April 14, 2009
Get ready for the next big debate to start - the drive to legalize drugs, and end yet another stupid and failed "war"
The US "war on drugs" is an absolute and total joke.
But not so much of a joke to the failed nation on our southern border. Not so much of a joke to the 500,000 rotting in US prisons. Not so much a joke to the cops and ER workers who have to deal with this failure every day. Not so much of a joke to the taxpayers who spend hundreds of billions and get no results. Not so much of a joke to people who simply want to get high and instead buy unregulated and unsafe pot.
But hey, it's best for the government (and lobbyists and ministers) to determine what drugs people can have. Alcohol? No problem. Cigarettes? No problem. Caffeine? No problem. Pot? NO WAY JOSE!
Prohibition failed before. And Prohibition is failing again. We focused on the wrong end of the chain (supply) when we should be focused on the other (demand)
So deal with it America. Idiots should be able to smoke pot, snort coke or kill themselves with drugs however they'd like.
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. As messy as those seven words can be, they ring true even in this debate, and should end it.
So legalize drugs, tax them, control them, and take the hundreds of billions you'll save (and raise) and spend it educating people why they're idiots and are ruining their lives if they do drugs (alcohol and cigarettes too), and treating people for free to get them off drugs.
And let the free market and drug tests take care of this one - you do drugs, you don't get a job, you don't go to school, and you're an outcast. Your choice. And that includes cigarettes too - if companies don't want to hire smokers, that's their choice. I know I wouldn't want to pay the health care costs of a smoker. Or a crack cocaine addict.
Here's a clip of the Mexican ambassador telling America it needs to start thinking about legalizing. And also a great piece by Clive Crook in today's Financial Times, laying out the facts, even if America isn't ready to listen.
A criminally stupid war on drugs in the US - By Clive Crook
How much misery can a policy cause before it is acknowledged as a failure and reversed? The US “war on drugs” suggests there is no upper limit. The country’s implacable blend of prohibition and punitive criminal justice is wrong-headed in every way: immoral in principle, since it prosecutes victimless crimes, and in practice a disaster of remarkable proportions. Yet for a US politician to suggest wholesale reform of this brainless regime is still seen as an act of reckless self-harm.
Even a casual observer can see that much of the damage done in the US by illegal drugs is a result of the fact that they are illegal, not the fact that they are drugs. Vastly more lives are blighted by the brutality of prohibition, and by the enormous criminal networks it has created, than by the substances themselves. This is true of cocaine and heroin as well as of soft drugs such as marijuana. But the assault on consumption of marijuana sets the standard for the policy’s stupidity.
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37 comments:
please, it would be about time, I would like to take a puff here and there, and not be arrested. It would take all the big money out of it, excluding law enforcement, prisons and courts. I grew up in major weed area Northern Ca and the crime is mostly based on the high price the illegal weed demands.
Perfect...I am traveling down the interstate completely sober & some fool jacked up on coke & weed is swerving in the lane beside me because he has been up 3 days.
Yea,Thats what we all need Refeer.
Sounds like the last thing America will need to do before the end of time.
You drive under the influence of drugs and get caught, you go to jail - for a long time.
That should go for alcohol as much as cocaine
Obama: "one of the issues high on Ambassador Sarukhan's agenda is the legalization of pot....I'm not sure what that says about the ambassador...[solo nervous laugh]"
Ah yes pot, the anti-corporate drug. Grows without patents and causes a peaceful desire-less high; not exactly good if your agenda is to keep consumerism alive.
So, I don't know whom is more stoopid, the pot smokers or the people who want you in jail for it?
Then again, just think of all the income it gives to police, lawyers, DEA accountants, prison workers, prison builders, smugglers, pushers, growers, Mexicans, border patrol agents, the propaganda ministry, politicians, gossip columnists, asthma specialists, the plastic bag industry.......
Ah yes, nothing like an alchohol induced coma to forget it all!
How about all those mexican truckers all loaded up on our freeways?
You can get drugs anywhere these days.American is the biggest consumer of drugs.Half of our society is jacked up on antidepressants.why are these people so misreable? I thought america was the greatest.
Damn -
now it's too scary to go to Cancun.
Afraid the Drug Cartel will haul me off a resort & use me for a hostage.
Where can we go now for cheap vaca's??
Dazed & Confused,
I take it also support prohibition of alcohol? Considering how many road deaths and injuries are the result of idiots driving while "jacked up" on it.
And of coffee, considering people stay up for days on it too (see college students around final assessment submission time).
Terrific argument you have there. Obviously driving while drunk, stoned, tripping, etc would be illegal.
Things are just swell the way they are.
Lots of enforcement employment(to control independents); a raging river of dirty cash coursing through the biggest corporations in the world.
