Can We Declare Defeat Already On War On Drugs?
Practical Solutions to End the War on Drugs - Alex Wodak
The Associated Press has just dropped a bombshell on America's longest running war and the headline says it all: "The US Drug War has Met None of its Goals".
The extensive piece reviews the last 40 years, starting with President Nixon's official launch of the War on Drugs all the way to President Obama's annual strategy released this week. [..]
The piece packs a punch from the start: "After 40 years, the United States' War on Drugs has cost $1 trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence more brutal and widespread."
Contemplate that number for a minute: ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. These costs are absurd:
In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:
_ $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.
_ $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
_ $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
_ $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
_ $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.
At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" — cost the United States $215 billion a year.
And for what? Drug use is no lower. Violent crimes related to drugs are up. And nearly half of our overly-crowded prisons are in there for drug offenses. There is absolutely nothing constructive to show for this 40 year boondoggle. Hell, we could have used that money to implement a Single Payer system, something we could see a very tangible benefit from in a short period of time.
Here in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has introduced a budget with brutal cuts:
Schwarzenegger's budget would eliminate CalWORKS, the state's welfare-to-work program. Families would lose both state grants (of about $500 per month) and state-subsidized day care. The budget would slash 60 percent of the state's spending for county mental health programs. In-home health care programs for the elderly and the disabled would lose about a third of their funding. And the state would grab about $880 million from state transportation projects in an attempt to balance the budget. All state workers would face a wage cut of about 10 percent.
The state has no money and of course, raising taxes is unthinkable (and the ridiculous California initiative system means that short-sighted Californian voters keep blocking bonds), so the least able among us--the elderly, the disabled, families in poverty--must lose the little pittance assistance they get.
Of course, there are those who can't see the forest for the trees and insist that we can't end this war we've already lost:
(Former drug czar John P.) Walters insists society would be far worse today if there had been no War on Drugs. Drug abuse peaked nationally in 1979 and, despite fluctuations, remains below those levels, he says. Judging the drug war is complicated: Records indicate marijuana and prescription drug abuse are climbing, while cocaine use is way down. Seizures are up, but so is availability.
"To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. "It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided."
I don't know what to tell you, Mr. Walters. When you find yourself in a hole, the smart choice is to stop digging.
Prohibition didn't work, why on earth do we think the equally misguided War on Drugs would be any different? Please, let's just declare the war lost, and look to ways we can legalize drugs, regulate them, tax the hell out of them, and stop throwing little penny ante possession arrests in jail. Anything else is to keep digging that hole in which we sit.
There's enough money for healthcare and quality education improvements in our society. Among other things I'm sure everyone can think of to make this life and this country more bearable.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
I damn near spit out my coffee in horror when she commenced the campaign with LAPD's Daryl Gates. They went to some alleged drug house where she stood on the top of a flat-bed truck with a bull-horn surrounded by bullet proof glass on all 4 sides yelling to a team of armed DEA agents "GO GETT'EM BOYS!". (I kid you not)
They then bum rushed the house on her very audible order and drug out a bunch of black people who supposedly were drug dealers. Later she toured the house with Gates and made snide comments about how the occupants lived like animals.
I remember thinking how much did they pay the people inside to stay there and wait for the obvious raid. In the end (if memory serves) it turned out there were no drugs in the house and all the charges we're dropped.
For any who were not around for that LUV'ly event, you can enjoy a trip down memory lane with this photo.
http://dailynews.mycapture.com/mycapture/enla...
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Holy cow, that woman? looks like an extra in a George R. Romero movie. Scary.
The purpose of the war on drugs was to erode civil liberties and to build a police and prison industrial complex. It has been a tremendous success.
sad but true...
...Which are the only industries really hiring right now?
The prison system and the military. Keep us poor and desperate. We'll gladly give up the Constitution, fear our neighbors and attack the outside world.
It won't stop our drug use, though. Was it ever supposed to?
No.
It was supposed to keep prices high and ensure that only the "right" people were allowed to import and distribute.
.. and seize property and incarcerate etc ..
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Absolutly. But add making it relativly easy for the CIA to be a big player in the market, lobbying from private prison interests, guards union lobby and of course another tool to distract sheeple from issues that really matter
Sex, drugs and rock and roll are what make us free. None of them should be illegal.
