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US-Led Global War on Drugs a Failure: Report
A 19-member international panel has condemned the US-led "War on Drugs" campaign as a failure and has recommended major reforms of the global drug prohibition regime.
Mexican soldiers at a base in Tijuana pose for pictures while they burn the biggest pot seizure in Mexican history last fall. The drug policy panel recommended that narcotics be legalized and regulated, especially marijuana. (Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times / October 20, 2010) The Global Commission on Drug Policy report, released on Thursday, argues that the four-decades-long campaign has failed to make significant changes in the international drug scenario and has, in fact, devastating consequences on human societies across the world.
"Overwhelming evidence from Europe, Canada and Australia now demonstrates the human and social benefits both of treating drug addiction as a health rather than criminal justice problem and of reducing reliance on prohibitionist policies," remarked former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss. "These policies need to be adopted worldwide, with requisite changes to the international drug control conventions."
The term "War on Drugs" was first used by US President Richard Nixon on June 17, 1971 and was intended to define and reduce illicit drug trade globally. However, the new report points out that the result of this campaign has been nothing but a drastic increase in drug violence, especially in regions like Brazil and Mexico.
"Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government's global war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed," stated former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso. "Let's start by treating drug addiction as a health issue, reducing drug demand through proven educational initiatives and legally regulating rather than criminalizing cannabis.
The international panel of members includes former presidents and leaders of Brazil, Mexico, Columbia and Switzerland among others like Carlos Fuentes (writer), Ruth Dreifuss (former president of Switzerland), Louise Arbour (former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) and George Papandreou (PM of Greece).
"Overwhelming evidence from Europe, Canada and Australia now demonstrates the human and social benefits both of treating drug addiction as a health rather than criminal justice problem and of reducing reliance on prohibitionist policies," remarked former Swiss president Ruth Dreifuss. "These policies need to be adopted worldwide, with requisite changes to the international drug control conventions."
Some of the major recommendations of the panel are:
- End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.
- Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs (especially cannabis) to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.
- Ensure that a variety of treatment modalities are available including not just methadone and buprenorphine treatment but also the heroin-assisted treatment programs that have proven successful in many European countries and Canada.
- Apply human rights and harm reduction principles and policies both to people who use drugs as well as those involved in the lower ends of illegal drug markets such as farmers, couriers and petty sellers.
- Countries that continue to invest mostly in a law enforcement approach (despite the evidence) should focus their repressive actions on violent organized crime and drug traffickers, in order to reduce the harms associated with the illicit drug market.
- Offer a wide and easily accessible range of options for treatment and care for drug dependence, including substitution and heroin-assisted treatment, with special attention to those most at risk, including those in prisons and other custodial settings.
- The United Nations system must provide leadership in the reform of global drug policy. This means promoting an effective approach based on evidence, supporting countries to develop drug policies that suit their context and meet their needs, and ensuring coherence among various UN agencies, policies and conventions.
53 Comments so far
Show AllMost of the Police Commissioners in Australia want drug policy changed. Prohibition was a disaster in the 1920s so why has it been repeated.
the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs advocate for decriminalisation too
It is not a war on drugs at all. It is a war on segments of the population who have made lifestyle choices which the power brokers don't like.
There was a time when I was guaranteed the right to pursue happiness.
It is a boon for the corporate prison system and it provides the perfect cover for CIA drug and weapons trafficking operations. Why would they want to stop it? Because it harms regular folks and foreigners?
Since when does that matter?
Exactly.
It is just another example of an excuse to transfer billions of dollars of taxes to corporations through enforcement agencies.
If they really wanted to eliminate drugs the empirical evidence is there that it cannot be done by enforcement and criminal penalties on users. I live in Portugal, a country that now has a long experience of decriminalization and treating addiction as a disease.
For those who are interested to learn about this matter in some depth:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf
Here is the short story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/07/how_portugal_treats_drug_addic.html
It's bloody difficult to win the 'War On Drugs' when the CIA is the single largest importer into the US. Something on the order of a C-130 Hercules, filled nose-to-tail, side-to-side, floor-to-ceiling with coke.
Don't believe me? Ask Ollie North how the Contra's were able to afford all that American mil-spec hardware and off the books CIA 'assistance'...
You're right, and official involvement seems to trace back at least half a century — certainly as far back as the Vietnam war.
