Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
- This Is What Happens When You Rip a Hole in the Safety Net
- So Your Groundwater's Poison and Your Tap Water's On Fire. Not to Worry: Fracking Chemicals Are Trade Secrets You Don't Need To Know About
- An Outpouring of Love and Support for Bradley Manning to Receive the Nobel Peace Prize
- Exxon Tar Sands Spill Continues to Devastate Arkansas Community
- The Treason of Intellectuals
Popular content
Today's Top News
The War on Drugs is Lost
SAO PAULO—The war on drugs is a lost war, and 2011 is the time to move away from a punitive approach in order to pursue a new set of policies based on public health, human rights and common sense. These are the core findings of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy that I convened, together with former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia.
We became involved with this issue for a compelling reason: the violence and corruption associated with drug trafficking represents a major threat to democracy in our region. This sense of urgency led us to evaluate current policies and look for viable alternatives. The evidence is overwhelming that the prohibitionist approach, based on repression of production and criminalization of consumption, has clearly failed.
After 30 years of massive effort, all prohibitionism has achieved is to shift areas of cultivation and drug cartels from one country to another (the so-called balloon effect). Latin America remains the world’s largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana. Thousands of young people continue to lose their lives in gang wars. Drug lords rule by fear over entire communities.
We ended our report with a call for a paradigm shift. The illicit drug trade will continue as long as there is demand for drugs. Instead of sticking to failed policies, that do not reduce the profitability of the drug trade — and thus its power — we must redirect our efforts to the harm caused by drugs to people and societies, and to reducing consumption.
Some kind of drug consumption has existed throughout history in the most diverse cultures. Today, drug use occurs throughout society. All kinds of people use drugs for all kinds of reasons: to relieve pain or experience pleasure, to escape reality or enhance their perception of it.
But the approach recommended in the commission’s statement does not imply complacency. Drugs are harmful to health. They undermine users’ decision-making capacity. Needle-sharing spreads HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Addiction can lead to financial ruin and domestic abuse, especially of children.
Cutting consumption as much as possible must, therefore, be the main goal. But this requires treating drug users not as criminals to be incarcerated, but as patients to be cared for. Several countries are pursuing policies that emphasize prevention and treatment rather than repression — and refocusing their repressive measures on fighting the real enemy: organized crime.
The crack in the global consensus around the prohibitionist approach is widening. A growing number of countries in Europe and Latin America are moving away from a purely repressive model.
Portugal and Switzerland are compelling examples of the positive impact of policies centred on prevention, treatment and harm reduction. Both countries have decriminalized drug possession for personal use. Instead of leading to an explosion of drug consumption, as many feared, the number of people seeking treatment increased and overall drug use fell.
When the policy approach shifts from criminal repression to public health, drug users are more open to seeking treatment. Decriminalization of consumption also reduces the power of dealers to influence and control consumers’ behaviour.
In our report, we recommend evaluating from a public-health standpoint — and on the basis of the most advanced medical science — the merits of decriminalizing possession of cannabis for personal use.
Marijuana is by far the most widely used drug. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the harm it causes is at worst similar to the harm caused by alcohol or tobacco. Moreover, most of the damage associated with marijuana use — from the indiscriminate incarceration of consumers to the violence and corruption associated with the drug trade — is the result of current prohibitionist policies.
Decriminalization of cannabis would thus be an important step forward in approaching drug use as a health problem and not as a matter for the criminal justice system.
To be credible and effective, decriminalization must be combined with robust prevention campaigns. The steep and sustained drop in tobacco consumption in recent decades shows that public information and prevention campaigns can work when based on messages that are consistent with the experience of those whom they target. Tobacco was deglamourized, taxed and regulated; it has not been banned.
No country has devised a comprehensive solution to the drug problem. But a solution need not require a stark choice between prohibition and legalization. The worst prohibition is the prohibition to think. Now, at last, the taboo that prevented debate has been broken. Alternative approaches are being tested and must be carefully reviewed.
