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Call Off the Global Drug War
In an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade.
The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.
The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America's "war on drugs," which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008.
Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.
These recommendations are compatible with U.S. drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts.
I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."
These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries.
This approach entailed an enormous expenditure of resources and the dependence on police and military forces to reduce the foreign cultivation of marijuana, coca and opium poppy and the production of cocaine and heroin. One result has been a terrible escalation in drug-related violence, corruption and gross violations of human rights in a growing number of Latin American countries.
The commission's facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment "with models of legal regulation of drugs ... that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens." For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.
But they probably won't turn to the U.S. for advice. Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million.
There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole — more than 3 percent of all American adults!
Some of this increase has been caused by mandatory minimum sentencing and "three strikes you're out" laws. But about three-quarters of new admissions to state prisons are for nonviolent crimes.
And the single greatest cause of prison population growth has been the war on drugs, with the number of people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses increasing more than twelvefold since 1980.
Not only has this excessive punishment destroyed the lives of millions of young people and their families (disproportionately minorities), but it is wreaking havoc on state and local budgets. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state's budget went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education.
Maybe the increased tax burden on wealthy citizens necessary to pay for the war on drugs will help to bring about a reform of America's drug policies. At least the recommendations of the Global Commission will give some cover to political leaders who wish to do what is right.
A few years ago I worked side by side for four months with a group of prison inmates, who were learning the building trade, to renovate some public buildings in my hometown of Plains, Ga. They were intelligent and dedicated young men, each preparing for a productive life after the completion of his sentence. More than half of them were in prison for drug-related crimes, and would have been better off in college or trade school.
To help such men remain valuable members of society, and to make drug policies more humane and more effective, the American government should support and enact the reforms laid out by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
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46 Comments so far
Show AllIf only I had been president, I could have done something about that. ... Oh, that's right, I was president once upon a time.
Were you alive at that time? He DID try to do something. And then for some stupid reason, we put in Reagan, and everything went to hell shortly thereafter. There was a real push to undo the damage that Nixon had done, and then came Reagan.
Don't blame those who have been consistent for decades on this topic. Carter did what he could at the time. What are YOU doing now? I mean other than bad mouthing someone who has been leading the way for over 3 decades...
If this is the quality of the thought process behind your thinking, you really might want to change your name. It's a lie. There is NO class in your comment at all.
Yes, I, too, am in my mid-fifties and I well remember Jimmy Carter.
Would anyone fondly remember FDR if he had simply recommended against the Volstead Act, but departed the office still enforcing it?
The fact is that no amount of public referendums, or city or county or state laws can end the drug wars. The only way they can be ended is for a president to promise to end them, win office, and then use his party to repeal the maze of laws scheduling the various narcotics.
I think Jimmy Carter is intelligent enough that he would have realized this from the start, but as the handmaiden of the Trilateral Commission, his hands were tied--and it was this very connection itself that brought him to the presidency that cost him his second term.
I'm in my late 50s. I remember the great Jimmy Carter going to visit Lt. Calley when he was briefly in the brig for Nazi-stlye war crimes. I remember the election of 1976 where he attacked Ford from the right, yapping about how Poland and Hungary were controlled by the USSR (bull). There were several better Democrats in '76--Mo Udall, Frank Church, Fred Harris--but the Dems went for a weak sister in between the reenergized left and the rotton LBJ-HHH right. I remember Zbignew Brzizinski (sic). I remember Carter aiding the Contras in Nicaragua, the Mujahaddin in Afghanistan and UNITA in Angola. I remember Carter cancelling the 1980 Olympics in a fit of Imperial anti-communism. And lets not forget his support for the Shah which provoked the Iranians into the arms of the Mullahs (accident?) and led to his downfall. Also, it was Jimmy who began the ongoing assault on the safety net. Since leaving office, he's been Mr. Smile, angling for a Nobel Peace Prize. ( We know what that's worth ! ) Carter was and is a Top Shelf Jackass. Know your history.
