It’s been two years since a civil war broke out in Syria. Now the death toll has reached over 100,000 – and there is strong evidence that chemical weapons have been used.
Although reports of small-scale chemical attacks first arose in late 2012, it was last week’s that captured serious attention. With estimates ranging from 350 to 1,429 dead from the effects of toxic sarin gas, it’s without a doubt that the Syrian conflict requires – now more than ever – an humanitarian response.
But is a military strike appropriate or – as some have even claimed – necessary as a punishment for those who are allegedly responsible for this “crime against humanity”?
Perhaps the better question to ask is whether a life lost to a chemical attack is worth more than a life lost to gun violence or war. Or senseless decision making.
A military strike on Syria could encompass all of those things, but there’s another war that has claimed far more lives than what has and is about to happen in Syria.
And that’s the War on Drugs.
While the United Nations – with strong support from the U.S. – has called for action against countries like Syria for using chemical weapons and Iran and North Korea for stockpiling nuclear weapons (Note: In many cases, with limited evidence), it continues to uphold international laws that prohibit the distribution of a very specific list of drugs.
Drugs like heroin, cocaine and marijuana, the U.N. says, are dangerous to society – so dangerous that they must be prohibited. As well, anyone who violates such a prohibition should be treated as a criminal.
Oddly enough, while studies show that prescription painkillers kill the most people out of all drugs, many countries continue to support the prohibition of safer drugs like marijuana – which is in fact incapable of causing death.
But the worst part of the War on Drugs is not its hypocrisy – it’s the lives of innocent civilians that it claims.