At the end of the day, the capacity of people to evaluate risks and make informed choices will be as important to regulating the use of drugs as more humane and efficient laws and policies. Yes, drugs erode people’s freedom. But it is time to recognize that repressive policies toward drug users, rooted as they are in prejudice, fear and ideology, may be no less a threat to liberty.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
30 Comments so far
Show AllAt last! It seems incredible that the USA has been able to induce the world to follow its ineffective and dangerous, as well as counterproductive strategy of criminalising the use of certain drugs, and incarcerating millions of people. It has long been obvious that this policy will never work.
I suppose we could now try to criminalise war-that really could have beneficial effects, especially if the USA strenuously stopped their actions in that crime!!!
The USG/MIC, Mafia Industrial Complex, is engaged to destroy the Taliban in AfPak while implementing the American Taliban here. The Prison Industrial Complex,PIC,lobbies and bribes legislatures to pass Taliban laws for the purpose of increasing their profits by increasing the prisoner population. Since 1980 the Prison population has quadrupled from 750,000 to 2.5 million most due to the Taliban like drug laws. The USG/DEA/MIC is not serious about stopping drugs and it has become a business. For instance the DEA, CIA, FBI and the other agencies send their operatives to Latin American whom don't speak Spanish and they are not even equipped with $20 electronic English/Spanish translators complete with conjugated verbs. $50 for one that speaks. In 2002 the Peruvian air force shot down a plane of American missionaries and a DEA plane was observing close by. They contacted the Peruvian plane but since they couldn't speak Spanish were unable to tell The Peruvian's not to shoot down the plane because they weren't drug runners. All the DEA had to say was "no fuerte avion, no drogas". The family of missionaries died. The "war on drugs" is too big to fail. It's corruption is so vast that it involves judges, lawyers, banks for money laundering, police, customs officers, drug smugglers. Estimate at over $329 billion this would result in $3.9 billion in bank fees. Then the laundered money is laundered again.
I'm sorry Mr. Cardoso, but only the facts are on your side. The linchpin to why current policies will continue is the following quote in your article:
We became involved with this issue for a compelling reason: the violence and corruption associated with drug trafficking represents a major threat to democracy in our region.
This is precisely why these policies were put into place initially and why they will continue. The PTB can't have us in charge of our collective destinies per direct democracy. Oh and the fact that it's an immensely profitable way to generate income and money-launder.
Wall street and the Banking system would collapse without the proceeds of the Illegal drug trade. The CIA would lose one of its largest soruces of revenue.
Why?
What would prevent WS and the banking system from profitting from legal drugs? Does WS and the banking system not profit from the legal sale of alcohol, or tobacco?
There a premium on the price of drugs when they are illegal. Marijuana as example is a weed that grows most anywhere. Any person can grow this weed in their yard or living room. By making it illegal , a deman remains for the same while an artifical shortage created.
By making it Illegal Wall Street ensures the excess profits flow to them. Further to this is the fact that monies earned in such a manner are not taxed. The profits are so high that those involved in the trade will happily buy 2 million in poker chips, lose a million and then "cash out" the remainder in order to make the money look legitimate.
Now to legal drugs.
It is patent and trademark laws that work in their favor here. Many of the drugs that can be obtained from a natural plant (such as THC) are patented in some other form by the "Legal drug Companies" and called their exclusive property.
Were these plant derived drugs available to all legally these profits would drop as well.
Now what you might want to do is look and see how Hemp was made illegal in the United States. While not "drug related" they banned hemp under the guise of fighting against narcotics.
So ask yourself this...If The Corporations could make money off hemp by selling it themselves then why would they seek to have it banned?
The answer is very similar. There were groups with a vested interest in the Pulp and paper industry using wood as a source for the same, or in the textile industry using Cotton that did not want to "compete" with hemp . Profit margins are higher when artifical shortages of a product can be created.
This the same reason the oil industry fights against Solar power.
These all speak to an underlying truth of the system we call Capitalism. Profits are maximized when a given product is in demand and the supply of the same is kept artificially low.
See the speculation in food commodities.
Exactly and that lies at the core of Cardoso's article. He's telling us that fighting the war on drugs is fighting the CIA, the most powerful intelligence agency in the world, it's useless and unwinnable.