...those illegal immigrants?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TQ3pC9W1o4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYS732zyYfU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44pyeEvhcQ
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdFTGJcaSFg
Generally speaking I don't trust anyone making over 150K a year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugY9CwhfzE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMqVrUSz62o
I thought it was a chicken egg sort of thing... Klyde could be correct or... had those things happened from trying so hard to control social behavior (bye bye civil rights) and the prison / police / security industry that just keeps promoting it.
And the cost of a bag weed that could be easily grown at home could go for something that boosts our economy.
Are they including those attorneys, doctors, politicians, police and lobbyists that are using and abusing drugs? I bet they are not included in the mix.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWVnPlUCrf8
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
[bold mine]
More by Jane Hamsher here.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
That's a pretty vile thing. And you say it actually happened? Never again i hope. I'm starting to think people may be right about how the "policing and penalizing industry complex" may be behind perpetuating harmful policies. It's time to take measures, and with so many people being held in prison unjustly, the war on drugs is at the top of the list. Oh my God!
They used to tar and feather and be-head people too, and the Dungeon Keeps were no doubt afraid that it might all stop one day too. Then one day the law makers did make it stop, and the world was a better place.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
has them but some of the prisons are private corporations now. That is another reason they don't want to legalize any drugs.
Prohibition is, and always has been, the cause of all the problems it purports to solve.
Prohibition of lifestyle or religion is not even part of the American identity. Prohibition of lifestyle to serve the religious requirements of some Americans is not part of the American identity.
With prohibition of a popular lifestyle you always end up with trouble anyway, as demonstrated by older nations. You get mobsters and crooked law enforcement, and then it goes down hill from there.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
...the price would go down and the CIA wouldn't be able to make money importing the stuff.
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Many unscrupulous people on both sides of the law have made a fortune on it. In the documentary The Union the interviewers found it very curious that the people that wanted to keep marajuana illegal were police officials, politicians and drug dealers that were on top of their respective food chains.
A picture is unfolding here.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
A Humboldt County Concerned Citizens Group (or some such name) actually held a meeting to discuss what to do when/if their product became legal.
Not sure of the outcome. Got a link somewhere tho. Maybe I'll find it by time of overnight Open Thread.
:)
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2gprrUGA_A
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
LEGALIZE IT!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YywFjQzatlQ
Some professional drivers are subject to random drug testing. If you are a professional and you cause an accident big enough that one car gets towed in my state you get a mandatory drug test. And how many high school activities require mandatory drug tests? Aren't conservatives advocating testing those receiving governmnental aid? The only mandatory drug testing I am in favor of is random drug and alcohol tests for law makers. Just what have they been smoking?
we declare war on it."
~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rlqjxst6xU (almost at the end)
You have war on everything. It's become meaningless. As far as I can see, you are the only nation that does so. War war war, perpetual war.
far left loon >.<
We like war because we're good at it. And you know why we're good at it? Because we get a lot of practice...
This country's only two hundred years old and already we've had ten major wars. We average a major war every twenty years in this country. So we're good at it! And it's a good thing we are... we're not very good at anything else anymore!
Can't build a decent car, can't make a T.V. set or a VCR worth a fuck... Got no steel industry left, can't educate our young people, can't get health care to our old people... But, we can BOMB THE SHIT outta your country alright... We can BOMB THE SHIT outta your country alright!
::boom, boom, boom::
Especially if your country is full of brown people... Oh, we like that, don't we? That's our hobby! That's our new job in the world: Bombing brown people! Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Libya... If you've got some brown people in your country, tell 'em to WATCH THE FUCK OUT! or we'll goddamn bomb them..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkhzHQO7jY
Deviant Globalization is the 800lb Gorilla in the room that everyone tries to ignore:
http://fora.tv/2010/05/10/Nils_Gilman_Deviant...
Actual lecture begins at 5 minutes.
'Talk to the hand'
I will check it out. for now i think globalization itself is OK and it's the corporatization of nations and ensuing erasure of national borders that is causing the damages.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
globalization = corporatization of nations
Though I know globalization could be something very different than what it is, it is hard not to argue that at the current time, the globalization of the world is little more than the distribution of global power and privilege among the elite ruling class (under the banners of corporate endeavor...)
The title of the lecture should have been:
The Globalization of Deviant Enterprise.
'Talk to the hand'
For me, the ultimate hypocrisy is alcohol is legal and even glamourized. It's also a drug.
far left loon >.<
I am slowly losing 2 friends to lung cancer at this moment in time.
also a large amount of organized crime went into the legal booze industry post 'Prohibition'. They even send their more polished and educated kids to Congress.
