call for an end to the lame non-winnable 'WAR ON DRUGS'

[dR. O]

why is it that it only took one decade to realize that prohibition was a bad idea that only made criminals wealthy and did nothing to curb alcoholism? well the 'war on drugs' is basically prohibition part dunce and only serves to fund the Islamic terrorist in their desire to wage jihad. So why do we spend more money on our prison system than our school system? To me this is lunacy

[Justsayin]

1. prison industrial complex

To artificially inflate the prices and support the prison industrial complex.

[Lilyhoney]

3. Hello. Welcome to DU.

:hi:

[applegrove]

4. Welcome!

[disgruntled_goat]

2. devil's advocate time

alcohol doesnt socially decondition like acid or mushrooms do.

sure, alcohol is probably the single worst drug you can give a culture, but if people were taking these other drugs en masse, they would in short order decondition from their (our) cultural values, seeing them as the relative stuff that it is.

and that's when entire governments tremble in fear.


mind you, I'm not disagreeing with you post. I think the 1st thing we need is honest information about ALL drugs. I'm looking at you, Pfizer, et al.

[RONSTOO]

10. ummm last time I checked

you can get anything you want in America

[ConcernedNonpartisan]

15. Except honest elections.

Oh, yeah, equal rights too.

[Pepperbelly]

22. I disagree totally with your post ...

Socially de-condition?

What exactly do you mean by that?

[lildreamer316]

37. I'm confused by his post. My interp:

He's saying that the reason other drugs than alcohol are illegal is that if the masses used them legally that they would "wake up" and see the bs for what it is. Then the govt trembles in fear.
He's right too. Just not very clear.......

[disgruntled_goat]

67. yes thats it

thanks for breaking it down.

I went back and re-read my post...(ahem) I may have rambled a bit. :)

[applegrove]

5. Because some drugs really are dangerous & addictive and turn

their victims into predators faster than anything.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. Would that still happen if the drugs weren't illegal?

And if people didn't have to beg, borrow and steal to get them?

[applegrove]

19. Yes. People would still be medically addicted to dangerous drugs

that turn them into zombies and destroy family life & where the only goal becomes the next fix. Plus more kids would fall into the trap. Look at how corporations market and sell all sorts of shit to kids. You don't think if it were legal the pharmaceutical companies would be as pleased as bunch?

Hell they don't research drugs that are not daily and chronic. Those one time drugs that work get dropped like hot coals the second they are cost benefited and found out to be non-money makers.

Big Pharma sells enough stuff and reclassifies illnesses to sell more.

Why would you want to hand them over the mantle of cocaine or whatever. They would have the whole country hooked on those things -very addictive things - in a few years.

Pot - who cares. Not terribly addictive and probably dangerous to kid's brains in terms of causing later depression or the like.

But heroin? Where after one shot people are hooked for life in some cases and will run over anything and anyone to get it for the next twenty years - when - if they are still alive by some miracle - something tells them to stop and they do - only to be addicted to methadone or some other crunch to get them through the pain of such a useless - soulless life?

[High Plains]

24. Hooked for life after one shot? Give me a break.

and you have to wonder about the utility of throwing around terms like "predators." We should leave that to Nancy Grace.

On the other hand, I am an advocate of legalization and regulation, but I share your concerns about Big Pharma. It is awfully difficult to restrict commercial "speech" in this country, but it can be done. I don't recall seeing any cigarette ads on television lately, although I see alcohol ads making a comeback.

Still, my position is that while drug abuse (not use, and the vast majority of drug users are not abusers, even with meth, the demon drug of the day)can cause problems, drug prohibition not only exacerbates them, but adds a whole slew of additional ones, not the least of which is the erosion of all of our constitutional rights.

[applegrove]

27. Drug addicts no no other god than their addiction. All passion for life

revolves around their own need for a fix rather than children, family, loved ones, a happy career, knowing themselves... They lie, steal, etc. They become narcissists they were not. And all predators are narcissists.