Legalizing drugs would diminish their price in the market and cut the incredible profits of the drug lords of the entire planet, drug related crime would diminish and treatment would be more accessible.
Cardoso's a dreamer, of course, but not the only one.
"There a premium on the price of drugs when they are illegal. Marijuana as example is a weed that grows most anywhere. Any person can grow this weed in their yard or living room. By making it illegal , a deman remains for the same while an artifical shortage created."
There is a premium on the price of drugs when they are illegal, true.
This is balanced out by the fact that their being illegal restricts the amount of people who will use them. See, for example, alcohol. Since alcohol is legal, though controlled, people might buy their drug, alcohol, from the supermarket, from the bar, not from some black market dealer who might have mixed in anything he wants into it. They can buy it after a day of work, dropping by at the supermarket, something the cannot do if it were illegal. Since alcohol is legal, the corporations can market, advertise, promote it, encouraging people who use it, to use more of it. The legality of alcohol means it is easier to use. Which means more people use it. Margins might be smaller, due to legality, but total sales are higher.
Anyone can grow it in their living room. So why are they not doing it? If anyone can grow it in their living room for personal usage, the legality or illegality of it should not be a big factor.
Anyone can grow veg in their garden too. Raise a chicken for eggs. Heck, making your own (crappy) alcohol is not difficult, once you understand the basics of what alcohol comes from: carbohydrates. Anything with a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, juice, honey, rice, wheat, etc, can be turned into alcohol. Yet the legality of all this does not prevent corporations from making money from selling these things to people.
"By making it Illegal Wall Street ensures the excess profits flow to them. Further to this is the fact that monies earned in such a manner are not taxed. The profits are so high that those involved in the trade will happily buy 2 million in poker chips, lose a million and then "cash out" the remainder in order to make the money look legitimate."
Not really. There is nothing to prevent WS from ensuring that excess profits flow to them if they were illegal.
"So ask yourself this...If The Corporations could make money off hemp by selling it themselves then why would they seek to have it banned?"
So ask yourself this...If the corporations could make money off alcohol by selling it themselves then how did alcohol get banned, once upon a time?
"The answer is very similar. There were groups with a vested interest in the Pulp and paper industry using wood as a source for the same, or in the textile industry using Cotton that did not want to "compete" with hemp . Profit margins are higher when artifical shortages of a product can be created."
And what about other groups, say garment manufacturers that could see their costs lowered, and their profit margins raised, if a better / cheaper material than cotton could be obtained?
"Profit margins are higher when artifical shortages of a product can be created."
And what if by creating that shortage, you also reduce demand?
This is simple: do you think there are less profits (for the corporations) from alcohol, with alcohol being legal, than if it were illegal?
>>This is simple: do you think there are less profits (for the corporations) from alcohol, with alcohol being legal, than if it were illegal?
Overall? yes.
The most profitable time for Canadian distillers and the time were the great fortunes built , was during Prohibition. Their profit margins were never higher.
The problem with Alchohol being illegal is that as prices rose people made their own.
It in fact cheaper and easier to grow your own BUD then it is to distill liquor.If i can buy a 10 dollar bottle of wine from a Liquor store it a lot less effort and better a product then a bottle of wine I could make.
This is not true with Marijuana. It a plant that grows from a seed and needs little effort. Same with the coco leaf in Latin America. It grows naturally.
>>And what about other groups, say garment manufacturers that could see their costs lowered, and their profit margins raised, if a better / cheaper material than cotton could be obtained?
You predicate your arguemnet on the disproved theory of a "free market" Nio such thing exists. Multinational companies own shares in firms that produce cotton. Oil companies own shares in Corporations that make plastics and drugs.
Capitalims trends towards monopolism. It the nature of the beast. Examine the History of teh Rockefellers as example and how they invested in other Industries to bankrupt them so as to ensure no alternatives would exist to the use of Oil as an energy source.
Read how oIl companies and automobile companies colluded to rid themselves of transit and the electric trams on city streets.
The removing of HEMP as a source for raw material in the United States was the result of Collusion between various Us Industries that controlled other soruces of raw material. Hearst was heavily invested in the pulp and paper industry and used his newspaper chain to publish propoganda on hemp and its dangers as a drug.