The same year Nixon declared war on drugs, Robin Moore (?) brought out "The Khaki Mafia," a book about organized crime in the U.S. Army. Moore was apparently "convinced" to rewrite the book before publication and present it as fiction. It is, however, anything but fiction. I once knew two of the key players in the story.
The next year Alfred McCoy's "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" was published. It is still in print in updated editions with "CIA" in the title.
The drug business has become so deeply entangled in the American Empire — our government is so adicted to it — that removing it now would probably kill the patient.
The US government's involvement in drug smuggling actually dates back to 1943 at least, when Lucky Luciano was given control of the Heroin trade routes of the Eastern Mediterrenean in exchange for Mafia cooperation with the invasion of Sicily. That's according to historian Alfred McCoy.
Ollie North’s complicity in bringing crack to the US has been well proven by documents released in the late 1990s: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/nsaebb2.htm --now the lunatic works for Fox. And hey, that crack really kicked of the War on Drugs, and the effects have been devastating to the inner-city poor. But it fulfilled Nixon’s dream of dealing with the African-American population. As Nixon said, “the blacks are the problem,” and here was Reagan’s solution.
Every veteran of the Afghan invasion I know tells me we’re there for the opium. One, whose job was to inventory outgoing airplanes, used to find the stuff on the planes on a regular basis. Gee, now, why are our troops protecting poppy fields? To win the hearts and minds of the people, the MSM has told us.
As for marijuana, what can you say? What a stupid, bloody, profitable battle that is—bribes all around, lots of dead bodies, and a boon to arms sales south of the border, and thousands of people in prison north of it. Just as doctors are calling out to be able to use the stuff medicinally, drug testing has moved from piss tests to hair analysis (I recommend full body waxes as a growth industry). We’re going to see lots of the working poor sporting shaved heads.
It’s the same disgusting trick as our current War on a Noun—create the situation, and then go in and make money “battling” it, exacerbating the mayhem all along. Sure, it’s all very expensive—but only for the taxpayers. As usual, we pay to help the fascists make a ton of dough.
Nice post.
For some reason it is ok to talk about oil or minerals or water or labor as a motivation for war, but illegal "drugs"-as-motivating factor is considered taboo. Despite the hundreds of billions a year in laundered cash and the black budgets and the imprisonment of the "superfluous population" (in Chomsky's sarcastic words).
Even if drug production explodes by 1000 percent when the US takes control of a country, it must be assumed that policy planners are actually opposed to such a development. Or it's just an unfortunate byproduct of "doing business" with the locals.
Similarly, it's not polite to talk about "honey pot" operations used by intelligence agencies as a form of blackmail. Hey, we may murder children for purposes of national security, but we don't film politicians having sex with children. And we certainly don't use Dyncorp to traffic sex slaves.
It all comes down to the classic question -- cui bono? Who benefits? "Globalization" is obviously a monumental failure in terms of its stated goals, but what if the goals are actually the complete opposite of what policy planners claim?
What if (drumroll....) the goal is to make the rich and powerful more rich and powerful?
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that the drug war may operate according to the same principles!
Right on, Kiely
Failure?
The war on drugs has been a huge success that has paid off handsomely for both sides.
Not only has It has been a cornucopia for politicians, lawyers, narc squads, our vast prison system, and intelligence organizations, but it has generated unimaginable fortunes for international crime syndicates.
What on earth would happen to the cartels and their employees if the war on drugs suddenly ended?
Be careful. Anyone pushing to do away with the war on drugs is just begging for an accident to happen to them.
You nailed it. Just like so many things, Afg, war, Iraq, Vietnam, etc. the official story has very little to do with the actual reasons. Check out Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer.
I'm a Californian; born and raised in the number one agricultural state in all of north America, where marijuana is the number one crop. Over the years I heard about how legalized drugs with medical help for addicts was a solution that worked very well in the Netherlands. I went to Amsterdam for a conference a few years ago, and, as a curious Californian, decided to go see a marijuana bar. I looked all over the place and finally asked some young Irish tourists, they pointed to a fairly packed place across the street. I went into the upscale downtown establishment, discreetly looked around and then searched the menu. There was no pot anywhere as far as I could tell, so I confessed to a waitress like she was a cop and asked her where to go. She smiled, led me to a a red button on the wall and pointed. I pushed the button and a light came on that lit up a menu behind glass, like a movie poster window except it was a pot menu. Another upscale glamorous waitress appeared, turned a light on in a glass counter full of pot and asked me what I wanted. I studied the various brands and couldn't make up my mind so I left without inhaling. Both waitress laughed at me in a friendly way as I left. I felt a little like a hick in a big fancy town full of rich glitterati.
