Its so simple and obvious that it seems unbelievable that politicans pretty much the world over can't get the message and actually do something to control drugs.

Take them away from the criminals and give the proffits to the tax man!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The so-called war on drugs is a huge industry and huge bureaucracy.
Victory in the drug war is not possible, nor is it the goal. Victory in the drug war would mean that the drug war industry and bureaucracy are out of business.

There are basically two types of people who support the so-called war on drugs:

Those who make their livelihood from it. This includes politicians and bureaucrats who are probably on the payroll of the drug cartels. Al Capone had hundreds of politicians and prohibition officials on his
payroll.

Suckers - taxpayers who have bought into the lies and propaganda of the
drug-war industry and bureaucracy.

Suckers - who are willing to deny liberty and freedom to others but
think that their own liberty and freedom will never be in jeopardy.

Suckers - who believe that criminalizing a substance will make it go away. Suckers - who think that drug prohibition somehow protects children.

Suckers - who think that giving criminals control of dangerous drugs somehow protects children and our society.

Suckers - who think that they live in a free country even thought the
United States is the most incarcerated nation in the history of human civilization.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Even the prohibitionists are beginning to realise that current policy is a disaster.Now they try to soft pedal their message by claiming to want the same things as the drug reformers but with abstinence as the goal.It's the black market that causes the criminal activity that every one wants to end.That's where our paths divide.They think that with forced treatment and education drugs will go away.They're wrong and who knows how many more lives will be sacrificed on the altar of prohibition before these ideologues finally concede that people will do what they wish to escape the daily grind?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

When Obama gets elected

See this excellent website

Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,PA

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Throughout history, the legal and moral status of psychoactive drugs has kept changing. During the 17th century, the sale and consumption of tobacco were punished by death in much of Europe, Russia, China and Japan. For centuries, many of the Muslim domains that forbade alcohol sale and consumption simultaneously tolerated and even regulated the sale of opium and cannabis.

Each year, the U.S. government spends more than $30 billion on the drug war and arrests over 1.5 million people on drug-related charges. Over 318,000 people are now behind bars in the U.S. for drug violations, greater than the total number of people incarcerated for all crimes in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined.

Our government is calling for billions of dollars to fight a drug war it can't win. Roughly 75 percent of this money goes to enforcing laws and regulations, but only 15 percent goes to drug education and prevention, and a only a meager 10 percent goes to treatment for addicts.

During the 1950s, long-term prison sentences against drug users choked the courts, strained and disrupted prisons and drove black-market prices even higher. The latest casualty in the drug war has been our civil liberties: mandatory drug testing so we can all be “drug free”. Some of these tests have been struck down by the courts, where the government is the employer. But others have been upheld. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia denounced these drug tests as “an immolation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use.”

According to a 2003 Zogby poll, two of every five Americans say “the government should treat marijuana the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and only make it illegal for children.” Close to 100 million Americans, including over half of those between the ages of 18 and 50, have tried marijuana at least once. Military and police recruiters often have no alternative but to ignore past marijuana use by job seekers.

In 1996, California voters passed a law to regulate medical marijuana within the state. In 2000, voters in California approved an initiative allowing people who are arrested for simple possession of drugs to go through a rehabilitation program rather than through the court process that would result in prison. Since the program began, most agree it has been very successful. It results in less recidivism and is considered cheaper than imprisonment.

Richard Posner, Chicago's chief judge of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and one of the nation's leading legal scholars, says marijuana use should be legalized as a way of reducing crime. Posner, a Reagan administration appointee once described by American Lawyer magazine as “the most brilliant judge in the country,” explained his views on marijuana:

“It is nonsense that we should be devoting so many law enforcement resources to marijuana," says Posner. "I am skeptical that a society that is so tolerant of alcohol and cigarettes should come down so hard on marijuana use and send people to prison for life without parole.”

Posner is the highest-ranking judge to publicly favor the repeal of marijuana laws. Several judges of the federal district court, a level lower than the appeals court, have made similar calls, including Robert Sweet of New York and James Paine of Florida, both Carter Administration appointees.

