Once upon a time I was against the whole idea of drugs. No matter
that I had given up heroin at 15, when I recovered (perhaps unjustifiably) from measles and pneumonia at boarding school, before the days of antibiotics. I still thought that drugs were A BAD IDEA. Now I am much less sure.
Do you know that in small islands like St. Vincent and Grenada they collect ten million US smackers a MONTH from the drug trade? In Barbados you and I and our friends and neighbours (those building those beautiful huge
new houses) are collecting not much less than forty million US a month from these useful commercial transactions. And do you know how we manage to make these far from negligible profits?
Well, darling, we make those
millions from giving pleasure. Not pleasure to ourselves, very often, we aren't yet quite rich enough for that, but to other, much richer and grander, whitish and even blackish inhabitants of the continent of North America. So much
richer than you and me, they can afford to consume and burn up those expensive commodities, while we can afford only to be a kindly friend of leaf and powder, involved in their intermediate transportation.
Those
pleasures are somewhat deplored by those countries which enjoy them, but oddly enough, they object to our reasonable investments in fast motor-boats, in brave terrorists, in moonless waders and swimmers whose only aim
is to give pleasure to rich North Americans. Well, perhaps some share of the exigencies of the business might occasionally accrue to these brave chaps, but this would be only a small fraction of the ultimate price of
the commodity, comparable to the price of the transportation of those parts of those domestic pigs destined to be included in a sausage or even in a hamburger.
Should our laudable attempts at keeping up with the vagaries of
the market (in drugs, that may be) be trampled upon by countries whose main international efforts concern themselves with free markets in which they may confidently expect themselves to get the better of most bargains.
As much as
I love the United States and Canada, I cannot help the feeling that if they really want to stop the use of drugs by their own druggy citizens, those marvellous druggy citizens who have valuable votes, they should start to
think about methods by which that end might be achieved. Not an easy aim for any political party.
If they manage to achieve it, the small problems the West Indies may have in the matter of transporting these lightweight and
valuable commodities will come immediately to an end. Would Leacock regret their success? Of course.