Mike Whitney at ICH has a bang up article on this very topic today:
"Business is Booming, Wall Street's Role in Narco Trafficking"
http://tinyurl.com/3requfr
"Every major bank in the US has served as an active financial partner of the murderous drug cartels..."
I second the motion that everyone should read the Whitney piece. And it isn't "just every major bank in the U.S." who has been "an active financial partner," Mike names names and MOs including Wells-Fargo acting as a money launderer to its great profit; also mentions the same charming folks who are supporting "murderous" wars against "terrorism": the weapons industry which makes big bucks from the continuation of these wars. With the political clout of these groups with Congress and White House, you can just guess how the protestions of international humanitarians are going to go down with our power-brokers.
Every cop and politician who takes bribes from the drug industry will oppose this. Watch them emerge from the woodwork. Lacking rational argument they will fall back on moral outrage.
Really? You can't possibly be serious. Sure, criminalizing drugs is a stupid thing but, there are many drug users that would be able to hold down a job and take care of their families, if they weren't hiding from Johnny Law, with his horrible prison sentences, and his corporate lackeys with their urine, hair and blood tests for drugs. I cannot speak for any of you but, with availability to regular and standardized doses of their chosen drug, I don't know of a single user who would rather laze all day, than to have a life, while continually indulging in their drug of choice. Offer treatment for those who have major issues with their drug use and make all drugs available to everyone. This is sane and just. People have sought intoxication since the beginning of the genus Homo, and will continue to do so. Trying to prevent this is like trying to prevent sex, breathing and talking.
fascinating...how do you know who in your daily world does or doesn't use drugs?
you might find your most capable competitor, or your most valued role model, fueled by them...many famous, and influential, individuals have had habits involving one or more substances...
what if (horrors!) drugs have positive effects?
given the imminent death of our natural environment at the hands of humans, what are the positive aspects of sobriety?
are global trends driven by wealthy individuals that are sober, or drugged? are those plans executed via the murder of innocents by drone pilots that are sober, or drugged? are those in congress unable or unwilling to legislate against their own personal profits because they are sober, or drugged?
are the Rothschilds, or Rockefellers, or Clintons and Bushes drug users, or sober? is Obama, or Jamie Dimon? is Petraeus? does it matter? we still have to fight them for our right to live here, as they kill us all on their way to the bank...
what, exactly, do drugs make someone do that is bad, and what do non-drug users do that is so good? there are many forms of both enhancement and detriment...
is alcohol a drug? is nicotine? is caffeine? is tv? is music? is a hormone?
we are all slaves to the violent, by the way...the occasional drug use, particularly psilocybin, might help you see that...
In the book "Man's Search For Meaning" Frankl felt pity for inmates who would find some way to bribe guards for enough alcohol for a 'gay evening' but he complained bitterly about not having either nicotine or caffeine.
The only devil's drug is the one you personally don't care for. All animals like to get high. If one cow discovers a plant that that alters her consciousness she may eat it until she dies. Paracelsus said that the difference between a medicine and a poison was the dosage.
well said...you remind me of one of my favorite quotes, this from Twain's Huck Finn, speaking about the Widow Douglas' pontifications on sinful indulgences:
"And she took snuff too. Of Course, that was all right, because she done it herself."
things don't really ever change so much, do they?
At last--a voice of reason comes out of the paranoid fog of disinformation that usually permeates the atmosphere. Unfortunately, this document will be found in the round file by the end of the day as the breathless warnings of gateway drugs fill the corporate airways. Remember--the prison-military industrial complex has too much to lose if sanity prevails and recreational drug use is legalized.
Reminds me of the Onion headline "Drugs win drug war". There's an amusing accompanying picture in the book "Our Dumb Century" featuring a Tye-died T-shirt wearing hippie standing at a podium at the White House, declaring said victory.
A few resources that I have found useful...
