Actually, I think surgery with a billy club is arguably more effective, at least in one respect. If someone's brain is bashed out, his brain problem is solved for good!

I coined a very similar phrase a while back -- "Treating drug addiction via the criminal system is literally doing brain surgery with a truncheon." Played well over at Reason, not so much with the so-cons. Hehe.

Sort of obvious, really, which gives me hope this thing will soon collapse under the weight of their own absurdity.

Literally?

Dave,

I'm wondering if your turn of phrase wasn't in the back of my mind when I "invented" my phrase.

hanmeng,

Yes, this more or less a correct use of "literally." The goal of drug policy is to change our behaviors -- i.e., brain surgery of a kind. The tool being used is a truncheon.

I suppose it would technically be more accurate if it was stated "literally doing behavior modification therapy with a truncheon" but that has less poetry to it.

Anyways, I hope I coined it; it was a few years ago I started using it. I might be over-crediting myself -- it's possible I only paraphrased something half-remembered from Mike Gray's "Drug Crazy."

I was thinking more along actual medical lines: addiction is a function of brain operation. So to cure addiction you have to fix the brain.

In any case the thought is deep on many levels. Which is why I like it so much.