>>Anyone can grow it in their living room. So why are they not doing it? If anyone can grow it in their living room for personal usage, the legality or illegality of it should not be a big factor.
They will not do it because it is illegal. With the job market the way it is , people will not risk a criminal record to grow their own weed. Growing marijuana for ones own use carries stiffer penalties then mere posession. In Canada as example one can often avoid a criminal record on mere posession but NOT on growing.
It is also easier to escape the law with mere posession then it is growing. A bag of weed under a car seat can be explained away. Plants in the living room can not.
>>The legality of alcohol means it is easier to use. Which means more people use it. Margins might be smaller, due to legality, but total sales are higher
Not the same beast. Making a drug legal does not mean drug usgae goes up. Both Portugal and the Netherlands have shown this. They decriminalized posession of drugs and not only did prices plummet, but overall usage went down.
Alchohol use in those countries is much higher. If you made alchohol illegal usage would not go down as was shown when the US tried Prohibtion. There a lot more people that take wine with their meals or whiskey after work then there is that will smoke a doobie even in countries were smoking a doobie is not a crime.
G.W. NORTH: You are a remarkably patient man, probable mark of an old (as in advanced) soul. My hat is off to you...
"The most profitable time for Canadian distillers and the time were the great fortunes built , was during Prohibition. Their profit margins were never higher.
"
How much were these Canadian distillers worth compared to what companies such as SAB, or Diageo are worth nowadays?
Yes, the profit margins were higher. I SAID THAT. But, there is more to making money than just profit margins: total profit. A high profit margin, but a small volume of sales, might result in lower total profits than a smaller profit margin, but high volume of sales.
"The problem with Alchohol being illegal is that as prices rose people made their own.
It in fact cheaper and easier to grow your own BUD then it is to distill liquor.If i can buy a 10 dollar bottle of wine from a Liquor store it a lot less effort and better a product then a bottle of wine I could make.
This is not true with Marijuana. It a plant that grows from a seed and needs little effort. Same with the coco leaf in Latin America. It grows naturally
"
Actually, it is you here who is making some of the assumptions of "free markets". You assume that people will act perfectly "rationally". You assume that people will go to the bother of growing their own marijuana if it were legal, because it might be cheaper. If the corporations mass produce it, and get the costs low enough, there will be a fair amount of people who will opt for the convenience of ready made marijuana, people who would not be bothered to grow their own. Furthermore, there are different types of marijuana. Just like their are different types of alcohol. Most people will not grow to the trouble of growing their own multiple types of marijuana. They will opt to buy.
Growing a bit of veg isn't hard. Most people do not bother. Many people do not bother to be able to cook, other than warming some stuff in the oven / microwave, frying / boiling an egg. Etc. Why do you assume that peopel are going to bother to grow weed, if they buy it conveniently, at low cost from the supermarket?
"Not the same beast. Making a drug legal does not mean drug usgae goes up. Both Portugal and the Netherlands have shown this. They decriminalized posession of drugs and not only did prices plummet, but overall usage went down.
"
Is legal marijuana in Portugal and the Netherlands marketted, advertised, the way alcohol is? Of course not. The corporations haven't gotten into the sale of legal marijuana yet. And at least among some, there is a stigma to marijuana use, whereas there isn't to alcohol. If it becomes legal in more and more places, and there is much more marketting, that stigma will go. That is why usage has not gone up. If marijuana were legalised in North America, in most of western Europe, they would certainly do so. They would certainly start advertising and marketting. They would certainly start having their marijuana brans sponsor sports teams, sports events such as the World Cup.
"You predicate your arguemnet on the disproved theory of a "free market" Nio such thing exists. Multinational companies own shares in firms that produce cotton. Oil companies own shares in Corporations that make plastics and drugs.
"
No, I am doing no such thing. Nothing in what I said assumes a free market. You are attacking a strawman. Yes, multinational companies own shares in firms that produce and weave cotton. So what? Shares can be sold, and bought, and sold, and bought. If replacing cotton with hemp gets them more money, they will do so. Cotton is hardly a major economic factor. And of course oil companies own shares in corporations that make plastics. Plastics come from oil.
