"many people self-medicate to try to ease the pain in their lives." This is the real problem. What motivates people to use drugs and what fuels addiction has been ignored completely on a social or political level. It is all about punishing the victim instead. Yet there are 144 different addictions, sex, gambling, shopping, working, religion, etc. that have the same foundation: medication or behavior intended to bury the emotional pain. From what I have seen stress in this society is increasing rapidly and few know how to stop it. And all the laws, regulations and policies have had no impact. The political and legal institutions of this country no longer consider or understand human beings, only automatons.

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Drugs (hard): We must de-criminalize the use of hard drugs by consenting users, but only if they agree to rehabilitation. Put drug pushers in jail for a minimum of ten years, and allow the legal sale of drugs via a physician prescription and at the lowest price possible with minimal markups. Only when we remove the profit motive will we drive the drug pushers out of business, and they will no longer be giving free drugs to teens to get them hooked. This is the only plausible way of minimizing this terrible drain on society (though the right wing will oppose it even to their detriment).

Drugs (Marijuana): Legalize the use of marijuana but apply the same laws to these users as we do to those who consume alcohol and drive motor vehicles.

And for the record I have never used either form of drugs, and coinsider myself a center-right Republican.

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As a Dutch citizen I a amazed why American and some European politicians and governments are so paranoid about drugs, but less about alcohol and normal cigarettes. Best is to de-criminalize drugs like Switzerland and The Netherlands are doing. Cigarettes and alcohol are a health risk and so are drugs. Fact is as you state in your article: drugs aren't going anywhere. But an interesting point would be to follow the money trail, you would be surprised and underdstand why drugs aren't going anywhere.

TomTom, Fearless Navigator and non smoker and non user of drugs.

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And I'll tell you why. The drugs aren't coming from miscellaneous guys like "Pablo Escobar" in distant lands. It's the CIA, DEA, et al. KB&R isn't just soaking up no-bid contracts in Iraq, they're warehousing tons of cocaine in their Columbian buildings and shipping it through their oil rigs and flying it across in military jets.

You don't do a takedown of corruption like that with mere lawyers and "public policy." You won't even get off the ground, and you'll be lucky not to end up dead for trying to cut into the CIA's profit margins. The "War on Drugs" can only end if and when the "ruling elite" are given the boot and democracy is brought to the US.

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God works in mysterious ways and when Delamer Duverus came to us the first thing He did was to expose a 50+ man illegal drug cartel composed of very prominent "citizens", physicians, dentists, attorneys, public servants, including law enforcement, and even businessmen and corporate executives.
The diet has lots to do with being prone to alcohol and drug addiction. If we could educate about this and if we could educate our people that they are funding their own demise by buying and using illegal drugs which can damage our genetics for future generations, then perhaps we could stop the drugs. It's a vicious circle and they use it against us.

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The war on drugs makes the dea unwilling to allow the use of industrial hemp. Most fabric and paper ought to be made from hemp. If I had my way most cotton and soy would be replaced with hemp. Pine would never be used to produce paper just building materials when appropriate.

The war on drugs is a dream only a nazi would like! For most people it's a cruel nightmare.

In this so called "free" country where we are supposed to value liberty, I can not grow a plant to produce seeds that will provide me sustinence and ease my heart with essential fatty acids.

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I understand that some number of years ago, the Florida state legislature passed a bill declaring that most first drug "offenses" be viewed by the law not as crimes but as medical problems, that is, treated in a detox program rather than be convicted of a crime or imprisoned (I may have some of the details of this legislation incorrect, but the gist was what I indicated).

Governor Jeb Bush was recalcitrant to the conception that illicit drug use was not always a crime against society and vetoed the bill. He was proud to stand for ZERO TOLERANCE (remarkably, conservatives are proud to be intolerant and consider it a virtue).

Then his daughter Noelle got into trouble with illegal drugs, something about obtaining Xanax or a similar prescription sedative illegally, I believe by forging or telephoning in a prescription herself. Crime or illness?

Now this was different, Jeb explained. This was a private family matter, not a public spectacle, and should be viewed with pity and compassion. OK, so rehab is right for a Bush, not prison. OK, so she was caught with illegal drugs in rehab. Terrible personal tragedy, nothing to see here. New policy: ONE TOLERANCE.

Fast forward a few years to the celebrated Rush Limbaiugh case, also out of Florida. You know how that turned out. All of ditto-head-dom screamed "oersecution) in unison. After all, 300-400 OxyContin a week purchased by coaxing your domestic (illegal no doubt) to score for you on the streets, well that's just a back problem. And how dare thaey try to subpoena his health records to see if there was any validity to the claim. And he got the elitist Republican pass.

So now they're up to TWO TOLERANCE in Florida. Aren't you proud of America and it's just drug policy? I know that I am. How many flaws does a country have to possess before its people realize that it is no longer great, now it's just a wealthy, powerful, arrogant and hypocritical bully. And only Americans don't know that . But they will.

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I use to sell kilos in this country for $175. I purchased the kilos in Nuevo Laredo for $20 and no one was getting shot. So the war on drugs has been very successful, it put a lot of money in the hands of the people who were suppose to have it. You do not think beer can compete with cheap pot do you?

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As a recovering cocaine addict, I must say that the dangers of the drug far outweigh any positive results that de-criminalizing or legalizing could ever bring. In my opinion, anyone busted for cocaine use should be sentenced to immediate medical treatment(physical, and mental) and every attempt be made to alieveate the stress and or psychological condition that has created this problem. Trust me, the eventual physical problems that serious cocaine abuse will bring far outwiegh the pleasurable high it sometimes brings. I was a daily abuser for fifteen years and now in my sixties, am paying the price. I am also drug free since 1984 except for freaking cigarettes.

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There's too much money, both licit and illicit, for any poltician of either party to call for a sensible drug policy.

On the one hand we have the so-called legitimate forces of the law enforcement lobby and the drug rehab lobby. Let's be real, if funding for either or both law enforement or rehabilitation programs were drastically cut, a lot of poeple would be out of a lot of phony-balony jobs.

