It’s not unfamiliar to the U.S. taxpayer — the dismal return on a $4 billion campaign supporting the “war on drugs.” Let’s face it, we fail at war, pretty much every kind of war. If we are going to be an educated, sophisticated and wealthy nation, let’s at least try a war on something that actually benefits the taxpayer. You remember them, the ones who work hard, try to make the world a better place, contribute a percentage of their labor to their fellow humans, and often, with great trepidation, hold some modest hope that elected officials will provide what the citizens of this country need.
I propose that we wage a war on mental illness, demanding mental illness solutions, real solutions. Because this is where it all begins. Virtually every kind of abuse, addiction, criminal act, suicide (and the list goes on) had its beginnings in an unbalanced mind.
I simply want to suggest that we wage a war that will have a positive generational impact over how we improve the world; a war that will ask us to be more earnest in our understanding of each other; and a war that will raise our conscientiousness about the distribution of financial contributions.
It’s time to relinquish war so that we can plant seeds of prevention and recovery for the benefit of all living things.