Little heard but vital audio lecture by Chomsky --
"An American addiction"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqbQ-FLvtc8
Most of the lecture is devoted to the imperialist/capitalist logic of the drug war.
Also includes mention of the hilarious fact that Poppy Bush was once put in charge of investigating drug money laundering by major banks. To put it another way, Poppy Bush was put in charge of ending investigations into drug money laundering (fittingly called Operation Greenback) by major banks.
"Vote for Gore or the son of a drug lord
none of the above
Cut the chord"
- ZDLR
--
American Drug War -- The Last White Hope
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8231634812734884936#
Great documentary on the drug "war".
--
The Politics of Heroin -- CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade by Alfred W. McCoy
http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Heroin-Complicity-Global-Trade/dp/1556521251
Encyclopedic yet riveting account of the politics not only of Heroin but Cocaine and other illicit substances.
--
Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina
by Peter Dale Scott
http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Oil-War-Afghanistan-Indochina/dp/0742525228
Anything by PDS is worth reading, including his poetry, in which he discusses (amongst many other subjects) having his phone tapped by the FBI.
--
Mike Ruppert -- The CIA and drug running (1997)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7009998324250484369#
--
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis
http://www.amazon.com/Lockdown-America-Police-Prisons-Crisis/dp/1859843034
by Christian Parenti, Michael's son. Includes lengthy and highly disturbing chapters on the domestic consequences of the drug war.
--
I'll leave the marijuana/hemp resources to other posters, however at the top of any list must include a few basic facts --
"The actual story behind the legislature passed against marijuana is quite surprising. According to Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes and an expert on the "hemp conspiracy," the acts bringing about the demise of hemp were part of a large conspiracy involving DuPont, Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and many other influential industrial leaders such as William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Mellon. Herer notes that the Marijuana Tax Act, which passed in 1937, coincidentally occurred just as the decoricator machine was invented.
With this invention, hemp would have been able to take over competing industries almost instantaneously. According to Popular Mechanics, "10,000 acres devoted to hemp will produce as much paper as 40,000 acres of average [forest] pulp land." William Hearst owned enormous timber acreage, land best suited for conventional pulp, so his interest in preventing the growth of hemp can be easily explained. Competition from hemp would have easily driven the Hearst paper-manufacturing company out of business and significantly lowered the value of his land. Herer even suggests popularizing the term "marijuana" was a strategy Hearst used in order to create fear in the American public. "The first step in creating hysteria was to introduce the element of fear of the unknown by using a word that no one had ever heard of before... 'marijuana'" (ibid).
"DuPont's involvment in the anti-hemp campaign can also be explained with great ease. At this time, DuPont was patenting a new sulfuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. "According to the company's own records, wood-pulp products ultimately accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont's railroad car loadings for the next 50 years" (ibid). Indeed it should be noted that "two years before the prohibitive hemp tax in 1937, DuPont developed a new synthetic fiber, nylon, which was an ideal substitute for hemp rope" (Hartsell).
The year after the tax was passed DuPont came out with rayon, which would have been unable to compete with the strength of hemp fiber or its economical process of manufacturing. "DuPont's point man was none other than Harry Anslinger...who was appointed to the FBN by Treasury Secretary Andrew MEllon, who was also chairman of the Mellon Bank, DuPont's chief financial backer. Anslinger's relationship to Mellon wasn't just political, he was also married to Mellon's niece" (Hartsell). It doesn't take much to draw a connection between DuPont, Anslinger, and Mellon, and it's obvious that all of these groups, including Hearst, had strong motivation to prevent the growth of the hemp industry."
--
Hillary Clinton was recently quizzed about the desirability of ending the drug "war".
Clinton: I don't think that will work. I mean, I hear the same debate. I hear it in my country. It is not likely to work. There is just too much money in it, and I don't think that—you can legalize small amounts for possession, but those who are making so much money selling, they have to be stopped.
She contradicts herself, but she lets the truth slip -- indeed, "there is just too much money in it."
Durrutix thanks so much for the information. I once came into possesion of a formula for making hashish from hemp. Totally misguided. I like the ancients' method of letting nubile young wenches run through the plants to collect resin on their bodies. I'll toke to that and lick my chops at the possibilities.
Seriously though. Hemp will grow where other plants will not. The multitude of products that hemp can provide has not even been explored in this advanced age, or possibly those that you have identified did this research and it scared the shit out of their investment portfolios. There are thousands of acres of unproductive strip mined land here that could be put to productive use.
