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The War on Drugs: 30 years of Failure

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TalkingDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 06:58 AM
Original message
The War on Drugs: 30 years of Failure
http://www.reason.com/news/show/126026.html

This quote just about sums up the whole stupid, tragic mess:

"The police departments that work in these hard neighborhoods are basically armies of occupation. Their job is to keep these people suppressed."


by:

Ed Burns, 62, came to writing late in life, after a tour in Vietnam and two decades working homicide and narcotics in the Baltimore Police Department. He also taught seventh grade in Baltimore’s public schools, an experience he has said compared psychologically with Vietnam. In 1997 Burns and Simon, who met when Simon was covering cops, co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the acclaimed true story of a single intersection in drug-plagued West Baltimore that later became an Emmy-winning HBO miniseries. In January of this year, as The Wire was closing out its run, Burns and Simon finished shooting a new HBO miniseries based on Evan Wright’s book Generation Kill, an account of the first days of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.


Good article, enjoy.
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boobooday Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 07:03 AM
Response to Original message
1. Yes, wars waged against inanimate objects tend to turn out that way
Perhaps now we can learn that waging war against our own citizens (it's been a war against people, not drugs) is counter-productive.
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Tuesday Afternoon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 07:24 AM
Response to Original message
2. Epic Failure
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dustsailor Donating Member (12 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 08:21 AM
Response to Original message
3. legalization of marihuana is in order
No harmful effects of the drugs in the body have been found. It even helps cure cancer, if I'm not mistaken.
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RaleighNCDUer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 09:49 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. It doesn't help cure cancer, specifically, but it does help with the
nausea and loss of appetite that is connected with chemo-therapy.
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Outraged As Usual Donating Member (29 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 10:47 AM
Response to Original message
5. It is madness
I read an article today from a Washington State where a couple with a baby were busted for growing some plants indoors. The place was clean and the neighbors had nothing bad to say about them, but evidently the smell altered a neighbor and someone called the cop's and they got a warrant.

What disgusted me totally was the comments of the local police chief, obviously a drug war moron, who said without any hesitation that the plants were intended for the kids in school, because ' thats where the money is ' !! The chief was totally assuming and no doubt totally wrong. No doubt the couple had a connection to take the product but there was ZERO proof of them selling or involving anyone underage. The couple have been labeled as predators by a cop with no proof and just a sick mind and no morals about making stupid assumptions.

But that is typical. The media is the villain, as always, for refusing to air the truth and just parroting the lies of the DEA and the police unions...as well as anyone that makes their money from Prohibition. We are in the 21st century with stone age policies about almost everything....it sickens the mind of a sane person to see how far we have fallen..or how little progress we have made.
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flashl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 11:02 AM
Response to Original message
6. Law Enforcement speaks about the 'war'


About LEAP -- The Summary

Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies. Those policies have failed, and continue to fail, to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, especially the problems of juvenile drug use, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs.

Although those who speak publicly for LEAP are people from the law enforcement and criminal justice communities, a large number of our supporting members do not have such experience. You don't have to have law enforcement experience to join us.

By continuing to fight the so-called "War on Drugs", the US government has worsened these problems of society instead of alleviating them. A system of regulation and control of these substances (by the government, replacing the current system of control by the black market) would be a less harmful, less costly, more ethical and more effective public policy.

Please consider joining us and helping us to achieve our goals: 1) to educate the public, the media and policy makers about the failure of current policies, and 2) to restore the public's respect for police, which respect has been greatly diminished by law enforcement's involvement in enforcing drug prohibition.
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The Traveler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 11:14 AM
Response to Original message
7. After a generation of failure and damage done
one would think people would be ready to give up on it. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Thanks to the war on drugs, the land of the free has the largest prison population in the world. That ironic fact is a disgrace to our nation. But, thanks to GWB, I guess we have become accustomed to disgrace and failure.
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