GW, yes, and the one thing that I see happening, those whorporates have shot themselves in the foot. America needs the hempindustry at the mom & pop level, industrial hemp. We have tried to get that legalized for years to no avail. So all these wonderful hempsters out here, having put their collective tokes to the line to make legalization happen, will open the door to grow industrial. We get a double bang for the buck, those of us who have farmland. Yee hah.
So...now that the medical has voted itself into 14(?) states, right behind that, and here we go. That huge 'mob' bust is really going to put a dent in the go-betwinst for the idiots in DC, not to mention pissing off some mucketymucks. Love it. Yup, shot themselves in the foot.
The War on Drugs, now there's a government service that could go and free up a boatload'a money, along with the dept of labor...hhahahahahaha
Been reading the material at the site. Fascinatingly intelligent.
100 billion dollars to be closer..wow
Reading 'The Economist' article http://www.drogasedemocracia.org/Arquivos/the-economist.pdf .....really interesting...
Why? Who else has the resources to launder all the serious drug money?
Too many careers are at stake for drug prohibition to end. Remember, the demonization of marijuana came about because the prohibition against alcohol was lifted - thereby threatening the livelihood of the enforcement/incarceration industries (mostly the career of one man...). These parasites would have to get a real job - and they're not about to go down without a fight!
And they have achieved their goals--our police are militarized and the 4th amendment is pretty much gutted.
The US government has studied the effects of its so-called "drug war," and decided to continue it although it raises crime and reduces drug use little if any.
Might there not be a different motive? There may be several.
Right-wing politicians gain votes every election by making a show of being tough on drugs. This works well for them, since "being tough" does not reduce the drug trade, so they can keep swaggering year after year.
This is an excuse to reduce restrictions on police power.
And then, US paramilitary and undercover operations are considerably benefited by the drug trade. We saw this most clearly in the 1980's when Ollie North's ring was busted, but it has been true before and since. Hash and ganja and opiates flown out of the Golden Triangle were a major business through much of the Vietnam war, Ollie's boys were working through South and Central America at least through a good part of the 70's and 80's, and we have no reason to believe they stopped there, since aggressive US "intelligence" in the region certainly has not. Now the US occupies Afghanistan and - voila! - it becomes the world's nonpareil major supplier of heroin, the brother of the US puppet is the major dealer.
Part of running the mafia is getting rid of competition, so having strong enforcement with pre-arranged holes keeps the street price artificially high.
Of course there are police workers on the street and in local precincts who wish to stop drug use. But why would anyone imagine that they would carry the day? They are isolated from the actions of the larger society and misled about both the nature and the effects of what they do.
I think there's something else at work here.
I remember when I was living in the Florida Keys, Bob Martinez, Florida's X-Governor was appointed as Drug Czar. So began a "Zero Tolerance" policy. Often one would see a cool car in Key West with a sticker stating, "This Vehicle Not Purchased with Drug Money" as a spoof on the whole thing.
My initial feeling was how easily this "law" compromised, or should I say trespassed, over the (4th? 5th?) amendment and its guarantee of PRIVACY. I could see the makings of a slippery slope then and there. How many infringements against said privacy would the citizenry tolerate with authoritarians using the ruse of drugs as key cause?
Furthermore, Zero Tolerance pre-supposed a stance of guilty until proven innocent.
I also remember standing on the White House lawn with half a million long-haired protesters during a major anti-war demonstration sometime in either l970 or l971 (I can't remember). So many joints were being passed as the crowd burned a big effigy of Richard Nixon.
The neo-cons were standing by watching and hating the power of this contingent of youth, and its change-the-world progressive values.
Since they could not directly go after this niche, by criminalizing pot, they found a way to disenfranchise thousands, if not more.
Currently, the whole prison-industrial complex and its legion of uniformed guards operates like a yeast growing off the sugar of the drug trade. That's probably why California's proposition to legalize pot didn't make it through the pipeline.
Most of us in the forum realize that legalizing pot in Cal would probably bring the golden state out of debt, and restore teachers' and firefighters' salaries.
Alas, the seeds to BUD a revolution were nearly lost, but remain at hand.
