Drugs, elephants and American prisons

[kpete]

Reuters columnist Bernard Debussman has a good column examining the elephant in the room in the debate on the war on drugs:
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/5/3/12291/35006


Drugs, elephants and American prisons

Are the 305 million people living in the United States the most evil in the world? Is this the reason why the U.S., with 5 percent of the world’s population, has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners and an incarceration rate five times as high as the rest of the world?

Or is it a matter of a criminal justice system that has gone dramatically wrong, swamping the prison system with drug offenders?

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In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent.” The elephant has ambled out of the bedroom and has become the object of a lively debate on the pros and cons of legalising drugs.

Contrary to widespread perceptions, marijuana accounts, by many estimates, for considerably more than half the illegal drugs smuggled from Mexico to the United States.

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more at:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/04/30/drugs-elephants-and-american-prisons/

[99th_Monkey]

1. Think "privatized" FOR-profit prison system ... and follow the money. ~nt~

[Mike 03]

2. This is a good thread, but ancient news

I'm a little suprised by that "contrary to popular opinion..." statement, but the central point here is very valid, as it has been since the 80s.

But what we need is for our lawmakers to recognize the truth of this argument.

Neither a new problem, nor a new observation that the solution is wrong. Wasn't there even some movie about this, "Traffic", that won best picture or something?