Then there's the illegitimate forces of drug distribution, or just to be more accurate let's call it the "illegal drug investment industry." Think about it. What other "investment" has as high of rate of return? And the higher up the "investment" chain we go, the lesser the risk of detection. I mean, does anybody really believe that the street gangs, Crips, Bloods etc., that the federal government went after hammer and tongs during the 80's "cocaine epidemic" had direct connections with the Cali, Columbia, drug lords in the beginning? The DEA goes after the high profile criminals, but never the white collar "investors."

There's too much money being made off the "drug war" for it to stop in our lifetime.

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That should be the motto of our society. It's sponsor is the American Pharmaceutical Industry. Just listen to your TV and it will tell you what drug is right for you and to "ask your doctor" for professional confirmation of your self-diagnosis. But solutions which don't require money, such as diet, herbs, exercise, friendship, meditation, yoga and community are laregely ignored. When was the last time you heard "All you need is community" from your living room spellcaster? ( TV )

Many fears are born of fatigue and lonliness. Such is the way of our life in the "money economy" which drives us to work harder than we should and to depend on money as the solution to all our problems.

The question we should ask ourselves is:

"What is better than drugs?"

Steve Moyer
Candidate for U.S. Senate
http://stevemoyer.us

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Marijuana and opium shouldn't be treated any more differently than cigarettes or alcohol. Overindulgence in those, or use of the harder stuff, should be treated as a medical problem (decrminalization). This would take the much of the profit away from the cartels.

There is an unfortunate Puritan streak in this country that led to Prohibition that is manifesting itself here. There are, of course, economic interests as well. I think of what is called the prison-industrial complex. In New York, most of the prisons are upstate. These areas are politically conservative and also benefit economically from the presence of prisons.

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The "war on drugs" is actually a war on sustainable agriculture. Drugs don't make seeds. Herbs do. Cannabis is not an optional resource. It is a critically determinate to mankind's slim chance of achieving sustainability on this planet.

Every negative experience anyone has ever had with so-called "drugs" has happened in the context of the "drug war." Problems are being created to create a market for the counter-productive measures, being imposed at the point of a gun. Such prolonged, radical imbalance in agricultural production of fuel, food, herbal therapeutics, etc. guarantees that scarcity of essential resources, and contamination of the auquifer by chemical drugs, will continue. Unless prohibition ends, mankind's addiction to toxic, unevenly distributed, finite chemicals will end in synergistic collapse of the Earth's environment, humankind's economics and our social structures.

The Economics of Punishment are impacted. The degenerative inertia is strong. Unless there is a coordinated shift in policy, most likely to come from the public, up to the so-called leaders, time will continue to be the limiting factor in the equation of survival.

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The War on Drugs is, has been and will continue to be a failure unless it's methods change. It amazes me that the same people who claim to be so knowledgeable about enterprise and market capitalism have such a tin-ear on this.

The bottom line is this: our drug policies have caused the problem to get worse by making it very profitable to get people hooked and keeping them supplied. The harder governments push the more profitable it becomes to sell the drugs. Repression by police will not work.

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Just this past Sunday, a person wote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper urging that a new drug rehab. center not be allowed to open. His stated reasoning was "this drug rehabilitation center cannot be allowed unless it has high walls topped with barbed wire, armed guards and 24 hour high tech. surveillence equipment because these drug addicts have proven themselves to be unworthy of our trust." He the stated "we need to deal with drug addicts like Singapore where if a person is caught using drugs, they are hung by the neck until dead. Then, we wouldn't have a drug problem." There are way too many people that have this attitude toward drug use and it makes my skin crawl! I recently saw a documentary on the History of Drug Prohibition, and it was enlightening to say the least. Drug laws originally were initiated that prohibited Chinese immigrants only from purchasing or using opium. The laws were later expanded to prevent Mexican immigrants from using their native marijuana. The laws were presented by demonizing their behavior while under the influence of these drugs. Finally, when alcohol prohibition came along with the ChristianTemperance Movement, all drugs were banned for recreational use because like alcohol, they "made people crazy and antisocial." This hysteria continues today just as it did almost 100 years ago, and the hysteria is completely based on a disinformation campaign by our federal government. As you can see from the above letter I quoted, there are still many people that believe drugs will make people criminals. Until we as responsible Americans can convince the dumbed up majority that drug laws cause the crime, not the drugs, we are fighting the losing side of the drug war. The only way to initiate change is through education of others at the local level. At the very least, we must convince a majority of lawmakers that harm reduction, such as in Canada and the UK must replace the harmful war on drugs. Our government is turning americans against americans and destroying way too many our of fellow citizens lives to allow this to continue.

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Keep in mind that the government continues the drug war because it keeps a lot of people employed: cops, jail related occupations, etc. Not to mention the dealing power with other countries like Mexico. There's always a lot of lip service, but you will never see anything change because the government likes it just the way it is.

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There has been so many ideas and beliefs stated here. I want to offer mine. Simply put, every person that chooses to smoke should save their seeds (they can stay good for years when frozen). Then from late August to Late June (depending on where you live) you should drive down the interstate and throw your seeds out the window onto the grass beside the road. Many seeds will sprout, and many will grow and multiply fairly quickly. Even those highways mowed occasionally cannot stop this plant from growing (it is after all a weed). The point in this is not to smoke it (it probably wouldn't even be worth smoking), but rather to illuminate the idiocy of making a naturally occurring plant illegal. In many parts of the country, this could be a 4/20 tradition since the date falls into the right planting period. Spread this idea around if you like it, and maybe in a few years the scent of the interstate may make traffic jams a little less stressful.

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Seen a bottle of Valium shot up lately? How about an ounce of Pot, decapitated? Any rocks of crack-cocaine, dragged through the streets and hung from a bridge?

No? Didn't think so.

The War on Drugs is bogus. Declaring war on inanimate objects should seem stupid to most people with more than three neurons firing, but that's America for you.

