The other "War"

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

The so-called "War on Drugs."

The US has approximately 2,000,000 people incarcerated in state and federal prisons. By some estimates, approximately half of those are charcterized as non-violent drug offenders.

The hysteria over drugs has brought us to a situation where many violent offenders get put out on the street early because of mandatory minimums for drug offenders.

The "War on Drugs" drains billions of tax dollars from the treasury, money that could be (depending on your political bent) be used moreproductively or be returned to the taxpayers themselves.

The republicrats, however, stand in lockstep on this failed program.

Is it the government's job to not just protect us from ourselves, but to criminalize us when we don't heed their warning?

[Gamblor]

I like drugs.

[MMMMMM]

Drugs are bad for you. You would do well develop other things to like instead.

[Utah]

I am very much for legalized drugs such as pot. I think it is pretty hypocritical to allow drinking, which kills thousands a year, destroys untold numbers of families, and hurts U.S. productivity, but then worry about a bunch of teenagers getting high.

However, it is not so obvious that the war on drugs in a failure. Crimes in this country have decreased significantly during the war on drugs. Also, you have no baseline to compare it too - i.e., we cannot look into a crystal ball and determine what society would be like if drugs were legalized.

I always thought a better approach to the drug war would be for the government to develop some better designer drugs.

[jokerswild]

The world's largest illegal controlled narcotics trafficker is none other than the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Your "Great Leader's" daddy was heavily involved. They called that little debacle Iran-Contra. Oliver North still has an outstanding warrant in Costa Rica for trafficking in cocaine.

[MMMMMM]

"The world's largest illegal controlled narcotics trafficker is none other than the US Central Intelligence Agency."

Where did you get this beauty? Sounds like nonsense to me.

"Your "Great Leader's" daddy was heavily involved. They called that little debacle Iran-Contra. Oliver North still has an outstanding warrant in Costa Rica for trafficking in cocaine."

I don't know about that.

[MMMMMM]

The war on drugs does not seem to be working. My guess is that supply and demand will always make drugs available. Decriminalization if not legalization strikes me as probably being a good idea.

[andyfox]

20,000 people are killed each year by drunk drivers. Won't we face similar problems with under-the-influence-of-drugs drivers if we legalized/decriminalized?

[adios]

Seems like almost every company does drug screening of one sort or another but I understand that drug tests can be "beaten." I still think that this has had an effect in decreasing drug use or at least the growth in drug usage among many. IMO growth in the private sector is much more effective in combating drug usage than money spent on government programs so in that sense I think a lot of the money spent on government interdiction is wasted. You'll have to prove me wrong by showing me how drug usage has increased among the "enfranchised" members of our society if you will.

[MMMMMM]

"20,000 people are killed each year by drunk drivers. Won't we face similar problems with under-the-influence-of-drugs drivers if we legalized/decriminalized?"


Don't we face those problems now too? (Also, of course I'm not advocating that either drunks or druggeds be permitted to operate motor vehicles under the influence. If anything I think penalties for drunk driving should be stiffened.) And didn't a lot of drunk driving go on during prohibition anyway? Do you think that because pot is illegal in most states that there are substantially fewer stoned drivers? Or to take your apparent position to its logical flipside: do you advocate making alcohol illegal again in order to reduce the number of drunk driving deaths?

[andyfox]

FWIW:

http://www.ciadrugs.com/

http://www.serendipity.li/cia.html


Gary Webb's book Dark Alliance and Cockburn's book Whiteout are good starting places. I thought Webb's book was persuasive, Cockburn's less so. Also McCoy's Politics of Heroin in Southesast Asia (the reissued title might be slightly different) is convincing.

It would be unreasonable to assume the CIA has not been involved in drug-running to raise money. Whether it's the world's largest trafficker is another story.

[MMMMMM]

Read The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Governments Embrace by award-winning journalist James Mills.

[MMMMMM]

P.S. that first site looks like one brad might have found, and Chris Alger would love. It's high on conspiracies, and its political bias screams loudly.

[andyfox]

I'm really not sure of my position. I just asked the question. Seems to me if we make something easily obtainable people will use it more than now when it is at least somewhat difficult to obtain.

Your question about making alcohol illegal begs the question a bit. Alcohol has long been legal and an entire public industry has been built around it: liquor stores, wineries, bars, advertising, etc. The illegal drug industry is still an underground industry and legalization would encourage the development of a public industry (for good or for bad). Seems to me more people would indulge when it became public and more people would be hurt. So yes, I do believe that there are fewer stoned drivers because pot is illegal. (I don't know what the statistics were on drunk driving during prohibition.)

However, there is also a question of which activity we ought to crack down on. (Or should I say which activity down on which we ought to crack /images/graemlins/smile.gif) If 20,000 people are being killed by drunk drivers, should we be discouraging drinking or discouraging drunk driving? When the Equal Rights Amendment was being considered, one of my friends said she was against it because she didn't want her daughter to be drafted and possibly have to go to war. I argued that this was not a valid argument against the E.R.A., but rather an argument against the draft.

So perhaps we ought to be against stoned driving rather than the legalization/decriminalization of relatively benign recreational drugs like marijuana. But I do think we ought to at least consider the possible negative ramifications.

