War on Drugs Failure

[spike]

The head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy has admitted that the war on personal freedom drugs is a failure:

After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

If anything, he understates it. It isn't just that the war on drugs has failed; it's that the war on drugs creates many, if not most, of the very problems used to justify the war in the first place.

The zealous drug warriors justify the war by pointing out the existence of violent gangs that run drugs -- but those drug gangs only exist because drugs are illegal. You don't see violent turf wars between Stolichnaya and Skyy, or between Miller and Budweiser because they compete the way all legitimate corporations do.

They justify the war on drugs by pointing to the amount of crime that takes place by those who are addicted and need the money to buy drugs. But prohibition artificially inflates the price and only makes that crime more common than it otherwise would be.

Drug use should be treated just like alcohol use -- regulated, taxed and restricted to adults. Drug abuse should be treated like alcohol abuse -- as a public health problem, not as a criminal problem. It's time to declare defeat and bring the troops home.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/05/drug_czar_admits_war_on_drugs.php

 

[catocom]

War on Drugs Failure

and it always will be.

Politicians are getting paid off NOT to legalize it, plus many don't want
it legalized because of the propaganda over the years, and the 'lords'
certainly don't want it legalized, because the price would drop.

In CA I hear there's a panic in the smoke shops because the price of mj in dropping so quick.

I'm libertarian like Stossel on it.
I think it ALL should be deCriminalised, and re-regulated.

Like I said though....never happen on the fed level.

 

[valkyrie]

War on Drugs Failure

and it always will be.

Politicians are getting paid off NOT to legalize it, plus many don't want
it legalized because of the propaganda over the years, and the 'lords'
certainly don't want it legalized, because the price would drop.

In CA I hear there's a panic in the smoke shops because the price of mj in dropping so quick.

I'm libertarian like Stossel on it.
I think it ALL should be deCriminalised, and re-regulated.

Like I said though....never happen on the fed level.

Sir, I would like to buy you a drink.