All the government has to do is scare people bad enough, and they will vote to declare war on a grapefruit; piss their pants, wave the flag and we are off and running again, spending billions of our hard earned bucks bulldozing fields of grapefruit trees. Note: The people who are doing the bulldozing will be working for no-bid contractors.

I realize that Cannabis is not the same thing as grapefruit, but the War on drugs is, nevertheless, stupid, if your real purpose is keeping kids off drugs long enough for their nervouis systems to fully form. As a matter of fact, criminalizing drugs assured us that our kids would be using drugs for generations to come.

The simple fact of the matter is that drugs are not going away. Not Ever!

There are many reason why that is true. I won't go into all of them, but one is very simple. Mankind has always sought alternative states of consciousness and always will. A healthy society will find a way to accomodate that need or it will spend more money on prisons than it will on the basic necessities of life with dignity, which is what we are currently doing.

What we really need to do is stop declaring freakin' war on everything of which the majority disapproves or everything that frightens us.

Now, in addition to the war on inaniminate objects, we have a war on an extreme emotional state; the War on 'Turr.' That war, too, is bogus.

The Bushites even tried to connect the two, for simplicity sake, I assume. At least, the idiotic idea that pot heads were big Al Qaeda supporters fell through the floorboards, hopefully. But one can never tell, can one? We thought that TIA had gone away too, when we found it had only moved from the Pentagon to the NSA.

Lyndon Johnson decalerd war on poverty. That really worked out well, eh.? Give Reagan two years in the White House and there were more whole families living in their cars and on the streets than anyone had seen since the Great Depression.

Any presidential candidate who can find other ways of dealing with anything, other than declaring war on it or criminalizing it, I will vote for. Of course, that vote may or may not count because no one has declared war on paperless voting machines or election stealing.

Life in America is so grim, that the status of drugs is assured, legal or otherwise. Just ask Nicole Bush.

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Given the miserable state of our culture it's little wonder folks resort to drugs. Stress, brought on by job worries (out-sourcing, lay-offs, lower wages and health care benefits slashed) and possibly a sub-conscious revulsion over the workings of our corrupt and criminal government, may cause many to choose drugs, both legal and illegal, to ease their burden. The simple life, if it ever existed, is over. Shop til you drop, be a good consumer, and especially you poorer folks, provide the military with cannon fodder to kill and be killed, is a recipe for ever increasing drug use.

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I would like to say how true this article is and all the comments, one who struggles with addiction everyday I live one day at a time. It is hard to stay clean and sober when one sees and feels the pain in this world.
I went back to school in my 50's to become a Substance Abuse Counselor and after a year stopped. I researched this system we live in to find the cause of addiction. I FOUND IT!!
It was started for money and continues to make us slaves while feeding us this disease-ADDICTION. Keep us down and feed us pleasure, keep us distracted.

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Ah, but we need to lock people up so prison industries will make those capitalizing on them rich. The drug war has made it all possible and now they can get their tax breaks from the republicans. It has back doored slavery back into America.

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Researchers surprised to find no link between marijuana, lung cancer
Study's findings apply even to heavy pot smokers
Marc Kaufman, Washington Post

Friday, May 26, 2006

This article also goes on to say that there is a positive effect of THC on lung cancer --

SO if I see one more comment about how smoking cigarettes and smoking pot are the same and one is legal and one isn't; I'm going to throw up.

Let's make sure, we aren't adding fuel to the DRUG WAR fire.

I tried to post the link, but am apparantly not saavy enough to get past the 40 character limit, so it is found on www.sfgate.com if you search for it, it was posted 5/26

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him. I especially think his second point is important to grasp. I had a terrible time with booze as a young man, found MJ and realized I could forge a life with it as my recreational drug of choice but that booze would kill me. Stopped drinking, raised a family, worked in middle level management in the health care industry for many years and now my wife and I run our own small business and I managed to do all this even though I smoked herb daily. I have other friends who can pound down the beer and be fine the next day but take a toke and feel a little off center for days. We need to realize as stated above that people will choose to alter their consciousness, then we need to add to that the concept that each person will have a different reaction to any given drug and that through experimentation can find what works for them. Mind you this is true for those who do not use drugs also, whether you get through the day using religion, bingo, blogging, whatever it doesnt matter as long as it works for you and helps you connect the dots of your life. To lock up people because you disagree with the method they use to alter their consciousness is reprehensible. No more powerful mind alteration can be had than the one you can get from religion and as we can see with theocrats here and around the world this is not always a alteration that can be called good and yet you see no one suggesting this form of mind alteration should be made illegal even though it can be tied to more violence, hatred and killing than any other agent of mind alteration. The war on drugs needs to end-LETS DECLARE VICTORY and then we can all go pursue our rush of choice.

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When many states have effectively decriminalized purse-snatching, car theft and other assault- and property- related crimes by releasing those perpetrators early to make room for those sentenced for dealing and possessing, something's wrong.

Because a huge percentage of property crimes are committed to pay for illegal drugs, our policies have created a strange situation in many communities where non-users suffer more real-world consequences than users. That's neither logical nor fair.

Nor is it logical to expend resources supposedly needed for battling terrorists to chase down 'marijuana tunnels' like the one closed last year in the Pacific Northwest. Terrorists may or may not be a threat to Americans, but thousands of dried plants surely are not.

We have a greater percentage of our population incarcerated than any other 'developed' country in the world, but instead of wondering why, we just build more prisons.

It's hard to see how decriminalizing drugs would make things any worse than keeping them illegal, but it would at least shift whatever harm they supposedly do directly to those who use them.

