The Failed Drug War

[grannylib]

Thoughts from other DUers on the following (from Sojourner's magazine, May/June 2003)

"With more than 2 million people behind bars (there are only 8 million prisoners in the entire world) the United States - with one-twenty-second of the world's population - has one-quarter of the world's prisoners. We operate the largest penal system in the world, and approximately one quarter of all our prisoners (nearly half a million people) are there for non-violent drug offenses - that's more drug prisoners than the entire European Union incarcerates for all offenses COMBINED, and the EU has over 90 million more citizens than the United States. Put another way, the United States now has more non-violent drug prisoners ALONE than we had in our ENTIRE prison population in 1980."

"Building more prisons to deal with the drug problem is like digging more graves to solve the AIDS pandemic."

[rjbcar27]

1. Fuckin hell, are those stats accurate?

If so, I'm astounded.

[grannylib]

2. To the best of my knowledge, yes

I have found Sojourner's to be a pretty reliable source; you can access them online at
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm

The article was written by Sanho Tree, a Fellow at the Drug Policy Project of the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington, DC.

[Wwagsthedog]

3. We're getting to know more and more about failed wars ...

... on drugs, terrorism, iraq, poverty, aids, and so on. Why should anyone believe we're serious about people's wellbeing? Lip service is our name; lies and deception are highlights of our game. Utterly disgusting.

[Stilgar]

4. Other countries are using the same data for decriminalization

Yes as far as I remember the stats are accurate. They are what other countries are using as motivation to decriminalize pot. Note, not legalize but decriminalize to a point that instead of arrest for a small personal amount of pot, they get a ticket and fine like a speeding ticket(go over the limit too much and still get arrested).

[jhfenton]

9. Decriminalization

I don't see that limited decriminalization would do much to eliminate the black market -- and the resulting violence -- if sales are still criminal. The decriminalization you describe would be a good first step, but shouldn't be the end game.

[Stilgar]

12. I agree

But it beats putting a person away for a couple of years for "distribution" for less than $20 of pot and spend Hundreds of thousands on incarceration, court, lawyers, and time took from real cases and police work to put away someone that bought a dried up plant.

[Abe Linkman]

5. "Failed" Drug War? Says WHO?

The so-called Drug War certainly isn't a failure to the long, growing list of special interests who benefit from it - starting with thoe dreaded "Drug Lords" who, like their counterparts at major corporations everywhere, only like to talk about free enterprise and the virtues of competition in the marketplace, but who in reality, use the government to assist them in eliminating competition.

Calling the Drug Wars a "failure" doesn't cause the public to get upset. After all, Joe and Mary Sixpack are conditioned to believe that government programs, by definition, often fail...but rarely die.

Better to couch the Drug Wars as the most costly and corrupt government intrusion into the lives of its own citizens, and millions of others around the world, in U.S. history.

[grannylib]

6. Excellent point

You are correct in your assessment that the Drug Wars have certainly not failed those who profit from them; my meaning was that the war on drugs has failed at what it purports to do, that is, to stop the flow of illegal drugs.
What the public needs to understand is that by prohibiting these substances, we have by default given up any hope of stopping or controlling them, because the potential profits are too enormous.
By criminalizing drug use, we have automatically put the supply in the hands of criminals (duh) and it always amazes me that the "laws of supply and demand" and the free market system are idolized by the right-wing-nuts, but they don't seem to be able to apply these concepts to drugs...
The current system is simply capitalism working the way the RWNs think it should...but with results they claim they don't want.

[Wwagsthedog]

7. Prisoners of War

Want to get sick about what happens to the human spoils of war?

From Cursor/talkleft.com

http://www.talkleft.com/archives/004733.html#004733

Providing Apparel and Hardware for the War

Last April, Bush embarked on a tour the press dubbed "Hardware in the Heartland." He went around to factories praising workers for their contributions to the war effort. Of course, many of these factories had seen and would see layoffs. So who really supplies the necessities of war for the Department of Defense? Our federal prisoners.

More....

[Lefty48197]

8. We suck

Our country has so much room for improvement. Those that puff their nationalistic chests and wave their flags have no desire to improve this country and will stop at nothing to prevent the rest of us from improving it.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

10. you said it Lefty

we do suck. there are serious fissures showing in our American society right now. The Drug War is quite possibly the most evident of our country's flaws, and it needs fixing now. How are our Representatives so irrepresentative, how are our police enforcing unjust laws, how are our judges sentencing these people, how have our juries FAILED us by refusing to consider the punishment before determining guilt or innocence? THere is a real problem here.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

11. Nobody has the balls

not even Dean, to say that I will legalize marijuana in a first step to making this country truly free again.