There was and is no war on drugs. This is a war between the illegal cartels and the US government for market share. The collateral damage of the war is the American poor. Soon big Pharma will enter the game and we will be able to buy heroin and cocaine in stores next to Bud Light and Heineken.
Hoa binh
Exactly right. Also, there is no way the CIA can finance a lot of its' murder and mayhem without running drugs on the return trip from the gun load.
There are also a lot of "law enforcement" and immigration folks who know way too much. Without an excuse to keep them on the payroll (fake drug war), they might have to be laid off. Then they might feel the need to talk about their experiences for a fee. Our good government certainly can't have that.
"National security" and all that, of course...
Why, because he's RIGHT?
No, because he's slightly LEFT
rumprider,
JC has personally taken on many of the world's toughest problems in a completely selfless manner, and he speaks and writes from the heart.
By comparison, you are a shameless spokesman for greed and corruption.
Carter waged the War on Drugs just as Nixon did. Now after 31 yrs. he wants what?
Why bite the hand that feeds you? Having an ex-President weighing in against the drug war is surely a good thing, isn't it?
Nice try at rewriting history. Try READING about it if you weren't there. Carter had the most sane policies that we've had in my lifetime, and I'm in my 50's. God, what is it with this constant rewriting of history to suit one's opinion? We USED to agree that facts are facts, now after 30+ years of right wing "news", everything is an opinion and there are NO facts anymore.
Carter was for legalization at the time, and I remember it quite well, thinking that we FINALLY had a smart man in the office. Then we put in Reagan and undid everything Carter did that would have put us on a FAR better course than we are on now. Things like a renewable energy program that would have gotten us OFF of foreign oil and yes, an end to the drug war.
Stop listening to the right wing for your history lessons. They are liars pure and simple. They prove it all the time.
Carter was also cheated out of second term by Bush's treasonous agreement with Iran to not release the hostages until after the election.
Carter left the Panama canal and pardoned the draft dodgers. For that alone, he is a greater president than any since JFK.
I'm 65 and lived in Atlanta when Carter first ran for governor unsuccessfully in 1966 and then successfully in 1970. Carter is a very intelligent man who, as his successor as governor pointed out, liked government, but not politics. His approach to governing deeply alienated most of the state assembly, not exactly a collection of intellectual all stars, while governor, and then as president he did the same thing with Congress, a much smarter and tougher crowd that he badly underestimated.
I remember a roadside billboard in 1970 campaign showing a photo of him touched up to emphasize populist plainness and earthiness, complete with a denim shirt. It posed the question, "Isn't it time someone spoke up for you?" Although Carter was a racial progressive in the context and time, he was not above appealing to rural and working class white resentment to get elected. He understood that politicians have to accept dirty hands, the trick is to do so as little as possible and only if it will put you in a position to make things better. Huey Long believed something similar in his day.
His main opponent, a former governor named Carl Sanders, whom he caricatured as "Cufflinks Carl", responded that Carter was a millionaire who graduated from the Naval Academy and was anything but an authentic populist.
But in spite of the fact that many people found him insufferably sanctimonious, his intelligence and idealism are undeniable, whether or not he sometimes turned his back on them. His policies on energy, illegal drugs, and forgiveness of draft evaders, an extremely inflammatory issue of the day that added fuel to the bonfire that brought in Reagan, were progressive and politically courageous.
Re. rewriting history: I completely agree with your characterization of what the far right has been doing to history, e.g., Fox "News" and the really insane paranoid wing of the Tea Party. It's just nuts, but I take them with deadly seriousness. They laughed at Hitler.
But it is also necessary in my opinion to note that it was the postmodern thinkers and writers on the left who flourished in France in the 60's and early 70's, and whose thinking was imported into the US in the late 70's and took deep root, who advocated for such propositions (derived in part from Nietzsche and his belief that all human intention and behavior is based in the Will to Power) that there are no facts, only interpretations, that everything is made of language, that there are no truths, only truth claims rooted in identity, that all we really have are competing narratives, and one narrative (and its interpretation) is as good or as ideal as any other.