We live in a world of false premises and false promises. We are, most of us, like aphids being milked by the dominant ant overlords. What gives when it has been declared legal to be in possession of an ounce and yet someone who grows a half-dozen plants for personal consumption is mauled by a swat team sent by the roving eyes in the sky?
I introduced my youngest son and his friends to the world of pot. I was young once and could read all the signs that they were headed that way with or without my intervention. I made damn sure they knew that the superficial appearance of things was just a chimera and I knew more adults that did than did not. I also frightenlingly impressed upon them the fact that even so, it was the truth that uptight tea-totalling(sp?) moralists were mostly hypocrites that would use their careless transgressions to marginalize and discredit any caught in their perverted legal system. For the most part my strategy worked, they are careful and grateful and they have an adult that doesn't blow smoke up their ass about this and other hypocricies of our society.
Do you think Paul Ryan would support legalizing and taxing cannabis sativa? He is so fond of putting the burden on the poor and disenfranchised that this should be a slam dunk. But of course "balancing the budget" is not his true agenda.
Don't misunderstand. I know full well the difference between commercial hemp and righteous weed.
DUH !
The CIA and DEA are part of the global drug business.
Legalization would put them and other criminals out of the drug business.
Why would they want to end a good thing ?
A little entrepreneurial spirit would lead to stores such as "Drugs R Us". Of course originally drug stores sold drugs, all kinds, even snake oil.
Criminal enterprises love prohabitions as it automatically raises the price of the products they sell. Police forces love prohabitions as it assures funding and jobs. Elites love prohibitions as it gives them patsies to demonize and victimize, and a rich source of cash (as many elites participate in the trade of prohibited items on the sly as silent partners / money-men) with which to fund their various depredations. The prison-industrial complex loves it too. Everyone else gets screwed.
EXTRA EXTRA read all about it! US Led Global - that includes at home - War on Drugs is a Failure!
A health issue!!
What will all the sadists do? Can't wage a war on sick people.
Turn the prisons back into mental institutions. Give them legal drugs.
The CIA's connection with drug running started long before the Vietnam War. Actually, it started before the CIA was made a US government funded institution. Before that, it (the ex-OSS, future CIA anti-communist gun and drug-runners) survived on Wall Street handouts and drug money.
From helping to run opium to supply the Kuomintang troops in Burma fighting the communists, to keeping the WW11 alliance with the Mafia going after WW11 to fight the communists in Italy, to allying with thugs in France (same reason), to allying with the Mafia in Cuba, leading to the Mafia-CIA alliance in the Kennedy assassination, then to the Golden Triangle drug-running of the Vietnam War, the cocaine running in South and Central America in the 80s, the alliance with the Afghan muhajadeen in the 80s. leading to the attack on Yugoslavia and the alliance with the drug-running KLA, which continues to this day, still participating in the shipment of opium from Afghanistan to heroin processing in Turkey and then to Europe, drug running is a very important part of the CIA's income. They will not give it up.
US banks are said to need the drug money to remain as solvent as they are.
The US prison-industrial complex thrives on victims of the drug war, and so do many police forces in the US, who depend on the confiscated property of their victims to help fund their operations.
And, of course, the US uses the "drug war" as a pretense to set up bases in countries like Columbia, and coming soon, Mexico, as a way to kill peasants organizing for a better life.
You really think that a United Nations paper pointing out the misery and death caused by the drug war is going to put a stop to the immense profits involved?
I think not.
world war eleven!
I musta missed a few.
Nailed it!
Many good comments on this thread, but you were the first to mention drugs as an excuse to set up and expand military bases.
A gringo military base in Mexico is extremelly unlikely, after the usa stole half of Mexico´s territory this would be political suicide to any mexican politician who supported it and such a move would be whats needed to ignite the anger of the masses uniting everyone against a common enemy: the politicians of all parties who have been and keep on raping the country...