Massive opiate funds to keep the terror industry humming along.
NO BETTER IDEAS whatsoever from our public employees whom we hired to come up with them.
.
No!
They want to legalize the illegals.
OLE!
.
Umm...all the drugs banned today were LEGAL in 1900.
Was society safer, saner and better run in 1900 in the USA than today?
pissed off trucker said,
"How about all those mexican truckers all loaded up on our freeways...
Not to mention all the bad mex car drivers!
I live in So Cal...it's crazy!
Some poor wetback who has never driven a vehicle (besides a burro)
Comes to Amerika at 40 or 50 or? and gets a drivers license.
And immediately gets in the fast lane at 40, both hands on the wheel and won't pull over for you, me or an ambulance, firetruck whatever!
Calif. has started a radio campaign to advise drivers,
"If you hear a siren or see flashing lights....Pull Over"!
This is because we are packed full of ignorant third worlders and brain dead recipients of the dumbing down factor!
We have More accidents and drunk drivers from mexico that we should
Why?
They get deported and go home.
And come back again and again.
No Problemo!
Get ready for the next big debate to start - the drive to legalize drugs, and end yet another stupid and failed "war"....
No way will that war ever end. The CIA, FBI, and Republicans in general are making too much money off it.
Keith,
The only reason so many states are considering legalizing pot for "medical" reasons is they view it as a new source of tax revenues.
Pot largely disappeared in the early 1980's. Why re-introduce it now - and legalization would indeed increase/create markets and demand where there is none now.
Pot should be de-criminalized - as it was in the 1970's, when you could buy an oz anywhere and walk down the street with a jay and no fear of getting busted.
scribe
In my state you can get away with a quarter ounce of pot and it's considered for use and not selling, and there are no charges pressed.
Back about 20 years ago cops would take your stuff and do it themselves, but most times I could get it back with some fast talking about paying taxes and being a working man just wanting to take it easy on a Friday night.
I make 5-6 trips from my dealer's house to my cabin every spring so I don't have to transport the 1-to-1-1/2 ounces I boge down every camping season.
If 25% of people toke, and 50% play it safe and only get the maximum nonchargeable quantity, that's still a lot of greenhouse gas emissions running back and forth from the dealer's place.
The biggest dangers I have seen are drunks and crackheads. Potsmokers are quiet and obviously self-conscious when they're high, but they have most of their wits about them.
Legal or not, people on a mass scale are using. I am not interested in funding an failing war on drugs.
Further when Napolitano went tpo Mexico a couple weeks ago she apologized for the underground market for firearms in Mexico being 90% the fault of the US. They looked at her said that it was only about 17%. But you won't here about this in these main stream clips we are now seeing on this site.
If the dems can make a strong case that it is our guns being stolen from our homes that are the main undergorund suppply in Mexico then it sets up a good argument for gun control. Heaven forbid we get control of the illigal trafficking. It does not matter if it is humans, drugs, or guns, it is all being done by the same criminals. But the libs want open borders and gun control.
I say lock the borders down and if you want my guns then come and get them, and good luck. You may take the rounds as well with you to your grave.
If you want a drug such as alcohol to be legal then there are others you may as well legalize as well.
Oooooobaaaamy!
Gimme Cheese..
There won't be a debate.
Obama has done a 180. In the last town hall meeting, he took a serious question and turned it into a joke.
He also said he would halt all DEA raids on medical marijuana facilities. That hasn't happened either.
The pharmaceutical companies have paid this guy off. 80 million Americans are abusing prescription drugs and that's the way they want to keep it. Especially Vicodin, legalized heroin in a pill.
I do not do, nor have I ever done drugs, nor do I drink other than a glass of wine once or twice a year.
However, I had alcoholic parents, bright and talented people who died under tragic circumstances because of alcohol. My family is riddled with drug and alcohol problems and their spin off consequences. Some are clean and sober now, many are not. I have had the role of observer and child comforter and compensator: read that as codependent and adult child of alcoholics.
I must say though, except for inertia and that 'so called paranoid stare' I haven't noticed harm come to people around marijuana smokers as in the case of alcohol and drugs. I've witnessed plenty of abuse from those chemicals. In fact the pot smokers in the family have been the kindest and most insightful members. If you are going to do a drug, that would be my choice, though as I said, I'm not interested.
I believe the war on drugs increases the hypocrisy we live with re police abuse on the negative side, increases the need for larger police forces which we do need for parts of the drug problems: ie meth production and abuse. Talk about the devil's drug, that stuff is it. It melts the body and the brain from the inside out. I know a young lady who looked like a madonna (the real one) and now is losing her teeth at 27.
I also know of people needing and wanting to get off pain pill addiction and not being able to go into the hospital and tell the truth about why they are there: I went with someone and the doctor said we don't treat that...how about treating the symptoms of withdrawal, which are so severe it leads to relapse.