Well said. These are things Mr. Cardoso could not say. The Drug War is a growth industry that feeds on American's fears and taxes and the blood of Latin America.
Wonderful assessment.
Objectively, this is an important article, outlining the need for a "paradigm shift" in a very commonsensical way. The author is a recent (1995-2002) president of Brazil and he is essentially saying that the War on Drugs as currently staged is A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!
And he is right.
Meanwhile, I was struck by this paragraph:
"Some kind of drug consumption has existed throughout history in the most diverse cultures. Today, drug use occurs throughout society. All kinds of people use drugs for all kinds of reasons: to relieve pain or experience pleasure, to escape reality or enhance their perception of it."
Another way of saying this is that we all seek something approaching homeostasis. In the United States, our bodies (thus minds) are so contaminated by "legal" chemicals---OTC pills, pesticides, food additives, chlorine and fluoride in our water, prescription drugs, air pollution, etc.---that homeostasis is nearly impossible.
If we look around us we see so many people in either states of extreme agitation or blissful obesity.
Interesting that the only two illegal drugs mentioned in the article are marijuana and cocaine, and that by far the largest use is of marijuana. We smoke it, but if we could afford it, we could put it in a salad along with lettuce and garlic and olive oil and call it a food. Or cook it into brownies. Our politicians and corporate interests have set out a paradigm in which "food" is one thing and "drugs" are another, when in fact there is a continuum.
Avocado. Oysters. Thanksgiving turkey. Macaroni and cheese. Coffee. Tea. A Brooklyn Kaiser roll morning fresh with unsalted butter. Food, or drug?
The "paradigm shift" President Cardoso calls for is admirable, and I mean that. But it falls short ultimately on the issue of homeostatis and thus he is compelled by political "realities" to write:
"But the approach recommended in the commission’s statement does not imply complacency. Drugs are harmful to health. They undermine users’ decision-making capacity... Addiction can lead to financial ruin and domestic abuse, especially of children.
"Cutting consumption as much as possible must, therefore, be the main goal."
Marijuana is NOT physically addictive. Many prescription drugs are, and many of them have very serious side effects, unlike marijuana. Thus when President Cardoso writes that "Drugs are harmful to health," he is correct if he includes Big Pharma, and brings them into the Great Cycle of Homeostasis.
I think, therefore I am. If I smoke opium, I can ask what the meaning of "think" thinks. Given enough time and space, I might write Alice in Wonderland. That would be wonderful.
As for the cocaine trade, unlike the Wall Street Banksters, I am not qualified.
-30-
Siouxrose & OMR - very good points. In the early 60's when I was taking philosophy class we had a professor who challenged us to think about the justice of crimes without victims (homosexuals, illegal drug taking etc.) in which much spirited debate ensued.
It has been said that the criminalization of certain drugs are the incipient steps towards fascism with the every increasing expansion of the police and war states.
Basically the war on drugs has for decades now been contraindicative in that it causes more harm then good. This is a basic utilitarian logic used in general medicine: i.e. you are not prescribed heroin to treat a simple headache. Yes, it would alleviate your temporary headache but could easily lead to addiction with all it's manifest problems.
We live in a society that is dominated by the "drug fix" and most doctors do little else then dispense the latest corporate pharmacological crap (patented of course). Most of these drugs do not cure - that might actually require some personal change and discipline - but rather make us addicts to the drug just like their illegal brothers. With so much emphasis on the quick fix rather then holistically changing our jaded lifestyles, it is no wonder that people seek to personally opiate
their bodies with so called illegal drugs.
One more thing: Although I ran through the whole sixties psychedelic drug scene and don't regret one minute of it, my time to get off the party wagon was some 36 years ago. I do not, nor never had believed in substance criminalization and believe that marijuana is probably one of the least harmful of intoxicants, I still believe it has it's down side just like most stimulants or mood altering substances and individuals would be well served to give them up for various periods of personal discovery into what their needs are. In short, it can be just as exciting to disembark the party wagon as it was to get on it.