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The war on drugs is a covert money operation for the feds. They hide their bullshit under the mask of morals. I have said it before, I will say it again, I am a chronic pain patient, and because of the nature of my affliction, I need pain medications, sorta like a diabetic needs insulin. Without them, I spend days on end in bed because it is too painful to walk. Please, you good Christians and law abiding citizens out there, why am I considered a criminal when a diabetic or a person with depression (ooops, I forgot, the mentally ill are also evil), or a person with hypertension that must control their blood pressure with meds. are not? You "good" people harass my physicians, and harass and label me an addict when all I want to do is try to function so I can contribute to your society. The drug war has half a million of our fellow Americans in prison, and one example is Richard Paey, a chronic pain patient with MS, confined to a wheelchair. Mr. Paey was busted for taking too many Percocet pills (per the authoritys) and sentenced to 25 years in Florida State Prison. When he arrived at prison, he was given a morphine pump that supplies him with more pain medication than he was sent to prison for. Now tell me, especially anyone on this site that happens to be in favor of the drug war, is that logical in your mind?

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I feel very strongly about this issue... *NOT* having any personal experience with illegal drugs but having PLEANTY of experience with what happens after the Criminal Justice System is done, I firmly believe non violent drug offenses should be decriminalized. Further I believe that society as well as goverment would be very well served by decriminalizing some of the substances, controlling marketing and distribution as they do with tobacco and Alcohol, and taxing these substances, with the hope that said funds would be used for school etc.
My reasons for this are several, first there is a problem that is not addressed were non-violent drug offences occur, and that is the many of these crimes are commited by women. On average each woman in prison has 3.5 children.
Approximately 75 percent of incarcerated women are mothers, and two-thirds have children under the age of 18. Seventy-two (72) percent of women prisoners with children under the age of 18 lived with those children before entering prison.
So what happens to these kids?
First they go to family, family that usually has other children to care for or are already overburdoned financially. Second they go into the foster care system. Here are statistics on the next generation of convicted criminals ...
Forty-six percent had a family member who had been incarcerated
About 12 percent had lived in a foster home or institution.
Our current laws set up the next generation to be ready to go into the prision system, and the laws against drug offenses keep getting tougher and tougher.
Here's why...
Private prison companies stay profitable by courting political influence and supporting strict sentencing laws.
Corporate-owned prisons need a steady flow of inmates to maintain profits. To protect their profit margins, prison companies exert political influence by contributing thousands of dollars to state political campaigns. Lobbyists for private prisons support tough-on-crime legislation that ensures the continued need for prison space.
The number of prisoners in private prisons grew more than 2,000 percent between 1987 and 1996, soaring from 3,122 to 78,000.1 Privately-run facilities held more than 98,790 inmates at mid-year 2004—up 3.4 percent since 2003.
The business of incarceration is booming, with revenue passing the $1 billion mark in 1998.
Two companies dominate the for-profit incarceration industry—Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections. These two companies control 75 percent of the for-profit incarceration market.
They are NOT the only companies profiting from our "war". Munitions, guns, automobile, and a host of other law enforcement providers are ALL profiting from this little exercise in futility. In fact you would not see a more disappointed group of people if all of the sudden drugs ceased to exist in society.
Now do we feel morally superior to countries that choose NOT to fight the bad fight? I certainly hope not... we are paying very very dearly for our moral high ground.

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We declare war on anything and everything that bothers us: poverty, drugs, terrorism, prostitution, homosexualality, just about anything. It is crazy and we are crazy for allowing it to happen. We must start to use our language as it was meant to be used, as something that is specific to a definition. War is when we go about killing other people to get what they have or to keep them from taking from us what they want. War is about killing, not about changing anyone's habits or minds, it is about killing, and when we use the term war we are going to kill someone.

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Great article, and I can relate to it all; all his points ring. But it is his #2 that shouts at me.

I began what I expected would be "playing" with crack cocaine because at that time I had already given up tobacco, and although I had only tried alcohol, weed, and speed and those I could take or leave. So why not the same with crack.

I now know what addiction feels like. Even while I recognized very early on that I was helpless to resist crack, and I began participation in 12 Step programs with a month or two, it has taken me nearly 15 years to finally get 4 3/4 years clean.

I had to be shamed by law enforcement as I have never been shamed before in my life. I desperately wanted sobriety by DIY; I'm no weakling, I told myself.

Only the company of other addicts has saved me. Just as abuse of crack changed my life, so now 12 Step programs have changed my life. As one who has studied philosophy of religion most of his now long life, I am constantly amazed at the practical wisdom from Bill W. He, and they, were geniuses.

As it is an anonymous program, we don't hear a lot about it. I am comforted to know of the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of active participants. We're far from saints, but an honest program is one that helps others.

If you have a better suggestion, I'd sure like to hear it. But I won't hold my breath.

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In July Congress will vote on an amendment to stop the FEDS from arresting patients in states with laws that allow medical use of cannabis.
Is it too much to ask of Congress?
It is quick and easy........form letter available for convenience if wanted.
http://action.mpp.org

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Let's see:

Methamphetamine, aka "ice" or "shards" - a very dangerous drug, the cause of all kinds of physiological and emotional damage to the users. For example, see the movie "Spun".

Pharmaceutical analog: Ritalin - prescribed to 7-year olds on the pyschiatrist's recommendation. Does this predispose little kids to a future of meth or cocaine addiction? Yes it does.

Heroin - the scourge of nations, produced in Afghanistan and other countries, shipped out to Europe and the US, the cause of all kinds of social ills.

Pharmaceutical analogs- many many many, for example, oxycontin, the trailer park heroin substitute. Back pain, anyone? Oh, I have this terrible back pain, can you double my prescription? Oh sure, no problem.

Cocaine - that South American epidemic - but are we talking inner city crack? Off to jail for ten years for you! Powder cocaine? Well, we can't send this 17-year old child of wealthy upstanding background to jail, now can we? Give her some Ritalin! That'll cure her 'attention deficit disorder'.

Now, when is the last time you heard of a pharma company being prosecuted for their crimes (Hurray for Eliot Spitzer!)?

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All I know about drugs is that it is pretty messed up to imprison someone for poisoning themselves of their own free will while allowing big business to poison us against our wills as much as they please.

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Inappropriate intoxication is a problem. But what do we do about that problem?

