'Traffic'

I'm glad I'm not a politician having to figure out the illegal drug thing.

As a kid, "Just Say No!" was a motto etched into my brain. It was hard to imagine a future in which drugs were not going to ruin so many lives, potentially my own. Looking back, it was pretty apparent just how calculated it all was. They harped on peer pressure and how it would make even the strongest-willed kid to crack (figuratively, literally) and yet I've never felt any peer pressure to do drugs, drink alcohol or do anything else.

Peer pressure exists, but it's the internal, perceived pressure that labors us. We think we need to be cool and we think doing something (stealing, drugs, drinking, sex, et al.).

I knew people that dealt and did drugs. I'd heard that hard drugs (cocaine, heroin) were pretty prevalent in my school growing up. Later, the rural area were I grew up with become of the biggest meth bases in the state of Texas.

One kid -- a brother of a classmate -- overdosed on heroin. Friends wound up caught up in the meth distribution and in prison or worse.

Generally, however, most everyone I know turned out OK. Maybe they're not making tons of money and some might smoke weed pretty regularly, but, in the end, drugs are pretty insignificant.

I don't know how to address or judge the influence of drug use in our society. I've heard of large swaths of time when there epidemics (like crack cocaine in the late-1980s and early-1990s or heroin in the indie rock arena). No doubt thousands were affected, but I don't know if it was really something that required our attention.

As a tax-paying adult, it's pretty clear there's no more of a losing, wasteful battle than that against drugs. It's odd, if you think about it. The United States has zero control of the borders and no matter how much technology we have, resources to throw at the problem or men and women dedicated toward fighting, the good guys are a perpetual 10 steps behind the criminal.

The United States isn't drug-addled at all, unless you consider over-the-counter drugs with a record-number of kids getting meds because they can't pay attention as being drug addled. Authorities might consider this a sign that they're winning and in a weird, obtuse way, they're right.

I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. I once asked everyone I really know if they knew how to get some heroin and even those that did mild drugs did not have an answer. Is this a victory for the war on drugs or is it just proof that we know how to act like reasonable human beings?

What's worse: Big Macs or cocaine?