The drug 'war' has been a disaster for civil society but it is mother's milk for the ruling class. Can anyone believe for an instant that all that drug money doesn't buy it's share of the congress and judiciary. The sociopaths that are the political elite in America cannot say no to a dollar and I am cerain that the drug cartels are in league with the governments of many countries. It would be shocking if it were not so.
even if the War on Drugs is a failure, I felt it was my duty to do my part, so I took one of my green buds, put it on the table, and smacked the shit out of it with my fist and palm for a few seconds, then I threw it on the ground and squished it with my shoe, saying 'take that, drug!'
it not only survived, it became more compact and resistant to attack than ever...
no wonder we're losing...
I then apologized to the universe for my outburst, smoked the bud, and jammed on my acoustic guitar for a while...
War on,,.. fill in the blank. The key word, of course, is War. The last great battle was during the War on Common Sense which proved victorious, though millions remain afflicted with Post Traumatic Stupid Syndrome.
"Mexican soldiers at a base in Tijuana pose for pictures while they burn the biggest pot seizure in Mexican history last fall."
Wow. That is a hell of a lot of weed smoke being released into the air.
check the hombre on the left with his mask down - he's wasted.
That's just a 'look good' photo-op to show the ostensible progress these fools purport to be making. And the hombre on the left with is mask down is probably getting nothing but a hyperventilation high because that much pot has to be old 'mexican brown' that only burns the lungs and gets you as high as a male plant would. That much of Acapulco Gold would indeed be an expensive waste and thus it is sold and this shit is burned for cosmetic purposes.
Drug 'warriors' know more than enough tricks of faking evidence.
I love Bill Hicks take on drugs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1CvW38cHA&feature=related
quite a good watch.
I could've burned that weed for them.
one doob at a time.
I've been keeping my fingers crossed for so long hoping that weed will be legalized that now I have a built-in roach clip.
[rim shot]
I look forward to the day when I can refuse on principle to ever buy weed at Wal-Mart.
I think Monsanto's scientists are just about finished developing the Genetically Modified, and soon-to-be-legally-protected, RoundUp-resistant strain...
seems their testing has been slowing, rather than accelerating, the process, as the sampling testers take more breaks to go for walks outside and talk to animals, and don't stress as much over failing to meet sinister deadlines...
a handful simply up and quit...
What is being called the 'war on drugs' is in reality the 'drug trade for american elite' to take in unimaginable amounts of money for absolutely free. That is why the 'war on drugs' continues and will until all the other countries subscribe to the plan laid out in this article.
How I see it is that the people behind the 'war on drugs' hide by ostensibly supporting and continuing the 'war on drugs' which is quite possibly as lucrative as the 'just plain' wars our country initiates all over the globe. Why else would our troops, photoed guarding poppy crops in Afghanistan do so and continue to do so. Someone is dictating that they do.
Now when a big deal goes down in these 'drug wars' the people involved or getting the money either have it sent to their favorite 'off shore' bank or is invested somewhere, but basically no one is connected to dealing drugs. Now if a regular dealer came into their neighborhood and sold some 'stuff' he/she may or may not get caught but if they are, they take the brunt of the 'crime'. UNLESS, that person has enough money and good connections and then he possibly could be taken into the 'drug trade' as long as he/she enrich those profiteers enough. If he/she rattles one the 'profiteers of the drug trade' then he/she will be thrown under the bus and the next person is ready to give it a try.
Amazing how decriminalizing drugs would almost put an end to the misery of the 'war on drugs'. BUT, this is just another one those fear and terror tactics of the u.s. to maintain a perpetual war on anything as that is the only thing the u.s. economy is based on, ghost wars and frivolous wars.
I don't think that legalization of all drugs presently illegal and a focus to treating them as health problems is necessarily a great idea. It could just lead to more people who are addicted to debilitating drugs that are killing them, but that they do not have the power to escape. A case in point is opium in China.
The Chinese had access to Opium for centuries before trade with Europe and it had been mostly a medicine. The Chinese later were introduced to the smoking of opium which made it much more addictive than the way it had been consumed before that time. The British forced Indians to grow opium poppies from which they made opium and sold to China. The opium addiction began to affect the productivity of Chinese society and was viewed as a social ill by the Qing Dynasty. When the Qing tried to ban it and destroyed a large quantity of British opium, the British fought a war with China to keep the trade legal. The problem for the British is that many of the missionaries that worked in China had arrived on opium vessels and began to become associated with the opium trade. The missionaries began trying to distance themselves from the opium trade and lobbied for its banning. The British instead of banning it decided to treat it as a health problem and tried to discourage its use while not banning its sale. The addictive nature of opium proved too much and China's opium addicted population went from approximately 2 million in 1842 (the end of the first opium war) to 120 million in 1881. Opium continued to be a problem in China until the Communist victory in 1949.