Posner and other federal judges have complained that sentencing guidelines force them to give unjustly severe prison sentences to relatively minor drug offenders. Says Posner: “Prison terms in America have become appallingly long, especially for conduct that, arguably, should not be criminal at all. Only decriminalization is a sure route to a lower crime rate. It is sad that it appears so far below the horizon of political feasibility.”

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

the drug war is here to stay.. and it will be declared a "success" as long it continues to be a cash cow for the prison industry...

fighting against the prison industry and its drug war is like fighting against the pentagon (if not one in the same) ..it simply cannot be done...so stop whining and excuse me while i lite my spliff...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The so called War on Drugs is a multibillion dollar industry for bureaucracies, corporations, and anyone else who can grab a piece of the pie. In addition it provides a power base for politicians world wide. For anyone to take a reasoned and sensible approach to the problems of drug usage, drug control, or any efforts to decriminalize certain substances, invites immediate condemnation and vilification.

I sometimes wonder if the major cartels don’t have secret funding efforts to keep prohibitions in place.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

When I started researching the Drug War over 15 years ago, I had an obvious question that needed an answer.

How did we end up with the highest drug abuse rates in the industrial world and spend all these billions fighting it at the same time?

Answer- The best and brightest researchers in America concluded that the Drug Prohibition model is the most destructive, expensive, least effective and counterproductive method they could find.

The bureaucracies took that information and promoted maximum budgets over the health and safety of the public. They built the models (with tax payer money) to create the worst case scenerios.

Jay Lindberg (jaylindberg@hotmail.com)

Author of Drug War Economics: The Machine Behind the Madness

To David Borden- Still see you're plugging the failed and flawed drug policy approach. Wrong Answer

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

U.S. and Sweden has an almost identical polices on drugs; it is the Drug Wars policy, ideologically and morally based. Often the values are religious. It might look strange but in Sweden even if it is a secular state religious and anti drug and anti alcohol groups have a strangle hold on the government. Organized religion, evangelicals and abolitionists have a majority of Members of Parliament, 75%.

As very interesting but scary fact is that Members of Parliament may in vote on “moral’ issues according to their own “moral conscience”, not the party line i.e. they can totally disregard the wishes of their voters. Ergo, we have as in the United States as a legislation based on faith, not on scientific fact. The moral high ground is the only point open for debate; it is based on coercion, repression and punishment.

In the United States and Sweden more than 50% of the prison inmates are incarcerated due their own drug use. Moreover, the drug rehabilitation programs have been drastically cut. Needle exchange programs have been disallowed.

Furthermore, there are now Meta studies showing that they involuntarily committed to forcible drug rehabilitation treatment have a lower quality of life and a shorter life span than those in voluntary treatment. It is even in comparison with active addicts, users. It has therefore been shown that involuntary treatment is not working, it is not only a violation of a person’s personal freedom but it does not work.

You should instead of the Drug War ideology be for a humane and liberal drugs policy based on harm reduction, prevention, education and rehabilitation or you can continue the repressive policies. You should then however stop talking about that you are in good faith that you want to reduce drug addiction and drug related crime. You are just moralizing and a hypocrite.

The argument I usually hear when talking about involuntary treatment is from do-good left liberals is "We must do something, to do nothing is inhumane." The opposite is true. To do anything that causes more harm than good is always wrong.

Swedish as well as the US alcohol and drug policies must change. I am not for the liberalization of drugs or drug use but for decriminalization.

However, I think we should consider legalizing marijuana. It is now in studies demonstrated that marijuana’s harm is much lower than the alcohol and that the theory of the progression has been shown to be false, that a joint always leads to a needle in your arm.

We need a humane alcohol and drugs with a focus on injury prevention and rehabilitation as well as an expanded effort to get to the large distributors, not the easy pickings of drug users.

I find it a shameful that civilized societies incarcerate 50 % of its prison population for using drugs, not selling them. Even worse is the fact that 50 % of those in prison on Sweden and in the US are minorities. It is a very unjust and inequitable policy. It has got to stop!

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

that religious extremists provide the ultimate support for policies which try to legally forbid what the general public wants to do. It's bad enough that we can't eliminate sin, but to make sin a crime is very destructive of society.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

We should legalize Marijuana with regulations of course and start growing HEMP for bio-mass and bio-fuel...it's the #1 bio-mass plant on Earth...

