UN Recommends Busting Celebrity Drug Users

Submitted by smorgan on
You know you've hit rock bottom when the United Nations is complaining about you:
Leniency towards drug-abusing celebrities is sending out the wrong message to children and young people, the United Nations drug control agency said today.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) warned that allowing famous people to get away with drug crimes had a damaging effect on impressionable youngsters and undermines faith in the criminal justice system. [The London Paper]
It's always cute when drug war supporters read between the lines and catch on that the massive international drug war hasn't stopped the party. Unfortunately, this realization often leads to bizarre proposals like biological warfare or mass-arresting famous people.

This absurd scheme, like every other dubious drug war idea, will fail for all the same reasons it failed before. The drug war is simply not effective against wealthy privileged people. Those with the resources available to conceal their law-breaking from the prying eyes of police will continue to party in private. You can't deputize the paparazzi to pop Paris for pot and you can't railroad rockstars in drug war kangaroo courts. Just try it, and the number of 90210 zipcodes in the StopTheDrugWar.org membership database will soon crash our servers.

It would be vastly more effective, though still futile, to ask that the press kick its habit of turning every wasted starlet into front-page news. The relentless trainwreck that passes for entertainment media on both sides of the pond is just as nauseous and predictable as its subjects, thus the apple can't be expected to fall far from the tree.

It's all fun and games until LA SWAT raids Paris Hilton's house on a tip from Tara Reid and is forced to shoot a chihuahua in self-defense.

Add new comment

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Source URL: https://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2008/mar/05/un_recommends_busting_celebrity