The government has arrested, jailed, fined, treated and otherwise interfered in the private lives of millions of Americans because of drugs.

So why does the government bother itself with the drug war? Money. 40 billion a year is powerful incentive for police, and politicians.

Put the 40 billion into general medical treatment. The medical community will find an appropriate use for that money and help our society, too.

Cops should be patrolling the streets looking for evil, not drugs.

This is what should be done.

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It is time for you to go bye-bye, Washington D.C. You have hurt too many people, you have committed too many crimes. You are cancelled, like a bad TV series only this time there will be no campy re-runs...M.N.

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Stupid US-induced drug laws here in Brazil put "Maconha"-use up there with hard-drugs. The prisons are filled to 400% capacity mostly with small-time-dealers and -users of that harmless weed, who can't afford lawyers.
Now; the white-collar crooks go free with... well, even murder (huge transactions envolving coke/crack for guns and vice-versa!; or just plain pharma-goons; or tobacco-magnates, etc.) in the long run. Rarely does one hear of these bigshot's busts, and when so, they are usually out on their yachts soon enough, fomenting corruption as usual.
Meanwhile another few low-rank potheads go filling up the medieval prisons, learning the crime-trade. Society thus hostage to an ever worsening situation: The small-time crook has now graduated to a status of ex-con, and will fill the ranks of pot-dealers, here they are as criminal as heroin- or crack-dealers. And that hierarchic, ongoing "graduation" normally ends as dead - in-the-gutter-dead!
If one were to decriminalize pot usage, one would pull the carpet right out from under this mechanism, and could concentrate on big (useful) busts. And there'd be room to lock up the big-shots (the true culprits!).
But, although society here's at the limits of it's comprehension, US-induced witch-hunts continue. Alternatives aren't even contemplated. The IMF (or some other such neocolonial institution) may punish us.
How come the US don't meddle with wee Netherlands' affairs, but command ours as if we were theirs to order around?
Obviously some (most?) will say - diplomatically - that the US doesn't interfere, but THAT myth was busted a long time ago!

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"The Power of Now," has the clearest and most eye-opening advice for situations like the "use of drugs to ease emotional pain" that I've ever read. Eckhart Tolle (author) wrote this brilliant book which contains potentially usable, viable, living results by means of very practical application techniques: get it, read it, live it and spread it around...

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Virtually all of the gun-related massacres that have made headlines over the past decade have had one thing in common: They were perpetrated by people taking Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil or a related antidepressant drug."
"These drugs can cause Akathisia, mental and physical agitation that sparks self-destructive, violent behavior. They can also induce dissociative reactions, making those who take the drugs INSENSITIVE to the consequences of their behavior.

"...guns and movies don't cause these tragically frequent episodes of inexplicable violence. The real reason is written out on a prescription pad by psychiatrists and doctors all over the country—these monstrous acts were done not by criminals, but ordinary people high on prescription drugs.

"Yet the overuse of PROZAC-LIKE DRUGS is not even a part of the national debate, and those who sound the warning against them are ignored. I can only surmise that the reason the FDA continues to disregard these mounting SSRI-related casualties is because of this agency's close alliance with the multi-billion-dollar drug companies. Just imagine what the FDA would do if there were evidence that these massacres were performed by people taking natural antidepressants."

—Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D.
http://www.teenscreentruth.com/


See cool posters at

http://community.webshots.com/user/effexoractivist


Learn more about an out of control drug industry

http://theeffexoractivist.org/

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I asked this question to a few bloggers or newspapaers, magazines etc. and never get a reply so here goes:
HOW MANY OF THE PRISONS IN THE NATION ARE PRIVATELY OWNED AND WHO OWNS THEM? ISN'T IT POSSIBLE SINCE THIS PRACTICE IS A BUSINESS AND THEIR PRISONS NEED TO BE FILLED THERE COULD BE COLLUSION BETWEEN THE COURTS AND PRISONS TO KEEP THESE STUPID DRUG LAWS
FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PRIVATE CORPORATIONS? DUH!

I'D APPRECIATE A RESPONSE...A HUNGRY JOURNALIST COULD RESEARCH THIS NOTION IF IT'S PLAUSIBLE.

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Nor am I in favor of jailing users, but there are some facts that we need to keep straight: drugs, including legal drugs, can kill people and ruin lives. Marijuana is an obvious exception to the kill people part. The drug war may be a stupid waste of time and money, but what to do about the addicts? Drunk drivers plow into mothers and children all the damned time, and how can one trip over an OD'd body without thinking that SOMETHING needs to be done to help people?

Also, what about those that do not have a choice but to live with someone else's addiction. One post mentioned the plight of separated families, but hell, I would have done anything to get out of my parents' hell of alcohol, pot, and nicotine addiction. Who gave them the right to choke little kids on second hand smoke? Who gave them the right to get real fricken stoned and act in ways that were completely ineffectual (or just plain gross)? Who gave them the right to get high on speed and beat each other or their kids up? Or to drink themselves stupid and to call it normal? Maybe they would have been like that even without the drugs and booze--but I doubt that it would have been as bad. Addicts impact everyone around them, and there needs to be some way to address that. Remember, prohibition was the brain-child of feminists seeking to end domestic violence. Maybe jail isn't the answer, but who protects the rest of us from addiction and abuse? Hippies with an occasional case of the munchies are only part of the picture.

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Let's face it, folks. The only time when the law is truly enforced, is when money can be garnered from it. Just look at the safety belt regulations in cars....You think the police give a damn about your life? Of course not. They just want to ticket more people to get more money. The reason this so called "War on Drugs" is being waged is because it generates revenue for our government, as if the average of 52% of Americans' pay on average goes to the Government to fund corruption isn't enough....Plus, we are a prison nation...2 million people strong, and growing by each new drug bust. Who cares if Joe is stoned out of his mind...It isn't like he's hurting anyone else (I'd personally rather smoke marijuana than cigarettes filled with tobacco from third-world countries that use pesticides and chemicals illegal here [DDT, anyone?]).