Although these ideas have helped give voice to the oppressed, they also exacerbate political and social tribalism and accelerate the breakdown of the social contract. It seems the Right has learned this lesson well in a debased way and advanced it to catastophic ends, e.g., Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
The rise of postmodernism in the English-speaking world paralleled those of Reagan and Thatcher. For a good socialist critique of the intellectual exhaustion, even reaction, of American academic postmodernism, see Barbara Epstein's
"Postmodernism and the Left".
Most egregiously, Carter did try to decriminalize marijuana but, quite ineptly, hired a "Drug Czar" who went to parties and got wacked out on cocaine. That ended legitimacy as far as the drug warriors were concerned.
I'd add that we don't need treatment for those "...who use drugs but do no harm to anyone" and those who do harm others, well, last time I looked, that was a real crime.
yes, if one is doing no harm to others, one could be simply left to live as one chooses...
what was that line about 'inalienable rights'? 'pursuit of happiness'
Thank you Jimmy. Keep up the good work with the Elders.
Jimmy Carter, I love you.
I can only imagine how different the world would be if this country gave you 4 more years in 1980---instead of Reagan.
Your heart has always been in the right place. You ran a criminal empire, fought back, and did your best to inject a sense of morality into governance. Human Rights will always be your legacy. Thanks for ALL your good works.
I agree, Higgs, given the dominance in the US of its MIC, Carter was the closest thing to a fair and balanced politician as we're apt to get. Sure, he made mistakes, as a Libran, compromised with the dark side, but once he left office, he made his legacy less in expensive speaking tours, and more in providing homes for those without them. He tried to broker a sane Middle East peace deal, too; and spoke about conserving energy (and natural resources). So while hardly a Progressive, he may have been the last TRUE Democratic president.
It's perhaps easier to judge a president's true character by what he does after his presidential term than during it, and Jimmy Carter's work could hardly be more exemplary. He's astoundingly tireless and courageous. He had the guts to speak the truth about Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, and here he is again, the first prominent American politician to unequivocally support the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Is there any past president who has done even a tenth as much good as Carter?
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."
Current marijuana laws do not reflect the damage to the individual but to some greater 'morality'. Current laws appropriate the damage done by prohibition and accrue it to the drug. Inhaling pot smoke doesn't kill 40'000 Mexicans - prohibition and it's militant trappings does, but the agents of prohibition act as though arresting someone for smoking a joint is going to prevent further murders. Thus prohibition wears a mantle of righteousness that is hard to penetrate.
Maple: I don't think the marijuana laws are about morality OR public health. They are politically motivated. I've shared this before. As a high school student who went to Washington to protest the war in Vietnam, I stood with 250,000 long-haired kids on the White House lawn. For all the times I was lucky enough to go to a concert at The Fillmore East, I can tell you, the fumes inside the Fillmore had NOTHING on what was being smoked right there on Nixon's lawn... with burned effigies of the madman on display! He hated us. Hated youth, freedom, long-hairs and the way that peace would interfere with the growing MIC/war machine. How to deal with this growing problem? (Kids with active consciences and real awareness of what their nation's alleged leaders were up to?)
The same mindset that makes for a Nixon, Karl Rove, Joseph McCarthy, J Edgar Hoover, or any other similar control freak, sees a vast threat in the free spirited types who believe in a just world based on peace. Those free spirits happen to like pot. Because it was impossible to attack this group directly, the best covert offense was to make their favored drug illegal. This would lead to incarceration, a loss of a large demographic's voting rights, and whatever other penalties attached to the stigma of lawless behavior.
In a nation that pushes weapons onto 3rd world dictators, protects the toxic likes of Monsanto (for all its killer war chemicals and their current agricultural cousins), encourages (via movies) cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, seldom met a gun it didn't like, has turned road rage into a virtual hobby... any PREMISE of giving a damn about public health is sheer fantasy on steroids.