There is always a section of society that cannot handle whatever they ingest, if we had a proper medical health industry that provided health care for all, this would be less of a problem.
Republicans and similar seem to find its easier to 'cure' symptoms than the underlying cause of why people use drugs, some do for recreational purposes, some do to self medicate for medical reasons, And because its cheaper than going through the restrictive guild like for profit health industry.
since 1937 when the Marihuana Tax Act was passed...
We trust 'God' enough to put 'His' name on all our currency, but not enough to plant His seeds. seems a bit odd
Because of the Uniform State Narcotic Act 0f 1932, my father was arrested for selling pot to an undercover. He spent six months in Leavenworth, where he was used as a guinea pig by researchers who were already aware that marijuana did not 'fit' with the other drugs covered by this Act. Dad agreed to participate in the research, on the condition that he be given his drug of choice for recreational use when he was not under the influence of the other drugs he was asked to take. He reported that he was given gelatin capsules filled with a clear liquid, which was the purest THC he'd ever experienced.
My father used marijuana from the time he was 12 until he was in his mid 70s. He had no interest in the other 'narcotics' he was asked to take during his stay in Leavenworth, and he was sure that the men who asked him to ingest these drugs were well aware that he did not have the slightest interest in using them.
I strongly encourage you to read Licit and Illicit Drugs; The Consumers Union Report on Narcotics, Stimulants, Depressants, Inhalants, Hallucinogens, and Marijuana - Including Caffeine, edited by Edward Brecher. I am forever indebted to Bill Martin, my sociology professor at Rice University, who made this tome required reading in one of my courses. It is an invaluable resource, particularly for those of us who recognize that the economics of drugs drives the legislation that renders said drugs 'illegal.'
A large population of reichwing types leave the military and go into the Prison Law Enforcement Industrial Complex, they make their living (and fat pensions) from arresting and locking up other people for petty crime of smoking a joint or whatever.
Armed SWAT raids to arrest somebody for possessing a bag of weed, paying deputies to go clean county ditches from the evils of wild industrial hemp. Major amounts of tax dollars go to support these people in their crusade against other people enjoying weed or whatever for personal use.
At the end of the day its political fight of the Repuglicans and their xtain backed churches, against the sinful Liberals and their drug use. They use the 'drug war' to suppress political opposition.
Not all Liberals use drugs, but enough do to make it a 'crime' that can be used to hammer down opposition locally, even if its merely a threat of arrest and harassment, or some planted baggie to take out an opponent.
Remember that 12 year old Texan girl who was beaten (in her garden) and almost kidnapped by four undercover Houston cops. It appeared they tried to kidnap her for sexual purposes. Her father fought them off, he was randomly stopped driving in his car a few days later and arrested for possession of drugs (baggie), then safely out of the way, the cops then arrested the 12YO at her school for assault on the police... A totally corrupt police and DA system, they used the (prob fake) drug offense to get the father so they could get back at the girl with the father gone.
He's got more right-wingnuttia to demonstrate.
War on Americans right to Vote. Oh this guy is in left field with this one.
How many International cartel Drug smugglers are in Jail doing Hard time with the total break up of their organization. very evry few.
How many AMERICANS have served time to include one man in Texas serving life for possesion of MaryJane.
Thats right MILLIONS now how many of those Millions have served sentences over two years thats right the Lost of the Right to Vote.
Look you assisnine Americans when iran-Contra broke you Clowns went swooning over a Marine Col. thsat BETRAYED his Country then you gave Admiral poindexter a Free pass and what about the Congressional and Senatorial leaders oh yes theygot a Free Pass, now you sit with your thumb up your ass asking did it Fail? DUH! YES, it was a White Supremacist Anti American republican program that is why it failed.
Now follow the money check what Anti American republican party and contributors benefitted from this FAILED Policy yup White is Right and these TERRORIST have the MONEY to prove it.
If you want this program to succeed you have to get the Anti American crowd out of it and that is any and all republicans and NOW the tea bagging jerks.
look the facts are there compare the arrest of the Millions of AMERICANS to the arrest of the International (republican sponsored Crime Cartel), lets compare those in prison. While your at it you have to go back 20m years but their was a CT representative who had her son arrested for drug possesion and a mandatory prison sentence, oops the files got lost, did I mention she was a White Supremacist republican.
of repeating the Reich-winger lies about marijuana and the failed War OF Drugs -- I'm shocked!
