. And they're willing to go so far as to use dishonest tactics to do it. Time and again, they show a blatant disregard for free speech and criticism. Many of these groups censor their comments on youtube so people cannot comment or point out mistakes. They also rarely respond to any counter claim. In contrast those who dedicate themselves to debunking these claims do not censor the comments. They freely allow people to criticize and ask questions about their claims and they do their best to respond them. And when they don't know, they're honest about it.

It is the value of free speech and free inquery that allows people to question dogma. As religious a country as this is, dogmatic claims often fall apart in the face of valid criticism that is allowed to present evidence and debate the merits of any claim. Many radical religious officials fear this and actively work to silence any criticism. They go so far as to try and get the government on their side to legislate their beliefs so they will have political protection, which helps immunize them from inquery. It is something the founding fathers, many of who were religoius themselves, understood. They knew that if one brand of religion was favored or endorsed by the state, it could threaten the merits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People had to be free to believe or not believe whatever they wanted. But when some radical gropus (and it is a minority) actively try to subvert free speech to promote their own agenda it crosses a fundemental line.

In a free society, people are free to believe and worship however they please. But when one group tries to subvert another, that is just plain tyranny and regardless of anyone's religious convictions they have no place in a free society.

Please see the video below for more information on this issue:

When I was a devout believer in Christianity, I never questioned where religion came from. It wasn't that I was curious. I just didn't see it as pertinent. But as I began to doubt my faith and the supernatural in general, I began to look into what religion is and where it came from. And in my search I have found many interesting revelations, but none of them point to anything supernatural or godly.

Most people will say religion is something innate. They claim that it is human nature to believe in something greater than themselves. And that sounds pretty intuitive because so many people turn to religion or something supernatural when they can't explain something in logical terms. But just because a lot of people turn to it doesn't make it true. A brief insight into human psychology and social dynamics reveals that religion does play off human beings' natural tendencies. But it's not in the way many believers think.

The best example I ever came across was a discussion I had in my old sociology class on the origin of stereotypes. People have a lot of false believes about groups they don't know about. There are stereotypes about black people, white people, Asians, muslims, Christians, and atheists and many are prevalent, but many are still wrong. So why do they persist? Well it has to do with a phenomenon psychologists often refer to attribution bias. When people don't know all the workings of a situation, they instinctively go to pre-set assumptions that they have been conditioned to turn to. Many of those assumptions are learned through environmental and social influences so if someone is taught that all atheists are wicked, that's what they'll assume when they look at an atheist. It's a mental shortcut of sorts because it saves people the time of investigating and looking into every given situation about a person.

In an evolutionary context it makes perfect sense. These assumptions and stereotypes allow people to devout more mental energy into other more important matters such as survival. Just think of it in the hunger gatherer sense. A normal hunter doesn't have time to investigate and understand every possible event that they come across. They have to have certain stereotypes and assumptions like "blue berries are poisonous" and "those people that attacked my tribe are evil." It saves them energy and mental resources to devout to survival.

So what does this have to do with religion? Well religion acts in many ways as a mental shortcut. Many who use the 'god of the gaps' arguments point it out. Since we can't know everything about something like where the world came from, what happens when we die, or how do the heavens work we take a short cut and say "god/gods did it." That's much easier than having to investigate all the complex and in many cases unknown forces that go into the natural world. It's hard enough for people to wrap their heads around one facet of science so they assume the rest on faith.

Just think of it in terms of creationism. Creationists simplify the whole proces of how the world came to be by saying it's all written down in this one story in this one book and it all boils down to "god did it." It plays off the natural tendancy to seek the easier, less complicated answer instead of investigating the complicated and complex forces of evolution that include other complex forces like chemistry, physics, biology, geology, climate, etc. People devout their entire lives to just one of these fields and still can't wrap their head around it, let alone all of them in general. So for the average joe, religion is a convenient and comforting short cut that cuts down on uncertainty. Because like the hunter in the woods, uncertainty is detrimental to survival and nobody likes to be uncertain.

This basic psychological phenomenon puts religion into a more rational perspective. It doesn't say believing in god is wrong. It doesn't even prove that god doesn't exist. Perhaps this is just how god set things up, but there's no way to prove that so that is why faith is necessary. As a non believer, I don't assume any supernatural forces in any gaps in my knowledge. I honestly admit that I don't know and in some cases I can't know. But the problem is religion does more than play off this basic psychological trait. It grows and expands in a way that creates all these other complex social forces, some of them good and some of them bad. It's all a matter of understanding what is at the core of these beliefs that allows us to deal with the bad and reinforce the good.

There are many other facets of the origin of religion and I could spend several blogs discussing it. But I recently came across an article that offers a good, fairly objective insight into where religion came from. You can view it at the following link:

The Origin of Religion

In a free society people are free to believe (or not believe) whatever they want. It is when some beliefs are imposed or endorced by the state that problems arise. You don't have to like what one person believes or doesn't believe. You just have to respect that their belief is different and keep it all in context.