RALPH: Wonderfully astute post! I'm with you 98%. The 2% deviation goes to the concept of MODERATION as per Pot. I have some friends who smoke grass on a daily basis, and I would say it negates their ambition. Two are carpenters and their work IS enhanced from the grass; however, it leaves them feeling passive towards other things. I see marijuana as a YIN-type energy. It strikes me as the original smoked peace pipe. When people do things EVERY day and develop dependencies, that's another matter.
I did some LSD in college and found it quite useful in understanding things about perception that could not otherwise be ascertained. Anyone who's ever had sex under THAT influence knows what a mystical "transport" the whole interchange becomes. You actually feel and see your cells becoming those of your partner.
I haven't tripped in 30 years or so, but some of that understanding remains with me. For instance, when I bike into the state park forest, I have my own Bodhi tree and when I lean against it, I picture a transfer of molecules between me and the tree. I receive some of its peace and stability in exchange for my dynamism and innate fiery spirit. (Or something along those lines.)
When we attempt to calculate how many lives have been ruined by recreational drugs (a/k/a victim-less crimes), how many families lack a father or mother (due to mandatory incarceration) in times where generally two incomes are necessary to sustain a modicum of financial security... it becomes a debt of astronomical proportions. Any child who grows up without a parent (or their love) feels that loss for the entirety of their existence.
I've always felt that a nation that makes war, legalizes guns, alcohol, tobacco, filthy porn, and lately, hate speech hardly serves as any moral arbiter for MY personal choices. I feel I answer to a higher authority. American leadership has perjured itself in bearing FALSE witness to law, truth, and those principles that have strayed so far from Divine Justice.
Suioxrose, I have to differ with you on the daily use of pot. There is a stage where there is some couch lock as it's called. Beyond that there is a desire to be creative as well as relaxed. Everyone I know over 35 or so, that smokes daily, holds a job, another runs a farm, another two developing local government plans for sustainabiltiy for the coming times, artists...business owners, and even OMG ...a government official elected and everything. So please don't lump all potheads according to Bevis or Cheech.
One of the interesting features is the difference it creates for each individual. A different strain can turn me into chatty kathy, another a mantra humming hermit.
As for drug abuse...one has to ask the person doing the abusing,
'what made you need to numb yourself?'
and you will get the kind of answers that you better have a good psych degree or a degree in the dark arts to be able to listen to the pain. I have heard some stories that just listening would cause you yourself to go find something to comfort you. That is why it is critical to have drug abuse be a public health issue, like alcoholism, racism, violence, gambling or sex, it is a replacement for the darkest center of a person's soul that lives in a nightmare. People who don't understand that just fly with the usual standard prattle of the media about how it destroys families...well, that's a long stretch from my neighbor smoking each day after her chemo treatment.
Stereotyping is a system for cataloging ignorance.
When has anyone ever won a war on an abstraction?
After the war on drugs, the war on tools - after all, burglars use burglar tools.
After the war on terror, the war on ennui.
If we're going to fight one, personally I'd like to see a war on assholicity.
"2011 is the time to move away from a punitive approach in order to pursue a new set of policies based on public health, human rights and common sense"
Bizarre policies are going to stay around as long as the people continue to feed from the petro-opiate trough. As long as the people indulge in the opiates, the elites will continue to propagate bogus ideas and policies to keep the people confused. This state of mental and logical confusion, along with sensual satiation at the petro-opiate trough keeps the people from rebelling and seizing control of industrial production, public policy, and their own destiny.
"Cutting consumption as much as possible must, therefore, be the main goal. But this requires treating drug users not as criminals to be incarcerated, but as patients to be cared for."
And this requires the perpetrators of incarceration to be incarcerated themselves. Of course the prison cells need not actually be filled with these white-collar criminals. Rather the torches and pitchforks of the people marching on Washing-town need only fill the pupils of their beady little eyes after which they will quickly fall to their knees and grovel for the people's mercy. When will the people get some backbone and take the tools to Washing-town? Surely not until they are weaned off the petro-opiates.
Of course the war on drugs is lost. That's why you have the new and improved war on terror!
Abso-ca-ching-lutly, Z1! A most astute comment.
Follow the money.
This is news? The war on drugs was lost before it even started.
This is a little like saying "We failed to find an advanced civilization on the moon".