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I would like to recommend a book that is a product of the university research system that attacks much of the mythology surrounding marijuana: Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts, by Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D. and John Morgan, MD. The American Medical Association hailed this book as, "An important contribution to the marijuana and drug policy literature."

This book is a product of the university research system, the main source for valid dissenting scientific opinions regarding drug use/abuse. The NIDA has shown that it certainly cannot be counted on to provide the funds for unbiased illicit drug research. The DEA makes it exceedingly difficult for any studies to be conducted that may challenge its propaganda, since it has to give approval beforehand. In 1972, the Shafer Commission warned, "Science has become a weapon in a propaganda battle."

Indeed, the university research system may be our only hope for more informed analysis and discussion of drugs and drug control policies. Its primary charge will be the dissemination of accurate information to our law and policy makers about many of the illicit substances that have been demonized over the years. We can only hope that the nation's drug policies will reflect this sane information, although this government has certainly turned a deaf ear to it so far.

The authors listed 20 commonly made claims about pot's harmful effects, all supposedly based on scientific studies, and found in recent government reports, press releases, drug education pamphlets, Partnership for a Drug Free America advertisements, and speeches by governmental officials. For each claim they searched the scientific literature for relevant studies, and over and over found that the evidence had been misinterpreted, misrepresented, or distorted. There was so little scientific support for the 20 claims that they called them myths. Like all myths, these contained a kernal of truth, but never more than that.

I think that the findings revealed by this research offer a clearly written rebuttal that every American should read.

Some of the myths include that marijuana:

Harms have been proven scientifically.
Has no medicinal value.
Is highly addictive.
Is a gateway drug.
Kills brain cells.
Causes amotivational syndrome.
Impairs memory and cognition.
Causes crime.
Interferes with male and femail sex hormones.
Causes psychological impairment.
Impairs the immune system.
Use is a major cause of highway accidents.

and others.

jimidan

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Yes the private prison industry is thriving in Texas these days. Wouldn't you know it, they're even publicly held companies listed on NYSE. So of course they don't want to de-criminalize drugs for that very reason. A recent article in the Austin American-Stateman stated that last year alone, there were over 800 arrests made of prison employees, ranging from drug trafficking to numerous other things.

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The saddest thing about the War on Drugs is that we are actually in a civil war against our own selves! Many other nations are similarly entwined in this same bloody battle. I believe that only God's Adversary the Devil himself is to blame for the mass confusion and insanity that prevails. Who else could have thought up such a divisive plan to separate the brotherhood of man so completely.

Fear not for it was meant to be, and was foretold in scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments. This the beginning of the period of great tribulations, the end times when we must live in constant fear - regardless of the contraversary regarding a seed bearing herb God created and gave to us for meat. For it was indeed made before He created Adam and Eve, according to the Holy Bible in the Book of Genesis.

Incidentally, while we are so divided and subsequently weakened as a nation, our real enemy is forging ahead courageously, united in their fervent desire to destroy us permanently, while they simultaneously wipe Israel off the globe with whatever manner of modern weaponry they can afford.

Of coarse with gas selling for less that four dollars a gallon it's no wonder the Islamic Terrorists need to rely on drug dealers to fund their wicked activities. None of the Arabic Nations support them, I'm told. Surely the profit earned from the sale of oil products used in the cars, boats, planes, helicopters, trains, satellite launching vehicles, manufacturing facilities and other services to support our Drug War would never find it's way into the pocket book of Osama Bin Laden and associates.

The war in Iraq, The Drug War, and the War on Terrorism are but minor skirmishes compared to the War of 2012 that is coming our way pretty darn soon. It will rattle the Halls of Montezuma and topple Wall Street too, but at least our prisons will be full of them pot heads and dopers who wouldn't be allowed to join us in the battle of Armageddon anyway. Everyone knows you cant be a soldier in our military if you ever smoked a joint!

Lord Have Mercy

Colonel O. W. Pepper IV esq. BMI

http://colonel_pepper.gop.com

http://THEWAROF2012.COM

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The other day an aquaintance told me he had an appointment with his drug counselor. I asked him what problem he had that required counseling. He said it was about his "marijuana addiction." Now, I don't feel that the herb is addictive, at least not in the physical sense, like nicotine or opiates and can only be addictive psychologically like TeeVee or sex.

My other thought on this though is that if there is going to be any counseling going on, those who use marijuana should perhaps be counseling those who don't. I'm more worried about a "boomer" politician who went to university in the sixties or seventies who insists he didn't try the herb. Those who grew up in those times and had no curiosity about what was happening around them are much scarier and were definitely the weirdos at the time. Even non-Curious George your embarrassing excuse for a Preznit apparently used most drugs going until he discovered Jesus. He sez he don't no more, but I'm not sure I'm buying it.

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Hi there! How many levels do I have to go through in order to contact Stephen Colbert via email?? If there are furher levels, please help me get through them. I want to write him a letter.

Thanks

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I find it amazing that no one mentions Henry Ford, or no one mentions that Hemp is the BEST oil on the planet!

Now do you understand why it's illegal?

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I believe $40 billion is way too low. The fed budget (DEA) this year is 69 billion. Add to that the cost of incarceration, probation, mandatory drug treatment (most stay clean long enough to "graduate" & pass the final drug test, then celebrate by getting high as soon as they leave the "program" that is just a drain on taxpayer funds, not real "rehab"), & foster care for the kids, most of which is paid for at the state & local levels. Add to that the lost productivity & tax revenues when the breadwinners lose their jobs. Their may be 1 + million in Fed prisons for drug offenses, but how many are in state & local prisons & jails? It's estimated that 1/2 of all local law enforcement time is spent on drug investigations & arrests. I have no idea what the total would come to, but I'm sure it's more than the war in Iraq costs annually & the lives lost are certainly more numerous. Violent crime is up & I'm tired of being told we don't have the money & manpower to protect citizens from violent criminals (or terrorism, border security, whatever) while half the cops are busy busting non-violent drug users. When are people going to protest this war against our own citizens as vehemently as they do the war in Iraq?