[Pepperbelly]

28. LOL

Where in the hell are you getting this stuff?

That is not true of ANY that I have met.

[applegrove]

30. If you are rich and addicted - great - happy times.

[Pepperbelly]

34. bullshit ...

You should respond to my arguments rather than making sweeping assertions that are based on bogus information and false predicates. You are not responsive. The economic consequences are a function of the LEGAL status, not the inherent nature of the substances. Until you come to grips with that, your argument is logically and factually bankrupt.

[applegrove]

40. Look how the pharmaceuticals push needless drugs. That is what

happens when it is legal.

I'll readily admit that making it illegal means you have to enforce it. And the criminal element shows up.

But there has to be a limit to what we allow & thus encourage kids to get into.

This are not healthy things for your brain or your body. And end up not being done in moderation.

[Pepperbelly]

44. That's when it legal and by script ...

there is far too large a black market for drug comapnies to monopolize. That is probably why they support the drug war. That and their interest in the testing/treatment monopoly.

[applegrove]

46. What Continent are you on? Cause companies that sell anything

are being divided up into small businesses and huge mega-corporations. All the mid sized corporations are disappearing. Have you not noticed? That is what deregulation does. A few - perhaps one huge corporation on top - which through economies of scale can then act as a monopoly - and a whole bunch of small timers.

Look at the airline industry, retail, food, building materials, rug manufacturers, transportation, military, etc.

So I'm sorry but to say that monopoly power will not result is just not the way the world has worked in the last 30 years.

[Pepperbelly]

48. You don't know shit about street drugs or their production.

Sorry, but you are arguing from ignorance with someone who knows much about it. I have seen the people since 1968, when I first started playing in rock bands. I have been around it ALL.

And this stuff of yours simply doesn't describe the reality of drugs. You have been had by the government propaganda. They lied to you.

Sorry but it's true.

[applegrove]

52. You are talking about "changing the reality of drugs". I am saying

it will result in the reality of sugar. Seen any sugar beets on your street lately?

The very reason why small businesses are building meth labs is because it is profitable because the price is so high.

[Pepperbelly]

55. You gotta be shitting me...

Do you really believe that?

[applegrove]

57. I'm just telling you that it is not as simple as you think. Making it

legal brings up other issues. If you do not want to debate those issues - that is fine.

[Pepperbelly]

61. what I am telling you is that you have been cheated,

Someone has lied to you. A slickster said, "hey rube ..." and the rest is history.

Will some people become 'addicted'?

Sure.

Are there people addicted right now?

Sure.

Would there be more?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Whose business is it?

It is their own. It is not yours. It is not politicians. It is their own. They are the ones living their lives. Why would you think that YOU would know better than they what they should do?

[SeaNap05]

65. Addicts are Narcissists Vampires.......

and there are to many of them. Legalize away America.

[Pepperbelly]

26. Where in the world did you hear such bullshit?

Jebus Christ, that isn't what happens at all. Your information is DEAD wrong. You, my friend, have been lied to, repeatedly and apparently persuasively. That is NOT what happens when people take heroin.

Not even remotely.

[applegrove]

29. Some people live it. Some people do not. But it is a fav tool of bikers

who need strippers & prostitutes to be devoted to their craft. That alone should tell you something.

[Pepperbelly]

33. LOL

I DO live it, partner and what you are describing just doesn't exist in reality. It's mythology that started at the end of prohibition when Harry Anslinger started his campaign of lies and now it supports an entire business, medical, technological, law enforcement, administrative and criminal bureaucracy.

That is why drugs are illegal.

To protect the gigs of the assholes who make money off of it.

[applegrove]

41. As a smoker who has quit once - and will try again - i know that the

first thing that starts with any addiction is denial.

[Pepperbelly]

42. Where are you getting this stuff?

Please say.

[applegrove]

45. Are you saying there is no element of "denial" in addiction?

[Pepperbelly]

49. I am asking you where you're ...

getting this stuff.