I am old school. I would never take drugs just for fear of having to deal with withdrawal. Aspirin, tea, a nap, a glass of water, and a long walk in fresh air are my cures, but I'm 65. What can I say, the drug scourge started two classes behind me, approximately, and I'd seen enough as a child, from relatives who did alcohol and bennies. (INSANE!)
Drugs are very harmful to children raised around the crazy behavior and thinking. It is not a coincidence I am sure, that we have pedophiles running rampant around the world at the same time we have drugs of all kinds available everywhere.
I think treatment should be offered on every street corner. Addiction is in every age group, every demographic. I know more about drugs than I ever wanted to.
I just wanted to garden and weave and so on. I know so many grandparents who are exhausted raising grandkids, nieces, nephews, great grandchildren because of some strung out younger person.ENOUGH ALREADY.
But legal ? What a farce. Many people on drugs are at core, as good a person as any, and prison is evil in itself. There is profiteering and graft in the legal system to a degree that would make one throw up. Talk about involuntary servitude: just look at the prison work systems.
And the cost of one prisoner would pay for inexpensive treatment for about 4 or more people. Of course therapy for their kids is expensive too, if they ever get it.
I am fed up with drugged up behavior. I think it's ridiculous.
Yet nothing seems to have helped much these last 40 some years.
We need a campaign to tell people they don't have the right to feel great all the time, at the expense of everyone around them. It's not even that great. You don't have to have all the answers to face life, you discover the answers as you face it. You don't have to do things perfectly, muddling through works just fine for many things.
I think the idea of taking drugs is entertainment, bonding (the body chem's released mimic normal bonding chems), problem solving, and handling feelings. It's really pretty basic in life. You handle things by handling them.
Life isn't easy. But it isn't as hard as the drug need story would have it either. I've had a very hard life. But learning, seeking answers, and creativity and giving a damn about family has kept me going. However dysfunctionally I have done it.
Grandma PKK
Dang. Browser blipped in the midst of composing the message.
Anyway - point was that the Drug War started as a punitive expedition against the hippies that were hatin' on Nixon back in '69. The cause got taken up by the hardhats, knuckle-draggers and Blar-har Dimwit Brigade that forms the core of the "Southern Strategy." The people doing drugs looked a lot like all the people that they hated.
These days, the Drug War has, as so many things do, come back around to stab the Southern White Trash ignoramuses in the back. How many are locked up for cooking, tweeking, growing, distributing, using? How many will never get good jobs because the recreational use in their own homes, on their own time, is criminalized, and they are dragged into the criminal justice system?
Walter Cronkite said it best a couple years ago: "When future generations look back, they will condemn us most strongly not for Iraq or any of the other wars, but for the drug wars, that we senselessly waged against ourselves."
Dear weak minded blogheads ...or should I say...Potheads.
It is insane to believe legalizing drugs is what you want. Even more of your children will die in their teens while stooped over the toilet(Glorious way to go huh?). The phone will ring and it will be the HWY Patrol to tell you that Dear Old Mom was run over by a crazy eyed meth user she purchased from the local Target pharmacy. The cost of chicken Mcnuggets will sky rocket due to the munchies.
I really dont think thats what you seriously want at all but I bet there are those around the world who would love to see America fall to such lows...They could over take the country without firing a shot.
Oh, To the idiot who compares coffee to crank...Take another hit off that bong and go back to sleep because that has go to be the most stupid apples to grape nuts suggestion I have ever read.
If all these people OD obama will not have anyone to vote him into a second term .Except keith and bukko who has run back to australia .
>Idiots should be able to smoke pot...
It's not the smoking of the pot that is so intolerable. It's the eating of the tacos and the giggling thing.
No drug abuse? What will Rush Limbaugh do then?? Give sober political commentary for a change?
I think two thirds of the beltway political people in DC are under the influence of some drug ... or are clinically mentally ill.
We should demand mandatory drug and psychological testing for all elected politicians. Random. Every two years each, minimum.
Agreed.
Korea was a failed war.
Took 5 years with over 35,000 soldiers dead.
Since that war is actually 'over', That must be the other failed war you were referring to.
I am assuming you are not declaring the war in Iraq a failure while our troops are still risking their lives daily.
Regardless of our political views whether we should have gone to war or not, all of us better hope and pray we do not 'fail' in Iraq.
And furthermore, considering that they have done close to the impossible by bringing democracy to a country like Iraq in 5 short years, it would be unbelievable anyone would be dumb enough to call that a failure.
That being said, the failed war on drugs is stupid for all the same old reasons.
It'll never happen.