This is about CONTROL of a specific demographic. With the same deliberate contempt that wipes out a village of Arab families under the colossal fallacy of "collateral damage," whole families have been socially brutalized by this campaign of political carnage, known as The Drug War.
Because human law fails so miserably when elite operators get to manage its basis for consent, I remain confident that The Law of Karma will eventually balance all scales and hold all those who forced others into misery to learn from their mistakes, or pay with their next lifetimes.
Excellent post. However, I don't intend to depend on Karmic Law to make them pay.
Direct democracy.
A right on post Rose, however we might also look at the aspect that current drug and internal anti-terrorism laws, the PATRIOT Act, are all set squarely on top of the RICO act passed during the Nixon administration. It is that one law that has damaged the 1st, 4th, 5th and 10th amendments beyond any repair. I mean, who doesn't want organized criminal activities curtailed? But RICO even makes a deal between two friends for a quarter ounce of pot an activity of organized crime. I takes two to tango. Reminds me of the conspiracy laws used by Joseph Stalin during the day. If while in a tea shop, let's say, two people make eye contact then an unspoken conspiracy does exist. We are on that slippery path right now, thanks to RICO and the PATRIOT acts. For some fun reading, if these two books are still around, see: "Ain't nobody's business: The absurdity of consensual crime in a free society," by Peter McWilliams, and "Smoke and Mirrors," by Dan Baum. Both are excellent reads into the origins of the drug war and how laws were made to support the statsi's spying on the American people. Please add these two books to your summer reading list.
None of this was EVER about health or harm reduction. It was and IS about racism and now classism.
Cannabis was first made illegal in this country in 1913, in the state of CA. And they did so specifically so they could kick the Mexicans out of the state. 4 years later, 5 other southwestern states passed essentially the same law for the same reason. By the time it got to the federal level in 1937, it was passed because we had to "protect the white women". Seems they would toke up and immediately want to sleep with black men.
Opium was made illegal because the white women would do some and want to sleep with Chinese men. Alcohol prohibition was originally proposed to keep the Irish under control. Cocaine was made illegal to keep the blacks under control.
All of this is in the congressional records, and the racism was blatant and overt. There is a book you might want to read, written by a federal judge in California. It's called "Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess And How We Can Get Out", and he has one very excellent phrase to remember, if you get nothing else out of the book: "This country never had a problem with any drug or substance until it had a minority to use them against".
Look at who is in jail for drug offenses: more minorities by a HUGE percentage compared to their representation in the general population. Minorities have been telling us this for decades, and it's clear that they are RIGHT. Drug laws give cops an excuse to screw with anyone for anything, all they have to do is say "I smelled weed" or some other such line, and they are free to intimidate and ruin whoever they want. These laws are the quickest and easiest way to remove our rights to our own lives away from us and hand that power over to the state that we have ever thought up.
The "righteousness" you speak of should really be called "self righteousness", and it's evident with every encounter with cops that I've EVER had. They literally HATE us, and they think they are morally superior to ALL of us. Unless you clearly have more money than they will ever DREAM of, you are screwed if they want you to be. Too much power for the cops, not enough for US. It's disgusting, and it's tearing this country apart.
These laws need to end and end asap. Everyone in jail for a non violent drug offense needs to be immediately let go, every non violent drug conviction overturned and written off the books, and people's lives restored to full citizenship. We need to either eliminate about 50% of our cops or turn them on the REAL criminals, corporate America and the political class. THEY are the ones who do REAL damage to this country, not us and our bad habits. Police THEM, they are the ones killing people, lying us into wars we don't need, and stealing everything that isn't nailed down. THAT is who needs to be in jail, not weed smokers.
Look to the money and power to find out what the REAL goal is. It's to stir up division and steal as much money while grabbing as much power as possible. It has and never had a thing to do with health, safety, or anything else. Just money, racism and power. Period.
You are absolutely correct WJM. The criminalization of marijuana in the United States was rooted in racism, economics, and xenophobia.