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The bosses give us the diseases and then they sell the only legal cures.

Mental illness is a combination of environmental/social conditioning and genetics. Is it any surprise that contsant war provokes anxiety.

Breathe in the roses, blow out the candle.

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Maybe I can help clear up a few things here. Aussiedawg, - and everyone else – I’ve been a chronic pain patient for twenty-one years now. I got injured several times, working ambulance, falling off mountains and other big rocks I was climbing, once picking up a stripped-down Sportster ratbike (a bit over 400 lbs), which wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t turned and swatted the owner with it; bad move, that. I was put through the bed-rest, Valium, heat, traction, etc, etc bit so many times I can’t count ‘em all. They kept telling me it was a “strain” (no strain lasts more than three months; some say six), that nothing showed on x-rays so I was a)fine, or b)faking it. Soft tissue injuries don’t show on x-rays, and there is no objective measurement for pain. Turns out I had several herniated, then ruptured, disks, and then a fractured facet joint (in the spine) with a chunk of bone sitting between facet faces rubbing the bone down. I was in pain all the time, sometimes could barely walk, and sometimes my back and left leg managed to hurt while the leg went away completely and I fell down. The pain kept me awake for days at a time (I was assumed THEN to be on drugs), then I’d fall asleep for a few hours wherever I was because my body had to sleep – 3-5 hours if I was lucky – then do it all over again. I went from 240 lbs to 160 (I’m 6’2” tall, a lifelong martial artist, lifted weights, did a lot of climbing, and was in general an outside kinda guy).

This went on for ten years.

Sometimes I was thrown out of a doctor’s office as an addict looking for drugs, I was mocked a lot, the VA would give me enough weak pills one visit to last a week and tell me to make them last three months, other visits they’d make me go through drug rehab, who always threw me out after a couple of days saying I had a pain problem, not a drug problem. I couldn’t work, qualified for no help, lost most of my friends and possessions, and records, and everything else. Sometimes I was sane, sometimes I wasn’t. Like the time I locked up a doctor who called me a lying malingerer trying to steal drugs from him and tried to roughhouse me out of his office. I held him there with two fingers so he couldn’t move and took almost two minutes (I learned later) to decide not to kill the bastard. Shortly after that, I went out and bought enough heroin to kill several people, knew from more than one source, including chemistry how to “fix it up”, and sat and stared at it for hours and hours before I finally decided that I wasn’t going to let these ignorant sadists and fools make me kill myself. I lived on the street, slept in a park for a while, finally got Social Security Disability and rented a one-room box with a toilet for half of it, so I had to quit eating for the last 6-8 days of the month because I couldn’t afford it. That was only going on twelve years ago.

It was ten years ago that this wonderful woman fell in love with me, God only knows why (good thing though, because I was in love with her, but feeling pretty worthless), we got married, and she fought for me, and with me, against the idiot system. I’ve had five back operations, the first 2 operations I had were botched, and maybe the fourth, but the VA is at least treating the pain adequately for now, and I have a home and a family again, including ten cats, one tarantula (our twenty year old other one died recently), and an occasional skunk that wanders in the back cat door. (Not a problem – I tell them to go on out and I’ll bring ‘em some cat food, they waddle on out the door, I feed ‘em and that’s that. I do trap ‘em and take ‘em to a nice, skunkly kind of place later).

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I play 15 musical instruments, sing VERY well, write music (BMI, under Elephant Trunk Music), really enjoy playing solo piano or guitar, like in piano bars, was a senior electronics and mechanical design drafter, I was a Paramedic Neonate Transport Specialist when neonatology was new, worked regular ambulance for ten years, was Navy Hospital Corps, I cook quite well, follow a Native America spirituality, am an amateur mycologist (mushrooms – the hospitals in Central Oregon called my wife and me for poisoning cases until recently, when she too became disabled, with COPD), know several kinds of massage and something about herbs, I can be handy around a house – I was, and am, far from a worthless person. Without her love, support and help though, I would have been a dead one very soon. As it is, I have type II diabetes now and some other stress-related problems. What a surprise.

Recently I was reminded, despite my doctor’s recommendations, that of a Neuropsychologist, a stack of tests at the University Hospital and several other pro-me things, that the “drug seeking behavior” flag remains on my VA chart, and that now there’s apparently a new group of drug-Nazis with their eyes on me, looking to cut off what treatment I have at the slightest excuse. The DSB flag is there because a young doctor in the VA ER, after deciding I was an addict anyway and offering me only the meds I’d already said didn’t help - I was asking for admission and diagnosis – decided that scratches on my hands and arms from a new kitten must be, as he shouted out, “Needle tracks!” Dipshit.

We’re both having a lot of physical problems now and will have to find a way to leave the house she grew up in and find a smaller, newer place we can take care of, but nothing is ever perfect, and we’ll get by.

The DEA is now arresting and imprisoning some doctors who prescribe the proper amounts of pain medications for pain patients, even altering their own rules and lying to juries in order to do it. Doctors are becoming more and more scared to help, and more and more chronic pain patients are dying by their own hands ever year - around 16,000 (estimated) every year. Doctors, patients and even pharmacists are landing in jail because the DEA and the ONDCP refuse to recognize the proper treatment for such patients, no matter how much research there is to back it up. They have also falsified study after to study to “contradict” what every medical agency in the country says is right. We could conceivably wind up on the street without our meds – a death sentence for both of us. I just don’t know.

There’s what the “War On Drugs” does. In addition to removing school funding from kids, jailing the innocent with the guilty, or jailing non-violent, otherwise productive people. Oh, and separating parents and children.

It also puts about $20 billion a year into the pockets of drug enforcers, and now into the private prison industry.