[applegrove]

54. Are you saying I am not getting the link to 'addiction' and the resulting

"denial the addiction is a problem" from space? Are you saying there is not an element of denial in every single case of addiction?

[lildreamer316]

36. Bikers? Strippers?

Wow. What have you been watching? Being a member of BOTH those groups I am not so sure about what you are saying. Watch the generalizations there.
BTW I have been stripping for 11 years and NEVER EVER touched cocaine or heroin or crack. I tried pot when I was 25 and it just puts me to sleep; since I don't smoke its hard for me anyway. There is one drug I like and take about once a month; no one in my family has suffered for it. Nor myself.Ever.
Prostitution in its own way would benefit from legalization of both itself and drugs because then the girls would have acesss to help for sexual health issues and drug treatment programs. There ARE ppl who CHOSE to be prositiutes,and isn't this country about freedom of choice? And freedom to do what you want with YOUR body?
We should attack the ROOT of the problem; not the ony solution to their personal problems some ppl have ever found. (I didn't say it was working for them, just that it is their soulution).

[applegrove]

43. I obviously was talking about the kids who don't get into that as a

choice but who do when it becomes a to get drugs. Why would anyone encourage anyone to be controlled. That is what i was talking about. And it happens.

I'm sure there are prostitutes as happy as clams in the Netherlands but you know what - most are new immigrants. Most didn't grow up and decide - I'm in the Netherlands - great - I can be a prostitute.

[lildreamer316]

51. Of course that happens

and it would continue to happen if drugs were legal. It will continue to happen until there is economic justice and people stop abandoning/abusing their children. Not sure when that will be(!!!!!) but legalizing drugs would allow that whole cycle to come under scrutiny and collapse the economic benefits those predators enjoy. If prostitution were legal...well; it IS a whole other argument. Some would probably get in because they see it as an easy way out, some because they enjoy it, some for other reasons. I am not including child prost. in this assessment, that too is a whole 'nother ball game (social/economic/culture).
It just sounded like you were buying into the Hollywood version of bikers and strippers. Of course that exists, but not as much so anymore. Corporate strip clubs have been in power for a couple of decades now; many of the small one-owner seedy places are out of biz (compared to what they used to be). Two of the places I have worked had Breathalyzers and pee tests, and one had a drug treatment program. It creeps along slowly but surely; those girls who are addicted are not rewarded as much (higher paying gentlemen like someone who is not obviously a coked up skeleton or a heroin addict).

[SeaNap05]

66. Why is so hard for people to understand.....

that addiction and drug use is harmful. Maybe people who can use it recreationly think that everyone else is doing the same.

Imagine health insurance cost when you mark on your insurance application that you are a twice a week coke user or a weekend toker, even after it is legalized life will not be easier for the addict.

Maybe you think I'm smoking too much!

[Pepperbelly]

25. That isn't necessarily true at all ...

I think that you are having a problem with logic in that argument, just as the advocates of the Drug War have as well.

What you characterize as "predatory behavior" is not the result of the chemicals as much as the economics and the economics of drugs is based totally on their legal status. If it were not for the risk, cocaine should be little more expensive than processed sugar or marijuana more expensive than any dried plant. What makes them expensive is layer upon layer of risk and layer upon layer of profit because of the risk.

Were it not for the economics, heroin users would nod away their days chasing the dragon. Not particularly productive but not predatory either.

As far as something that is physically harmful ... i.e. meth ... it ultimately comes down to a matter of choice. I do not believe that society should proscribe self-destructive behavior because one's own life and limb is strictly one's own business.

Nor do I believe that Congress has the authority in the Constitution to do so either. Remember, it took an amendment to outlaw alcohol. Drugs were exactly in the same boat from a regulatory standpoint. The wink-and-nod approval of the courts of this crap should, in an ideal world, result in mobs with pitchforks, torches, and lynch ropes lined up around their homes.

BTW, on edit, the current legal status of drugs certainly hasn't led to diminished use at all. So what are you solving for other than to stigmatize otherwise law-abiding citizens?