[andyfox]

There was an editorial in the L.A. Times yesterday saying we're wasting our money fighting the supply side, that we should be attacking the demand side. They quoted, of all people, Donald Rumsfeld, who, on a visit to (I believe) South America, basically said that trying to keep drugs from coming in just won't work, that we ought to be attacking the problem from the demand side.

[andyfox]

Like I said, FWIW. But the Webb, McCoy and Cockburn books are worth investigating. For example, I know that Nguyen Cao Ky ran an airline in South Vietnam that was used extensively to smuggle drugs. He ran the country for a while. It would be unreasonable to assume the CIA was unaware and did not participate in order to raise money for their "unbudgeted" activities.

[andyfox]

[andyfox]

1165 pages? I have a short attention span. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

That's exactly the problem with the program. Threatening the lives and liberty of individuals who are doing nothing to harm anyone but themselves.

[MMMMMM]

"1165 pages? I have a short attention span"

It's a great book and non-fiction. Once you start reading it you won't be able to put it down /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

The question is valid. However, more stringent drunk-driving laws have not had as much effect as was hoped. By lowering the legal limit from 0.1 to 0.08 and advertising the fact, we have basically succeeded in taking people off the streets who weren't the problem to begin with.

What we need is more severe enforcement and penalties for repeat offenders.

[John Cole]

Take the money spent on the war on drugs. Hit the streets. Buy up the drugs. Burn them in an incinerator. Much more effective.

John

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Yea, the war on drugs is a collosul waste of time, money, energy, and the lives of the non-violent people who wind up getting F@#$ed over them. In many states violent crimes carry a far lesser penalty than minor drug crimes. Where the hell are the morals of all the "moral" people who keep advocating the war on drugs?

al

[Gamblor]

Far be it from me to be a total moron, about as hard as I get is a joint every few days.

No time for anything harder than that. Except once every few months my brother will give me one of his Ritalin before I go drinking, and wow, that stuff is fun.

[Cyrus]

There is nothing hidden or mysterious here. It's all quite open.

The anti-free choice and all-intrusive civil policies are the cornerstones of the current brand of religious fundamentalists now in charge of the GOP and the administration. These policies are the exact antithesis of liberalism. These policies are served well by indefinitely extending and expanding the so-called war on drugs. The resources allocated into that so-called war create a government mechanism of humans and money that comes to share, out of self-preservation, the same all-intrusive ideology. It is to the United States government interest to go on scoring in that so-called war as much as possible. The United States government is high on drugs.

"White Out" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1859842585/qid=1072427543/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-3500683-2047241?v=glance&s=books)

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

The anti-free choice and all-intrusive civil policies are the cornerstones of the current brand of religious fundamentalists now in charge of the GOP and the administration.

Cite me some examples of a liberal Democrat who has opposed the War on Drugs. I'm not arguing that the fundies in the GOP aren't doing this, but last I checked, this policy was identical during the Clinton years.

Even Nader and the Greens hedged on this issue. Only the LP stands firmly against it.

[Cyrus]

The point of my post was that the deeply reactionary and anti-democratic American Right is best served by the War on Drugs. Anyone helping that effort helps the Right's cause.

"Even Nader and the Greens hedged on this issue [of the "War on Drugs"]."

True enough. The American Right has successfully bullied the opposition of its "War" into complicit silence, if not submission. Nader and the Greens already come on as "weirdos out of left field" -- more accurately : they are portrayed as such in the American media. So they kow-tow to the "established" line on an inssue (drugs) that correctly surmise can burn them totaly is they "mishandle" it. The cowards!

"Cite me some examples of a liberal Democrat who has opposed the War on Drugs."

Some liberals have bravely bucked the trend and opposed the lunacy. John Kerry, (D) Mass., held an inquiry during the 80s about the role of the American government's various agencies in the international trade of drugs. The investigation lasted two years and its report was devastating, unearthing among other snakepits the Iran/Contra drug-for-arms deal. Kerry's report denounced the war on drugs as gigantic smokescreen by the government, that had other, more sinister objectives. Rep. Dennis Kucinich ( Ohio )

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, (D) Ohio, has taken the strongest stance of any Democrat in the Presidential race so far. He told reporters in May 2003 that medical marijuana should be available "to any patient who needs it to alleviate pain and suffering." He is not a co-sponsor of Rep. Barney Frank's bill to let states legalize medical marijuana but has signed on to a measure that would allow defendants in federal pot trials to claim medical use.

Howard Dean, (D) Vermont, has called the drug war "a failure" and criticized mandatory-minimum sentences. However, his legislative arm-twisting and veto threats killed Vermont's medical-marijuana bill in 2002. (!boo hiss!)

"This policy was identical during the Clinton years."

Bill Clinton, when Governor, had acted on the wrong side of that "war", i.e. the government side. The Arkansas governor had directly assisted a company that was involved in the CIA-backed drug trafficking (the infamous MENA scandal). Clinton steadfastly promoted the right-wing line on drugs. His accute political instict (some call it weaseling) alowed him to hijack the conservative position under the GOP feet and run with it!

"Only the LP stands firmly against it."

The Libertarians are to be congratulated and supported -- on this issue -- for not caving in to pressure. Even the Canadian government had been bullied a few years ago (remember?) into checking (http://www.thehempire.com/pm/comments/725_0_1_0_C/) with the United States government before passing a drug-related (and quite liberal) law!..

--Cyrus