The criminals pushing the drugs, the CIA that fund their black-ops from drug sales, the police, the prison facilities and prison builders, the judges, prosecutors and lawyers, the drug corporations pushing patented drugs, and born-again christian politicians pretending to care, are not going to allow it. Heck - even Disney would complain to the government that people are smoking so much weed they're not spending enough money at the theme parks.
That is a VERY strong group of people arrayed against legalization and they all profit from drugs being illegal.
So what array of corporations and groups are for legalization? None - it's all solitary individuals.
Who knows... maybe if they make a union...
Oh... wait... unions are a bad word here. Lets call it something else so that we can pretend it's not a union.
Mr.X
there is too much money involved in keeping the drugs illegal.
what would all those law enforcement employees do? what about those who supply them with law enforcement equipment? the people who work at jails? lawyers who defend and prosecute?
Nope. too much money being made by "enforcement".
Joe Kennedy and Al Capone thank you all for your business.
Those corrupt fucks in Washington and Mexico City will do anything for money and power. USA third world shithole being advised by the Mexican mafia who runs the another third world shithole. The American mob (citizen) deserves what it has coming. Just watched a bunch of monkeys from Mexico roofing the house next door all morning. Tens of thousands of US citizens, tradesmen, out of work and suffering. There is not one legal tradesman working in the Cities. Why? Those dum monkeys work for 5 dollers an hour and live outside the tax system while recieving health care and whatever else they want for free. This country makes me sick. Greedy souless pigs. You will get slaughtered just like the dum animals your are. Smoke another joint and talk about your god king Obammmyyy. The collapse will be magnificent.
So what you're saying is we could substitute the militaristic US war on drugs and start a good old fashion Walmart price war on pot?
I think I love you all.
how do you suppose they looted the people and land and personal rights, moneys and freedoms by making 20 cents of product worth 200 dollars and controlling it and taxing the public to do it, and pay the irrational salarys to do it./
taint seen no afghanistan hashish in bout 30 years but still recall the smell.
what is that some sop to tell me to forget the returns on my hard earned and harder saved savings that devalue my time, value and money? typical horsesh*t worth about as much as the true value of the illegal substances
"what would all those law enforcement employees do? what about those who supply them with law enforcement equipment? the people who work at jails? lawyers who defend and prosecute?"
The answer to these questions is obvious.
Go after white collar criminals. Arrest Angelo Mozilo. Go after the people buying and selling democracy and bribing politicians. Go after people pushing Ponzi crack and Housing Casino Crank.
There is much more injustice being done in America than by the gentle doobie-toking brethren out there.
Go after the real bad guys, not people smoking pot.
Most of these anti-legalization people don't get it. It's not about the drugs - it's about the money. Think a little deeper - what is the markup on these drugs? %500? %1000? Drug cartels have the money now to build (from scratch) submarines that can evade our drug interdiction efforts 90% of the time. How much money does it take to build submarines? And what do they do with them when they deliver the (several tons) of drugs? Sink em! Drug cartels have the money to build disposable submarines! No joke - google it. They have the money to fund armies to protect their turf, their markets. Everywhere along the path, the desire for MONEY puts everyone in their path at risk. How do you thik these thugs have been able to take over the border towns of Mexico? Money! Money to buy armies that are better armed than the Mexican army.
And where do they get the money? From drug users in the United States of America. Make drugs legal and you cut the funding for the most dangerous gangs and terrorists on the planet. Our war on drugs has enabled criminals to take over most of the 3rd world, where they can then export thier violence to the rest of us.
Making drugs legal makes the streets of America safer.
Dazed & Confused,
of course the standard "LOL at the potheads" response to what is a clear civil liberties and unconsitutional expansion of the Federal Government issue.
I hate to break the news to you, but people already take drugs. It's easier for a 17 year old to buy cocaine than it is for them to buy alcohol. Legalizing them won't suddenly make everyone run out to shoot up.
Prohibition gave America organized crime in force which has been impossible to dislodge. The drug war gave America real honest to goodness street gangs and smugglers who use that experience in transporting illegal immigrants. It also corrupted basically every institution that interacts with the war on drugs.
Legalizing recreational drugs would just make them like alcohol. So either bring back prohibition or give up on the idiotic hypocrisy.
And by the way I've *never* even tried an illicit drug, not a puff of dope in my life let alone anything else. So writing me off with "LOL at the potheads" is a bit ridiculous.
At the very least this is a State issue. What business does the Federal Government have saying what plants can and can't be grown? And what chemicals can and can't be consumed by consenting adults?
The war on drugs is just an excuse to grow the government as large as possible. Just like the war on terror, or the war on any other abstract (and hence undefeatable) thing.
"The country’s implacable blend of prohibition and punitive criminal justice is wrong-headed in every way..."
When liberty is outlawed, only outlaws will have liberty.
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