If we legalized Marijuana we would take half of the criminal proceeds away from the Drug dealers in Mexico....if not more than half...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

..that realized the need to keep the deception started by Anslinger long ago.

The Fraternal Order of Police is a trade union started many decades ago to protect their interest. It was in place when the Temperance Movement criminalized alcohol users. Even if the cops of the day were indifferent to Prohibition, the Union was well aware of the spiking crime-rate, and more importantly, the HUGE spike in crime-fighting budgets that Congress down to local mayors now had to pull out of their budgets for it. It was a Mardi Gras the likes of which law-enforcement unions would never have dreamed possible.

Meanwhile, Anslinger was building on the mood created by the Temperance Movement to demonize other drugs. He succeeded to a level which sane, educated people would also have never thought possible.

But the repeal of Prohibition had the police unions nervously watching as the crime rate spiraled downward as fast as it had climbed. The statistical spike created is one that the FOP (police union) *never* mentions due the logical inference the public would draw from it were it known about today. The rise and drop in gang activity created by the black-market in alcohol made the FOP realize how imperative it was that Drug Prohibition stayed in place. This was done by simply saying they had witnessed the lies that Anslinger told while misdirecting the public over the cause of violence if any drugs were in sight.

So my point here is to point out what happens when a trade union - and the industry it works for - are in bed together. You know the public is the one that is going to get screwed!

Together they have kept up a steady stream of fear-mongering and lies using the very same news-media that has repeatedly shown itself to be only to happy to put sensational headlines ahead of truth i.e Iraq and WMDs. But I think we might be able to make some headway against far-right conservatives by exposing an alliance between a trade unions and cops. Personally, I'm for unions. But this one looks out for the interests of people who enjoy kicking down doors, ripping families apart, murdering people and getting away with it by saying that they thought the person was high on PCP or something.

Trade-unions are usually something wing-nuts despise. They will go to great lengths to destroy them. So it would be a huge help to make the ones outside the police/prison unions aware of the fact that they hide their union activity away from the public's eyes. I see little chance of turning them against them otherwise.
The "Fraternal Order Of Police" calls itself an Order because they know very well how much disdain industry and the right-wing in general has for trade-unions. So I encourage people to refrain from saying "big business" when pointing to the forces behind the continuing drug-war.

Instead, please start referring to the alliance of a "police *UNION*" and the prison industry; of "union pressure" on Congress; of "union lies" told to the public so we give up "more of our hard-earned tax dollars".

it's a self-serving alliance of right-wing authoritarians with outright psychotics. They hide behind a badge and all the great press received over the years via 'cops & robbers' TV shows pushing a mythical "To Serve And Protect" good-guy image. And the best part of this is that it's the truth you'll be telling. The *police union* (remember that now! ) website is here ,

And anyone who has ever written anything against using the death penalty or railroading "cop-killers", check to see if your name is on an extensive list they keep. Since it has nothing to do with legislation or wages, one has to conclude it's there so LEOs will know who to harass should they "happen" to pull you over some day.
http://www.fop.net/causes/faulkner/projamal.shtml

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

It is such a shame that so much money and energy has been spent on this hopeless war on drugs. If this money and effort had been spent on education and treatment there would be far fewer addicts. And to have put people in prison for doing something we consider wrong to their own bodies is uncivilized.

I consider those incarcerated for this "crime" to be political prisoners. They should be released ASAP.

Ill add I have never used a single illegal drug in my 65 years of life.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Just like slaves, we will one day be able to look back at this drug prohibition and say "how stupid were we?" Right now the politicians are really the only people against drugs. Like 90% of the population is for legalization and anyone that is against legalizing, really isn't, they have just been brainwashed by the government to think they are against it. We need the clowns out of office, as their jokes aren't funny anymore.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

As long as people do not defend their rights, they will be trampled upon. If you were to strike at the officer who tries to take your property, maybe after enough people were hurt, attitudes would change. After all alcohol was not legalized because it is your right to do with your body as you choose, but to end the violence.

Now if marijuana users, and all other drug users for that matter would stand up with clenched fists, rather than wait for 'some day', we might actually see a change.

The police have shown that they care not about people rights, why should theirs then be respected?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]