In the early 20th century some Mexican migrant workers who worked on large farms in the Southwest smoked marijuana. Smaller farm owners lobbied to have anti-marijuana laws passed so that the larger farm interests would not have access to these migrant Mexican workers. These laws were not passed in the interest of public health or public safety. The main reason for passage of these laws was economics. Racism and xenophobia were contributing factors.
Many Americans do not know that in 1914 Henry Ford built a car 70% of which was composed of hemp fibers. He also designed cars to be run on hemp oil and predicted that hemp oil would be a significant source of fuel for cars. Unfortunately, due to politics the full potential of use of hemp oil as a fuel for cars has never been exploited in the U.S.
Keep on going. The Canadians have been coming up with some brilliant uses, too. They have come up with ways to make beams and sheet goods (plywood) from cannabis that are stronger, more flexible, and cheaper than their associated wood products, and they are environmentally sustainable as well. Not to mention, the paper one makes from it uses 6 times less chemicals than tree made paper, and lasts for centuries, instead of decades like acid based paper does. Plastics made from it are also sustainable, and can be made biodegradable much easier than petro plastics can. You can make clothing from it that lasts FAR longer than cotton based clothing, and uses next to NO pesticides. It doesn't degrade the soil it's planted in, and also produces a seed that is a 100% nutrition source. That seed can also be squeezed for high quality oil that can be cooked with or put into your engine. The plant puts out more material than any other plant and can be turned into fuel far more efficiently than corn. The plant also does wonders for flood mitigation, putting down tap root faster than any other plant used for this purpose.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Want a better world? Do it the smart way, use hemp in all it's wonderful uses. Much better way to go than to keep using up all the dead dinosaurs.
WJM,
Great comments. Thank you!
"These laws are the quickest and easiest way to remove our rights to our own lives away from us and hand that power over to the state that we have ever thought up."
BINGO!
and now they have the anti-terror game as well.
Right on
Thanks, Jimmy Carter. Well said. But let's not forget to add that the War on Drugs is a smashing success for the people who have bought the US government.
I am reminded of this paragraph from Kropotkin's essay, The Spirit of Revolt:
"The machinery of government, entrusted with the maintenance of the existing order, continues to function, but at every turn of its deteriorated gears it slips and stops. Its working becomes more and more difficult, and the dissatisfaction caused by its defects grows continuously. Every day gives rise to a new demand. "Reform this," "reform that," is heard from all sides. "War, finance, taxes, courts. police, everything must be remodeled, reorganized, established on a new basis," say the reformers. And yet all know that it is impossible to make things over, to remodel anything at all because everything is interrelated; everything would have to be remade at once; and how can society be remodeled when it is divided into two openly hostile camps? To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents."
How can We The People reform the drug laws when an 'openly hostile camp' makes massive amounts of profits from these horrible drug laws ? How can We The People end this drug war madness when it is interrelated to the madness of a government that has been bought and no longer represents Us? The people who profit or make a living enforcing these laws will surely not see it the way those who actually have to pay for these policies (taxpayers). Judges, lawyers, police, FBI, CIA, Private prison corporations and their employees, drug testing industries and their employees will do everything they can to ensure the madness continues because the other option is to lose their way of life - which is enabled by making a living through a fake capitalist front that funnels taxpayer money into private coffers.
I am sincerely asking... how do We The People tell the 'openly hostile camp' that their fake capitalist front party is over? Everything that Jimmy wrote about in this article is true, but the next step (dismantling an industry that pumps billions of taxpayer dollars into private coffers) is the hard part.
Is the answer to my question what Kropotkin wrote about in the above essay?
"Incapable of undertaking reforms, since this would mean paving the way for revolution, and at the same time too impotent to be frankly reactionary, the governing bodies apply themselves to halfmeasures which can satisfy nobody, and only cause new dissatisfaction. The mediocrities who, in such transition periods, undertake to steer the ship of State, think of but one thing: to enrich themselves against the coming débâcle. Attacked from all sides they defend themselves awkwardly, they evade, they commit blunder upon blunder, and they soon succeed in cutting the last rope of salvation; they drown the prestige of the government in ridicule, caused by their own incapacity.