[applegrove]

31. And you don't think that people who are poor to start with don't get

into trouble getting their fix? As if - crack - modified and marketed as a cheap drug for the poor doesn't hurt anybody or make some mother give birth to a baby so sick that they need to be detoxed?

That went well! A drug alomst anyone who could walk could afford!

[Pepperbelly]

35. Hardly ...

you are not reading what I am writing or else you are deliberately misconstruing it.

If not for risk, why would heroin cost more than sugar? Or aspirin?

When was the last time you saw the Bud guy and the Miller guy having a shootout in front of the 7-11 over who was going to sell beer there? During prohibition, you would have seen that.

[applegrove]

39. I agree making it illegal results in black market forces. But heroin

is much more addictive than alcohol. And some people who know they have it in their family - that direct addiction to alcohol - don't drink at all.

The point is that if you make heroin legal & cheap it will be available to everyone and give us addiction rates off the chart. And just liking sugar is killing us - heroin will.

Who cares about the stuff that isn't dangerous. That is why alcohol is legal and hash or pot is in many places. Cause they are not instantaneously dangerous to many people.

Cigarettes are dangerously addictive - again - perhaps not at first but after a few years very hard to get off of. They are heavily regulated and one day may be illegal.

Why would we be complaining about what is in our food and then allowing dangerous drugs on the market? We don't do that with pills when the FAA is doing its job.

[Pepperbelly]

47. then why isn't everyone in the Netherlands addicted?

Just curious.

Shit, man, I've tried heroin. I had friends that used heroin. Those guys ... when we were in Hong Kong ... would buy an ounce or two of 98% pure Hong Kong #3 Rock Heroin, about the strongest to be had anywhere. They'd shoot up until it was gone, then they'd say, "oh, well. Wish I had some more." And they would go on.

I could go on and on and on about this. The only person I have seen with a truly difficult problem was actually addicted to hydrocodone. She had a bitch of a monkey on her back. She would probably have been better off with heroin.

edited for a #3 rather than #4.

[lildreamer316]

38. ..and creating another vicious cycle doing so.

(adding on to your last sentence) It is SUCH a destructive cycle!! In part it is what created the angry black lower class that exists today. There was no other way for them to make money that they could see....
I see we agree totally on this Pepperbelly. Interesting how many "liberals" have bought into the hype and propaganda about drugs.

[firefox]

6. DEAwatch

I have been meaning to start a thread to tell people about DEAwatch- http://members.aol.com/deawatch/daily.htm It is for DEA personel to talk about what is on their minds. The material is not copyrighted and it says so right at the top of the homepage.

The people that take the time to compose a message talk about many things and as a group are very well informed. They are down on Bu$h in the worst way and Karen Tandy of the Radio Shack Tandys is despised as you can get. She is another example of someone not qualified to do a job along the lines of Brown of FEMA.

I could offer you a direct answer to your question, but this hint of an answer should help. It comes from DEAwatch.

10 Sep 2005, 17:43 PST, 3rd Edition

"We don't need glitzy Ops. We need to bust 'em as we find 'em!", con't:

I would like to remind the 1st Ed writer that DEA is a retirement agency, not a law enforcement agency.

As the writer him/herself has aptly pointed out, by holding off making immediate arrests of clearly prosecutable narcotic offenders we create many new narcotic users and addicts. These new narcotic consumers become our future bread and butter arrests.

If we were to arrest drug dealers "as we find 'em" we would be cutting our own throats. Instead of planting the seeds for new generations of stupid "Roach Motel" drug consumers and dealers to arrest we would be killing off our future cases like spraying Roundup on weeds.

We can hate Tandy for a lot of things, but when it comes to preserving our future paychecks by allowing the cultivation of future drug dealers, producers and consumers, Tandy is on our side... she gets her exhibitionist camera time and we get job-security future cases.

