Reading Free Culture by Lawrence Lessing (www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/) published in 2004. I like this book much. Book is distributed wit Creative Commons license, so it is possible to cite fragments from it.
I'm really share many of this book ideas, particullary one I want to cite here. This is very important idea, specially in current critical for Mexico moment, when "war on drugs" here have left about 28000 victims, and there is no end of this.
Fragment from Free Culture by Lawrence Lessing
Free Culture by Lawrence LessingChapter 10: "Property"
Market: Concentration
[...]
In addition to the copyright wars, we’re in the middle of the drug
wars. Government policy is strongly directed against the drug cartels;
criminal and civil courts are filled with the consequences of this battle.
Let me hereby disqualify myself from any possible appointment to
any position in government by saying I believe this war is a profound
mistake. I am not pro drugs. Indeed, I come from a family once
wrecked by drugs—though the drugs that wrecked my family were all
quite legal. I believe this war is a profound mistake because the collateral
damage from it is so great as to make waging the war insane.
When you add together the burdens on the criminal justice system, the
desperation of generations of kids whose only real economic opportunities
are as drug warriors, the queering of constitutional protections because
of the constant surveillance this war requires, and, most profoundly,
the total destruction of the legal systems of many South American nations
because of the power of the local drug cartels, I find it impossible
to believe that the marginal benefit in reduced drug consumption by
Americans could possibly outweigh these costs.
[...]
Beginning in 1998, the Office of National Drug Control Policy
launched a media campaign as part of the “war on drugs.”
[...]
But let’s say you think it is a wrong message, and you’d like to run a
countercommercial. Say you want to run a series of ads that try to
demonstrate the extraordinary collateral harm that comes from the
drug war. Can you do it?
Well, obviously, these ads cost lots of money. Assume you raise the
money. Assume a group of concerned citizens donates all the money in
the world to help you get your message out. Can you be sure your message
will be heard then?
No. You cannot. Television stations have a general policy of avoiding
“controversial” ads. Ads sponsored by the government are deemed
uncontroversial; ads disagreeing with the government are controversial.
This selectivity might be thought inconsistent with the First Amendment,
but the Supreme Court has held that stations have the right to
choose what they run. Thus, the major channels of commercial media
will refuse one side of a crucial debate the opportunity to present its case.
And the courts will defend the rights of the stations to be this biased.
[...]
