An American is now arrested every 19 seconds on drug charges.

[nightperson]

No, I'm not him :silly: .

This article Terror War Takes a Back Seat to War on Drugs:


"Think the Feds’ self-proclaimed "war on terror" has distracted from its much longer and costlier (but similarly self-proclaimed) "war on drugs?" Think again.

Law enforcement arrested a record 1,678,192 US citizens for drug abuse violations in 2003, according to data published last week in the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report. The arrest total surpassed the previous year’s total by more than 100,000, and is 33 percent greater than the total number of Americans arrested on drug charges a decade ago. Put another way, an American is now arrested every 19 seconds for violating the nation’s drug laws...

Nevertheless, despite record deficits and the looming terrorism threat, neither major party’s Presidential candidate have questioned the wisdom of spending unprecedented hours of police time and, literally, billions of state and federal taxpayer dollars to arrest and prosecute non-violent drug offenders. (NORML places the state and local criminal justice costs of marijuana arrests at $7.6 billion – more than 25 percent of the total fiscal amount states spend on all anti-drug related enforcement; the Feds spend an additional $21+ billion annually on the drug war.) They ought to be.

Voters in more than a dozen states over the past seven years have approved initiatives eliminating jail time for various non-violent drug offenses, and national polls show that 3 out of 4 Americans support depenalizing (no arrest, no jail) pot possession. In two states this November, the electorate will decide on measures to legalize the use of marijuana by ill patients, and Alaska voters will decide on a proposal to legalize and regulate the private use of the drug by all adults. In this climate, it’s clear that politicians and law enforcement are fast becoming isolated in their support for their behemoth "war on drugs," which, having grown so gargantuan in size, now appears destined to collapse under the force of its own weight."


is a good companion piece to one I posted a while back in "Editorials", which more casually announced Pot Smokers Arrested In America At A Rate Of One Every 42 Seconds.

Also, major Dem candidate/magazine/blogger etc. (:cry:) National Review has the temerity to ask What Are They Smoking?.

[ooglymoogly]

1. its a win win for the pugs

huge boondoggle for fbi and law enforcement (republican)
able to put a lot of dems (mostly blacks and hispanics) in jail for nothing,destroying their lives, a big pug cause. and guess what the dems are paying for half of it because they haven't got the balls to stand up to the pugs even when they were in the minority. how dumb is that?

[Dez]

2. But do the Democrat senators vote against the drug war??

I mean, it seems like they all vote for it, so they wont appear 'soft on drugs'..

[ooglymoogly]

6. as usual they have suckered the dems with the law and order crap

an ambush they are particularly good at. maryjane causes crime (false) criminalizing maryjane caused crime bigtime.
maryjane is addictive (false) alchol and cigarettes are addictive. yet they know if they beat the drums loudly enough and get their propaganda out to the socker moms (brain-dead anyway) they can make the dems dance to their hillbilly tunes and boy do they dance.

[Union Thug]

3. Drug laws are the most blatantly hypocritical laws on the books

ESPECIALLY when dealing with marijuana.

All these cronies that sit around sucking on cigars and downing martinis who support marijuana prohibition are the must undeniably brain dead, half-witted, bobble headed, jack booted hypocrites ever to walk the face of this earth.

I get so pissed off over this that I lose my ability to articulate. This country is so grossly backwards on its attitude towards drugs that I just want to pack up and move to Amsterdam!

[Dez]

4. Hwy Union Thug

I see you're from Seattle, I used to live in Bellingham.. The drug war was less prevelant up there, than it is down here in Az! It's baaad down here! I miss that blue state!

[49jim]

5. There is one in Florida

that hasn't been arrested!

[Bill Kephart]

7. Hey I have an idea

Lets put nonviolent harmless marijuana users in the same jails as killers and rapists!

I believe the right to ingest any chemical you so desire should be a constitutional protected right.