Thanks judge and legalization can help!

I want to thank Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona for her statements about “ice” and how bad it is and the seriousness of this social destroyer. She is so right about those who start young and how they are “influenced” by the older generation. I do believe the drug court can be a great help, especially to those kids who have the predisposition for aggressive at-risk behavior. Just the thought of having to face a judge will work for some of them, but not all. There will always be that special group of youth who grew up under irresponsible parents or guardians who may even be “ice” users. These youth will be challenged to try almost anything (tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and ice) and they may even be challenged to sell marijuana or ice due to their impoverished status.

It should be noted that alcohol use is considered much more of a gateway vice to ice than marijuana. There is also the fact that many people resort to ice use and trafficking because of poverty as ice is more lucrative than marijuana so there is more than one single factor leading to the use of ice. But the saddest factor of all is the four million in ice that was seized—well, guess who was going to buy all that four million in ice, yes, the poorest and most desperate people in the CNMI would have purchased and used most of it—not the rich. The poorest and most worse off are the ones suffering the most from ice which is all the more reason why this is so serious as the leading factor is the direct correlation between poverty and ice use and sales. Even the wealthy that do get hooked don’t stay wealthy long, so it’s really the poorest and worst off.

But I don’t think it is fair to place so much blame of ice use on marijuana as common sense even dictates that we can’t fight ice by blaming marijuana, especially when marijuana can actually be an antidote to ending an ice addiction. I personally know and have seen people who were hooked on cocaine, which is really an expensive and more euphoric form of the ice high, and they used smoking marijuana to avoid using cocaine and kicking their addiction. The sooner we legalize marijuana, the sooner we will be able to do more education on marijuana, which will also do more in helping our society fight ice that has reached epidemic proportions.

Education is a critical factor for a complete transforming of social behavior because criminalization does not and cannot totally change social behavior and can only serve as a deterrent. We have the death penalty in many states but people still commit crimes that actually require a person being put to death—so if the thought of death doesn’t eradicate certain unwarranted social behavior. To solely depend upon criminalization and the drug court to eradicate the use of ice defies reality because ice is already against the law but the epidemic is still growing instead of decreasing. Education has and always will be our best deterrent and countermeasure to blowing up and eradicating unwarranted social behavior. Thanks to education, society outlawed the advertisement of cigarette smoking and started education programs to stop our youth from smoking. Today our youth are now telling the old folks to stop smoking all because of education, which is the reverse of how it used to be when grown folks like the Marlboro Man would entice people to smoke.

The real solution to ending our ice epidemic isn’t single-fold but multifaceted and intricate with education and the inclusion of everyone who is not an ice user. If it takes an entire village to raise a child, then it will take all of us and even some help from the feds and foreign countries to stop or kill this social destroyer. I know a lot of people are looking for DPS, the drug court and the government to perform some kind of miracle that will end the ice trafficking and use but in reality they will only affect a few within our social fabric. The winning battle must be fought on the front lines through intelligence efforts and by gaining support in the homes and hearts of the many families that are doing battle with ice on a daily basis.

I don’t have the complete answer but I do have a good idea as to where we must start. We (the CNMI) must first drive the demand for ice underground so that dealers and users will be forced to live in total fear of everyone! We can only do that if the people who know about ice use will do something about it. I know there is a cultural phenomenon known as “snitching” which is not limited to blacks, the mafia and gangs but it spans the globe as the major inhibitor to empowering everyone to join the forces fighting against ice. DPS and the government must do something to make it more conducive for people to tell as no one wants to tell on their spouse, sister, brother, dad, mom, child, aunt, uncle or even their cousins when they know they will end up in jail. So I hope this will help and the powers that be can see what they are asking people to do and why it’s not really working on a systemic level.

To a large degree this is simple economics of supply and demand. We must stop trying to arrest every user and the low and mid-level dealer and start “following the trail” to the real suppliers to kill the supply. Every time a user or low-level dealer is arrested it only serves as a flair warning to the top that the police are getting close, allowing them to change their routines and dealers which is why major arrest are so far and few in between. The very nature of our approach is counterproductive to finding the main source in the countries where ice is actually coming from so we may never stop it with the present approach. We also need a better working relationship with law enforcement in these foreign countries and even use some of their CIs who speak their language in the CNMI for tracking purposes only.

As for helping individuals, one person in the family alone trying to stop a family member from using ice won’t work as that person will only become the enemy of the user. It will take entire families taking the initiative to gang up on their relative(s) who are using. You can’t make or force a person to stop using ice even if you put them in jail if they don’t want to stop using. Families should apply “collective peer pressure” and not condone, support or help that person until they decide to change their ways. Allowing them to continue and not doing something and saying something is only contributing to their ice use.

Reiterating my sincere kudos to the Judge Manglona for speaking up and I hope a judge will eventually speak up for the legalization of marijuana because it will surely make everyone’s job a lot easier when it comes to fighting ice. I’m sure there will be a lot of ice ice users who will resort back to using marijuana instead of using ice and if you don’t believe me do like I did—ask some of them and I’m sure they will tell you the same thing especially when they can buy the “concentrates” legally. I also hope that some of the leaders on the Hill will man up and speak up for legalization as every time I mention how many of them used to be smokers people always laugh and tell me how right I am.

For those who still think pot is an evil I want to share this genuine wisdom as the founders of America warned in the Federalist Papers that “we must be willing to endure certain necessary evils if our Democracy is to survive.” Sometimes we must endure the lesser evil (pot) in order to champion or eradicate the greater evil (ice), a true reality in order for our social fabric to deliver a high quality of life on earth. Besides, ice is manmade and eradicable but pot can never be eradicated as its God-given and that’s a fact!

Ambrose M Bennett
Kagman, Saipan