This story is quite a detailed account of how literally every aspect of the drug war has not only failed, but made things worse while looting our coffers and turning cops, the military and the judiciary into thugs and in some cases, accomplices.
How America Lost the War on Drugs
All told, the United States has spent an estimated $500 billion to fight drugs – with very little to show for it. Cocaine is now as cheap as it was when Escobar died and more heavily used. Methamphetamine, barely a presence in 1993, is now used by 1.5 million Americans and may be more addictive than crack. We have nearly 500,000 people behind bars for drug crimes – a twelvefold increase since 1980 – with no discernible effect on the drug traffic. Virtually the only success the government can claim is the decline in the number of Americans who smoke marijuana – and even on that count, it is not clear that federal prevention programs are responsible. In the course of fighting this war, we have allowed our military to become pawns in a civil war in Colombia and our drug agents to be used by the cartels for their own ends. Those we are paying to wage the drug war have been accused of human-rights abuses in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. In Mexico, we are now repeating many of the same mistakes we have made in the Andes.
Has America ever won a war, no? With trillions of dollars spent every year on the military and police forces, it has do discernable impact. When are you people going to reaize this and feed your poor and provide adequate health care.
Dane – I love when folks across the pond profess to have all the answers. Which utopian, paradise country do you live in?
Try not to make sweeping statements chock full of weasel words. People will take you more seriously.
Dane you have a very short memory span if you think America has never won a war or done good with their armed forces.
Although I do agree we should forget the rest of the world and focus on bettering ourselves. But then again you and others would just criticize us for being isolationists.
This side of the pond we have no answers, but have no certainties either… Only people with strong convictions go to war on principle. Some times it’s true and Just, sometimes it is not.
In my view of things, to pick up arms and shoot people is almost always wrong.
Drug wars…what can I say? Just that Drugs is the second most profitable business in the World… the first is Weapons…
’nuff said.
In a few years there will be a detailed report titled…
“How America Lost the War on Terror”
DU will then have a post/pic of uncle Sam “You are a Victim of The War on Terror”
Cheers
The only way for “THE WAR ON DRUGS” to end is if all the dumb-asses quit using them.
The war on drugs is lost because of the way we pick and choose which drugs to make illegal and which ones to legalize and tax.
Increasing evidence is concluding the tobacco is worse than Marijuana, and that Marijuana was made illegal because “minorities” preferred it over tobacco.
Many states have passed big tax increases on tobacco to pay for health care for the poor. Think what we could get taxing legalized marijuana.
Yeah, legalize all drugs, but at the same time open up for more H1B visas and green cards so that the industry can hire hardworking intelligent people.
Don’t only did Bush SURRENDER in the “war on drugs” — his incompetence in Afghanistan as been a tremendous BOON for heroin.
Dane said, Has America ever won a war, no?
Do you remember a short unit in your high school history class about something called “World War II “… maybe better known to this generation as “WWII” in some of their video games.
More liberal whining about how bad things are. Typical going in to an election year.
Pathetic thread. No value. Digg–.
That “liberal whining” would be, I gather, in contrast to the whirlwind of activity created by conservatives in their tireless efforts to end this Quixotic squandering of lives and money, to “get the government off the people’s backs”, to hear them tell it…
Oops. Almost forgot – it was the conservatives who started it, and the conservatives who continue to perpetuate it. No whiners there, I tell you, just dedicated, morally superior leaders with a mandate to protect people from themselves, no matter what the cost. The good ol’ GOP, the best friends that drug kingpins ever had. Every time some right-wing hypocrite announces a new, doomed anti-drug initiative, certain Columbians and others hop aboard their private jets to go place their orders for $500,000.00 sports cars and suchlike.
Unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism and good old-fashioned free enterprise – it’s what the Republican Party is all about! Facillitating the ceaseless transfer of billions from the American taxpayers’ pockets to the Swiss bank accounts of the Pablo Escobars of the world – Adam Smith would be so proud.