This report couldn't be in response to the latest Obama administration presser regarding that "very dangerous marijuana" -- more a matter of weighing the value of helping to destroy the credibility of the Obama administration, and less about finally admitting that the inclusion of marijuana in the War OF Drugs has been a total failure, could it?
President Barrack Hussein Obama is a hypocrite. He publicly revealed (in his autobiography) that as a young man he partook of illicit drugs, marijuana AND cocaine -- regarding inhaling "That was the point!". As if to rub everyone's noses in the first "black" Republican (William Jefferson Clinton) President's fake denial about not inhaling -- with a wink and a nod. But the Clinton administration fully embraced the War OF Drugs by ramping up both criminal penalties and rates of prosecution for marijuana use. Too bad Obama didn't get caught and prosecuted as a drug offender as a young man -- he could have given up his big dreams of college, law school, and maybe becoming President some day, just like the millions of other non-violent "drug criminals" that have been chewed up and spat out by the USA "justice" system.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, Bush (43) and now Obama -- it doesn't really matter which President and which political party is in power -- the very same lies repeated again and again. Follow the money and the motives. Prohibition 2.0 began as a legalistic assault on minorities and their (voting) rights, and mitigating competition to the cotton, paper pulp, and pharmaceutical industries. The War OF Drugs continued that fine tradition with an added incentive -- big bucks to militarized LEO, the private for-profit prison industry, and a new war without end for the military (MIC) to engage in, replacing Vietnam.
Marijuana is not physically addictive. Marijuana has never killed anyone because of an overdose (unlike OTC aspirin, alcohol, and tobacco). Not only is there no bodily harm in smoking marijuana, it has been prescribed for treating asthma. Smoking both marijuana and tobacco actually mitigates the destructive effects of tobacco. Extracts of marijuana have been patented for treatment of diseases, by the USA government and BigPharma both! So why does marijuana rate a classification as a Schedule 1 drug, instead of Schedule 3 or even re-legalization?
The level of hubris, hypocrisy, and abject lies is nothing short of astounding. The American people have been fed the crony capitalist Kool-Aide yet again:
[http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/05/11/obama-administration-‘firmly-opposes’-marijuana-legalization-heres-why/]
Since it is apparent that no hope and change will come with the rise to power of either mainstream political party, let alone ending the failed War OF Drugs, perhaps it is time to elect a President (and political party) that will make this change. Chipping away around the edges of Prohibition 2.0 through States' Rights regarding Medical Marijuana or de-criminalization / re-legalization is a slow process fraught with legalistic danger from the Feds (e.g. continued DEA raids).
Diametrically opposite political entities and platforms from the fringes of mainstream political parties have committed to repealing Prohibition 2.0 -- Dr. Ron Paul's Libertarians and the socially conscious Green Party. This issue gains little to no political traction from either the Democratic Party or Republican Party leadership. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with entrenched vested interests that represent sizable crony capitalist campaign contributions, could it?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
comparison of political party platforms:
[http://www.therealdifference.org/issues.html]
organization favoring medical marijuana and re-legalization:
[http://www.norml.org]
-
organization exposing draconian asset forfeiture laws:
[http://www.fear.org]
-
organization of former law officers favoring ending Prohibition 2.0:
[http://www/leap.cc]
-
informative on-line book about marijuana and Prohibition 2.0:
[http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html]
[http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Wears-Clothes-Authoritative-Historical/dp/1878125028/ref=sr_1_1/179-3010285-9528262?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274021535&sr=8-1]
-
information about Nixon's 1972 Shafer Commission Report:
[http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Commission_on_Marihuana_and_Drug_Abuse]
-
information about drug classification Schedules:
[http://nationalsubstanceabuseindex.org/drugclass.htm]
-
regarding USPTO medical marijuana patents:
[http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507.html]
[http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6132762.html]
-
-
Both Prohibition 2.0 and the War OF Drugs are based upon bald-faced lies. Ending the War OF Drugs as wasteful and ineffective is far overdue. Ending Prohibition 2.0 is the beginning of a return to democracy, individual freedom, and an end to the USA police state, also far overdue.
Now is the time for hope and change that we can truly believe in ...
Frack the Obama Administration -- it is the Same Shite, Different Day with this a$$hat ...
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
Drugs will probably remain illegal because the banking system would be insolvent without drug money. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/...
is the last great earner that could be turned on like a tap for goverments all over the world and it's a vote winner.
Comments are closed on this entry