Always remember that DEA is a retirement agency that puts food in our family's stomachs and sends our kids through college. Let's not go to overboard on the patriotic theme by talking about winning the drug war. Narcotics is an industry both for the drug dealer and the drug fighter. Think about symbiosis. Think about live and let live. Don't think about "arresting 'em as we find 'em" for -- at least -- another 17 years... by that time I will be fully vested for maximum retirement bennies and my (D/W redacted) kids will be out of college.

I did not join DEA to win anybody's f**king "drug war". I applied and got hired by this agency to receive a regular paycheck and retirement luxury. Please don't kill my dream life.

[KT2000]

7. Ex-police chief of Seattle

Norm Stamper, has wriiten a book calling for the same thing. It is called "Breaking Ranks."
he says the war on drugs is a failure that has created even more problems - that's something for a police chief!

The way I see it, a person addicted to a drug can still lead a productive life if their drug is accessible and affordable. Crime is no longer a factor then and others are not affected by that person's addiction. Then if they want to get off the drug, they are not spinning through the criminal/justice system, but rather the healthcare system.
Vancouver Canada is trying a program of tolerance in a particular area to see if it will improve things for the city and the addicts.

[dR. O]

8. well

I see it like this...the 'war on drugs' is a war on human nature and the first rule of war is never fight a war that you know you can never win...i.e. it is just stoopid no matter how you look at it....in the meantime use all the money saved to build rehab facilities and improve the education system so people won't feel so impoverished and hopeless

[KT2000]

11. Makes sense

and I hope the next Democratic candidate runs with that.

[RONSTOO]

9. doctors hooked on pills

judges hooked on scotches


lawyers with their martinis


alcohol is inbred in this society
you may well as move to another planet because you are pissing in the wind.

[lildreamer316]

13. That's not the point.

These people would be seen as needing help; not criminals. We would be able to attack the root of the problem instead of punishing the result of whatever it was that caused this person to become addicted in the first place. Now(apology to everyone who already knows me here) I am an "exotic entertainer" and I have seen it firsthand; drugs both legal and not. The person medicating was always trying to run from themselves. Would it not be better to help that person to understanding and acceptance of their inner demons and maybe in the process have them on a REGULATED regimin of drugs?

[lildreamer316]

12. SO with you on this.

and heartend to see an ER doc come out on the side of deregulization. Have you read 'Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do" By Peter McWilliams? Subtitled "The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society". Yes, it does include other issues such as prostitution, but his argument is so well made I always reccomend it.
Hope you're having a good morning........

[Zynx]

14. Only thing we should do is target distribution networks of the hard stuff.

Cocaine and heroin are SERIOUS health threats to people. We should never get involved with jailing users though, particularly not Marijuana.

[High Plains]

20. The drug cartels agree with you...

The only reason these violent criminal organizations exist is the profits derived from drug prohibition. Yeah, keep it up. It's worked so far, right? I mean, there's no coke or heroin in America now after 40 years of war on drugs, right?

No, legalize it all and regulate it. Yes, there will be people who have problems with drugs, but we don't need to criminalize them. And our drug prohibition apparatus costs us $40 billion a year. Employs a lot of cops, but doesn't stop drugs. Maybe some small portion of the money saved by ending drug prohibition could be used to provide treatment (on demand--not by court order) for people who need help.

But decriminalization of drug use without legalizing drug markets means all of the social evils resulting not from drugs but from drug prohibition--criminal violence of competing gangs, acquisitive thefts by junkies paying black-market prices, loss of constitutional rights for all of us, the creeping police state, overdoses due to lack of quality controls, etc. ad nauseum--will continue to exist.

[Zynx]

60. Those drugs DESTROY people's lives.

Marijuana is no worse than alcohol, but cocaine and heroin are serious public health threats. People on those drugs are enormous dangers to themselves, and more importantly, the rest of society. With the flow of these drugs, what we should do is stop targeting demand altogether. That is a fruitless exercise and doesn't accomplish anything. I think that the large cartels should be recognized as the scum that they are and truly make war on them. The drug trade kills tens of thousands of people each year in this hemisphere in gang related homicides and that blood is on their hands. Target them with such force that the business risk is unacceptable. There are only certain parts of the world that one can grow cocaine and heroin in and for it to be economically worthwhile for the cartels they need to grow an awful lot of it. This cannot be done in greenhouses. Once the supply is reduced so heavily, the drug distribution networks in this country will have to raise prices to a point that demand will drop throught the floor.