Such periods demand revolution. It becomes a social necessity; the situation itself is revolutionary."
Great post.
Direct democracy
Carter's message includes the defunct idea that Demoks pursue an enlightened approach and were it not for Repuks holding them back, the Demoks could preside over some kind of permanent Enlightenment era. This is an absolute lie. The Demoks are married to the Repuks. Their contest is like that of the cartoonish TV marital feuds that perpetuate into eternity for the audience's amusement, that is until the audience grows tired of it. Are we tired of the elites' game yet? Let Carter climb on over to the far left, call a spade a spade, denounce the Demok/Repuk Contract of Mutual Support, and start supporting the people's agenda, to serve the people's better interests, wholly, elites be damned. Are you ready, Carter, to wholly offend the elites in this unprecedented gilded age? Look what we get when one does not! Ehh? Take a look around you!!
I love Jimmy Carter. He is absolutely right, and I wish our government would accept his counsel. (How much safer we would all be, had he been reelected.)
The complexity and interrelatedness of our problems is staggering. The worst elements of our culture, which prevent us from coming up with solutions, are greed and the politicization of everything. We really don't have time for this nonsense, ie. drug wars, class wars, wars for oil, etc. There is one line from a little poem I wrote, that I wish we could turn into a popular meme. I repeat it often in my own head:
"We must start taking care of Earth and say to hell with war;
for there's work enough that must be done without creating more."
Ex-presidents, like ex-presidential candidates, are looked upon as crazy uncles by the beltway.
I suspected conservatives would destroy Carter's Presidency when he was debating Reagan and his televised replies were being interrupted by "network problems". After the hostage release as soon as Reagan took office, I knew it was true.
Before the Internet, as long as the public airwaves are in oligarchy hands, they had control of public opinion and progressive ideas like ending the failed, trillion dollar crapper called the War on Drugs stood no chance of getting airtime.
It's a different ballgame now.
Thank you, President Carter.
I was worried before that. I was concerned that after Nixon leaving office in disgrace that the republicans would turn into a childish, selfish, stubborn, arrogant bunch of obstructionists who would do anything to hurt the people for making him leave. My concerns were proved to be true within the first year of Carter's presidency. They did everything they could think of to hurt him and us, and they have been getting worse ever since. Now they are nothing more than traitors to the country and the American people. They should be treated as such. There IS a constitutional remedy for people like that, and I for one believe that we have gotten to the point where that is required.
I agree. But seeing as how representative government, legalized graft and useful idiots have given oligarchy conservatives ownership and control of everything, the only peaceful way I see to bring these criminals to justice is changing the system itself from within, by the the people.
Direct democracy.
The only former president I can stand listening to.
And the truly elected President: Al Gore.
Since opinions are like noses, here is my two cents:
Jimmy Carter went to DC as an outsider and tried to make some radical changes that did not fit the status quo. Ergo, he was not a very successful president.
Years after his presidency, I heard him in an interview where he said something along these lines: There was so much bureaucracy and political dealings that I could not enact anything I wanted. By the time my plan got to the vote of the congress, it had been altered to something completely different. Now, as an ex-president, I have more power to make change. I do not have to deal with politics and bureaucracy. If I want to do something, I have the status and prestige that allows me to do it.
IMHO, Jimmy Carter has been the most moral, the best human being president the USA has seen in my lifetime (1956 model).
Mr Carter, you are an honorable man! Thank you for your many tireless years of service to our country, and to all of humanity! For all presidents that are concerned about their legacy, former Pres. Carter is a shining example for all presidents to follow! For all politicians and citizens who claim to be Christian, here is one, who actually walks the talk! Few men have his courage, and stamina, for presenting the truth, and working for justice.
..."toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries."
The goal was/is to take control of illegal drug imports globally.