In the beginning, scared by the government’s propaganda, the drug war began with “good white folks” scared of the stoned hypersexuality of blacks (especially) and other minorities corrupting their wimmin-folk. About 90 years of this. Back then, around 2 1/2 % of users had trouble with addiction. Now that figure is – well – 2 1/2 %. With the additional benefit of our having the largest number of people in the world in prison, as well as the largest percentage of our population. More lives by FAR ruined by the Drug War than the drugs themselves could EVER have done. More drug use this year? “We’re losing the drug war! We need more funding!” Less? “We’re winning the drug war – victory is in sight! Give us more funding!”

Yeah – they have it all figured out.

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Oh yeah – I’m told that one correctly-done operation in the beginning could have taken care of it.

The people who are going to use drugs will use them whether they are legal or not. Making drug use illegal only criminalizes behavior that the government has no business attempting to regulate anyway. In a free country, what we put into our own bodies is our own choice, period. The DEA’s power is based entirely on a legal fiction, and is entirely against the Constitution. It’s natural human – and animal – behavior, and making it illegal only guarantees people for law enforcement to abuse in exchange for a regular job. That, and millions of ruined lives, incalculable loss to individuals, to the country and the future it might have. I lost most of my son’s childhood, a career, two decades and who knows what else. I’m not done with losing because of it even yet.

Ian MacLeod
June 24th, 2006

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I think the drug war has proved without a shadow of doubt that prohibition makes minor issues that harm nobody but (maybe) the person doing them into extremely dangerous money pits, oozing with corruption. Oddly, I don't think this was all planned and being executed flawlessly. I think that slogans are coined and then repeated by people who are not thinking about the potential effects of their zeal. When the weirdness happens, they refuse to back out of their possition because it is making them too much money, or too much political coin.

Almost all of the facts surrounding the "need" for prohibition are made up pseudo-science or side-effects of the prohibition itself.

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All of them.

The only reason we have a drug war is to finance the growing police state. Law enforcers do not need to be running around stopping people from hurting themselves.

Let them have their marijuana and heroin and crack. Let Darwin sort them out.

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If sugar's a drug then pretty much anything you consume is a drug as most things contain some form of carbohydrate...

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Sixteen years. Two packs of Camels a day. And for three of those years a Camel pack had 25 cigarettes in it instead of 20.

17 July 1997: 9 years and three days ago, I smoked my last cigarette after simply halving the number I smoked each day 'til I was down to two cigarettes. I gave one to a homeless person, smoked the last one with him, and not only have not smoked a tobacco cigarette since that day, I have had no urge to at all. I only experienced "cravings" for maybe one or two days at most; I kept a bowl of sunflower seeds around and when I wanted a coffin nail grabbed a seed, bit it open and swallowed it, just to have the hand-to-mouth business done with.

I was on crack for eight months in 1993. One day an inner voice - some sort of guardian angel or imaginary friend - told me "No more." I literally lost the ability to feel the drug's effect. I'd keep thinking I'd been gaffled, but slowly came to see the "guardian" was not kidding. Now, just smelling crack smoke makes me nauseous.

The only truly ADDICTING substance is opium or synthetic opiates. This I maintain because withdrawal from heroin or oxycontin or methadone is prolonged and affects ALL PARTS of the body and mind; they literally forget how to do just about everything. This is why a junkie will, against his or her will, steal money to buy dope.

If a drug doesn't have this sort of effect I do not call it an addiction: I call it a compulsion, habit, or in the case of things like marijuana which literally have little or no withdrawal effects, simply the human urge to feel good and do things that make one feel good.

Addiction and withdrawal are actual physical illnesses and unfortunately I know this from experience. I am now maintained on methadone. I don't dare get off it because after 15 years I know the withdrawal would make me suicidal, and NA 12 Step talk does nothing for me at all. But if I can beseech all who read this to understand one thing about drugs, it is this:

NONE of them are anywhere near as bad as the bullshit the ONDCP pumps out about them...except opiates, which are WORSE. Notice the ONDCP doesn't make all that many dumb ads about heroin? They made one once with an actress going crazy crashing a frying pan around in a kitchen...the actress being too good-looking to resemble a real junkie, and the ad made her look so attractive it was pulled. But of course, since the US government sells cocaine and heroin...and pharm corps REALLY don't want marijuana legal since it's a PLANT and thus unpatentable medicine...the reasons are obvious why the focus is ALL on pot, NONE on heroin. Even though marijuana has at worst only minor negative effects, and at best, opiates still stop working after a while and won't kill pain anymore, merely keep your body barely normal and not in horrendous sickness resembling botulism.

Would that I only have known in 1990 what I found out in 1994 when I read Gary Webb's Dark Alliance article, about the CIA and the Contras and the crack...the story which destroyed his career and led to his (possible) suicide and yet was never proven wrong.

Had I only known, I'd have known not to touch heroin or crack! All I'd've had to do was consider the source. As it was I figured, "it must just all be lies about that, too..." Alas, heroin really IS that bad. Worse.

Stick to pot, psychedelics, and coffee. Stay away from opiates, cocaine, and SSRI antidepressants - the latter have millions of Americans on them and make me wonder if they have not caused SOME of the problems we're having. But I still don't think they should be illegal. No drug should be illegal - the only reason they are illegal, or have EVER been, is money.

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All good points. But not even one little comment about the CIA and its role in all this?

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If we really were to put criminals in jail, and if we were to define criminals as those who disrupt peaceful society and cause pain and injury to innocents, then those who now put people in jail for drug use should be put in jail themselves. That would include cops, lawyers, judges and every bureaucrat and private prison industry who profits from the phony war on drugs. It would be interesting to turn this situation around. Oh, and did I mention our president? How many deaths is he responsible for? How much theft? Why not submit Bush to a random drug test, and every member of Congress while we're at it.

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I lost my son, age 24, beautiful child to a club-drug overdose, GHB, well-known in the bodybuilding world as well. This drug is deadly and highly addictive, a fact not well-known. The war on drugs failed to recognize this drug 4 years ago, and has still not spread the word - he never got treatment. My only child went into a coma, never came out. You forgot to mention the many other children who lost their young lives because of the failure of America's absurd War on Drugs.

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