[High Plains]

63. Uh, plants like coca and poppy can be grown everywhere...

Do you really think we haven't targeted supply for the past 40 years? If so, pardon me for asking, but what have you been smoking?

The "gang-related homicides" are a function of drug prohibition, not the drugs themselves. They are economic/structural, not related to the biopharmacological properties of the substances. (I will concede that stimulant drugs like coke or speed are more likely to make people crazed and dangerous, but the only study I know of of "drug-related" violent deaths, done in NYC in the late '80s, found that the vast majority were related to turf wars, not crazed cokeheads.)

What you suggest is precisely what has been official US policy for decades. And it's worked so well dime bags of heroin are now $3 in Boston and coke is about one-forth the price it was 20 years ago.

Legalize, regulate, and deal effectively with problematic drug use.

[lildreamer316]

32. Don't forget Meth.

Worse thing ever. You last longer on heroin. Really. uggg.

[Pepperbelly]

50. Thanks ...

and even that stuff ... if someone wants to do it, who am I to tell them how to live their lives?

[lildreamer316]

53. Amen

(squirming) It's just so NASTY! I like my drugs to be happy happy times and I don't want to look the worse for wear! (job hazard). Each to their own....it does make some ppl think they are superman from what I hear. That'll make you do some pretty crazy things.......

[Pepperbelly]

56. Yep ... a number of whom might be inclined to ...

do crazy shit anyway.

:D

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Another Soldiers' Drug Ring

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Daniel+Rosas%22+OR+%22Francisco+Rosa%22&btnG=Search+News

[dR. O]

17. well

the AMA needs to take a stand against the 'wod' but so far they haven't and likely never will

[Pepperbelly]

21. It is FAR past time that we negotiate a peace treaty in that war. nt

[killbotfactory]

23. decriminalize and regulate

It's stupid not to.

[leanin_green]

58. Boy, did you guys ever drink the koolaid on this one.

The War on Drugs is just a cover to divert funds to secret operations within the intelligence community. Ask any DEA agent who has tried to bring down anyone high up in the drug industry(that's right, industry)
and he'll tell you a great story. Where do you think a great deal of the money that was used during Iran/Contra to supply the "freedom fighters" came from. Come on people, spit it out and don't swallow anymore of the koolaid.

[Pepperbelly]

62. tell that to the people ..

rotting in jail over this bullshit.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

59. Here's a great reason to end it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/16/AR2005091602168.html

Next Tuesday marks the first anniversary of 27-year-old Jonathan Magbie's final encounter with the D.C. government. It will be no cause for celebration.

It was on Sept. 20, 2004, that D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin sentenced Magbie, a quadriplegic since an accident at age 4, to 10 days in the D.C. jail. His crime? Possession of marijuana.

Five days after falling into the hands of the D.C. government, Magbie was dead. He died a horrible death. It was preventable. But nobody in the system cared.

Looking down from her bench, Retchin saw a first-time offender. He controlled his wheelchair with a mouth-operated device. He could breathe only with a battery-controlled pulmonary pacemaker. At night he needed the assistance of a respirator. He could have been sentenced to home detention, where he would have had round-the-clock attention. Instead, Retchin, apparently upset when Magbie refused to swear off weed, which helped him get through a miserable existence, sent him to that taxpayer-supported hellhole near the Anacostia River known as the D.C. jail.

[genius]

64. kick

[Zhade]

68. THANK you.

This is much more sensible than your "PC" thread, IMHO.

I agree, it is lunacy.

[dR. O]

69. well

alcohol is the single worst in economic impact on society and deaths per year