How did the communists eradicate the problem? They executed drug dealers, imposed compulsory treatment on approximately 10 million addicts, and razed opium fields replacing them with other crops. Certainly this was easier in a country sporting an authoritarian government rather than one constructed around individual rights. Harsh penalties for dealers and compulsory treatment for drug addicts (something like the process for involuntary commitment for mental illness) may be a way to make a massive impact in the problem. Of course, China was also aided by the fact that during the communist years there was little trade with countries outside the socialist bloc, preventing trade goods licit and illicit from arriving on their shores, which stemmed the foreign-origin supply of opium.
I think the whole legalization of drugs argument is made by people who support legalizing cannibis, psilocybin mushrooms, and natural things like ayahuasca, peyote, and salvia divinorum. That's great I think. Those things aren't as addictive or debilitating as other drugs. Heroin, cocaine, crack, methamphetamine. These things belong in a different category that should receive stricter intervention from the state. Dealers of these drugs should receive harsh penalties, the serious health consequences of these drugs and their effects on wider society may justify some intrusion into the individual liberties of addicts to require compuslory treatment to save their lives. Legalize the harmless ones and be strict on the ones that have detrimental consequences for society.
Big Pharma and the AMA can have the hard drugs.
Psychotropic drugs like LSD, pot and other natural entheogens are nature's way of saying "hi". Keeping them illegal is an affront to her. An ungrateful act instead of a thank you for letting us get to know her. The world needs to clear its karmic congestion.
All drugs should be legalized, "detrimental consequences for society"? whos to determine that? some people are capable of using cocaine, heroin, crack or meth with moderation... what we need is education to those that desire to use "hard" drugs (tobacco and alcohol also are hard drugs)... some will become addicts to nicotine and die from said addiction while others can live long and yes even fruitful lives using heroin.
I want the government off my back, its my brain and body and I have a inherent right to do whatever I wish with them as long as I dont harm others.
"the serious health consequences of these drugs and their effects on wider society may justify some intrusion into the individual liberties of addicts to require compuslory treatment to save their lives"
NOTHING justifies "intrusion" on the individual liberties of anyone other than harming somebody else in a clear and proveable way, and tell me how would you determine who is an addict and who is a USER? is anyone who uses cocaine addicted? you are in effect justifiyng the war on some drugs and that is wrong.
"Over himself, Over His Own Body And Mind The Individual Is Sovereign" J. S. Mill
I don't appreciate you bringing empathy, logic and wisdom into this argument, HUMANO! Just kidding. Great post.
If you don't support the use of some drugs, including the so-called hard drugs, here's an idea...DON'T FUCKIN DO THEM! It's my body and my life. I've never done any so-called hard drugs in my life and I choose not to. However, I do know for a fact (having 'served' a few hard drug users in my criminal ghetto past) that there are many people who love nothing more than to work their asses off and come home to a smooth hit of crack rock or to get a dose of junk, to take the edge off.
These folk pay their taxes, go to church, feed their kids, and take care of business, just like everyone else. They are no different than the suburban housewife, who has a glass of Cabernet every night, or her husband who gets in a doob with his golf buddies (See Weeds on Showtime, for more info). Sure, some people use and become strung out. However, no one wants to defend those folk who use and it stays recreational. Fuck the drug war! It's a war on the defenseless and denigrated.
It has never been a War on Drugs. It has always been a war on the poor, the young, on minorities and on the mentally ill.
Like all wars, it is a way of transferring wealth from the bottom 99% to the top 1%.
Direct democracy
Bingo !
...and lots of heavily armed people on the government payroll.
Sick result of the corporate business form. Arms dealers playing both sides The establishment creating and supporting its own "enemy". A real waste.
Unfortunately the US will never allow this to happen, and certainly will not cooperate with the recommended new system if other countries agree to implement. We are handicapped by a retrograde public opinion, political dependence on it, and a veritable army of law officers, federal and state officials, and citizen groups who simply cannot think logically about drug traffic. Like on health care reform, we are blindered by tradition and ideology, believing the US has all the good ideas and the rest of the world is a socialist mess.