#11. Actually, James, many libertarian conservatives are convinced that the War on Drugs is a Bad Thing.
and you seem to have forgotten that DU is not Digg …
“turning cops, the military and the judiciary into thugs and in some cases, accomplices.”
actually, it turned all of them into bureaucrats administering the most successful price-support program in American history, since the net effect of all that enforcement effort is merely to jack up the costs of drugs beyond what the free market would provide.
#11: Another hack comment from a hack thinker.
#4, JoaoPT, Just that Drugs is the second most profitable business in the World… the first is Weapons…
And all this time I thought #1 was the oldest profession — sell it and you still got it! Sort of like software. 🙂
Chemical addiction is primarily a biological phenomenon from the frontal lobes of those who have gained (either, genetically, and/or environmentally) higher arousal centers in the brain. The war on drugs has NOTHING to do with it’s stated objective. The war on drugs is food for the hungry beast that feast on the soul of your dead gold fish. Fast cars, fast women and faster scary monsters.
Very interesting article. I actually read the whole 6 pages of it. There seems to be a parallel to how the initial stages of the war on drugs was approached with the current approach taken on the war on terror. It’s an all-out money spending binge to eradicate it by eliminating it’s key players. Only that after they’ve succeeding in doing that, it’ll just spread around wider into smaller groups. We need to get out of this “punishing” mindset and replace it with the “helping” mindset. But the “helping” mindset doesn’t help the arms dealership business.
#18
…”the helping mindset doesn´t help the arms dealership business.”
Bingo
#16
Don´t mix up “oldest” with “most profitable”.
yall should watch this:
http://tinyurl.com/2dk8wa (what if drugs were legal)
I thought it was pretty interesting
Woo woo, Wookie! I’m sure it was interesting, but I can’t view it without downloading the “DivX plugin”, so I guess I’m not going to see it.
Vista (and Firefox/ IE) is already a lumbering dinosaur on my almost-brand-new computer with 4G of RAM; nfw do I have any interest in bogging it down any further.
#10 you are so wrong… every eurotrash knows that the “WWII” was won by french resistance alone, dumb americans were there only to conquer the europe after war ended, thats why they created EC (pre-EU) to protect themselves from american imperialism, OF COURSE 🙂
#20–Thanks for the url. Looks very interesting from the first few minutes.
#21–Smooth move as usual. The DivX codec will save space on your computer allowing its use for all the other valuable things you do with it. You are already about 3 years behind the curve.
There is a cost of various sorts in making drugs illegal, there is a cost in making drugs legal. The pro’s and con’s of each need to be identified and compared.
The negative cost of keeping drugs illegal is fairly easy to see. The negative cost of making them legal is at this point mostly speculative.
In my mind there are 3 overwhelming reasons to make drugs legal and other issues are secondary:
1–take the money out of crime.
2–allow people to make free choices with consequences that flow therefrom, stop being a puritanical nanny state
3–when drugs are legal, mostly only those people who choose to ruin their lives will have their lives ruined. Right now, too many innocent people/societies are damaged by people who want nothing to do with drugs because of all the criminal activity surrounding them.
Now, on to watching that nice download—after Dirty, Filthy, Money that is.
Fuck the rest of that crap, it’s a universal human rights issue.
What drugs do is alter your thought processes. Period. And my thought processes are mine to do with as I see fit. Whence comes the alleged “right” of anyone to tell someone else how to think?
Laws are properly directed at people’s actions, when they affect others – not their thoughts, which are no one’s business but the person thinking them.
If I choose to zone out, hallucinate, go into a trance, concentrate, free-associate, whatever – it’s my choice and mine alone. I cede to NO ONE any right to decide for me how I want to operate my brain.
That is really what the injustice of drug laws is about. Behavior is already regulated, and that’s all that’s needed.
@20
Good link tallwookie. I still don’t think that legalization is the way to go. Dumbing down the society even further is not where I want to go.
#25–how do drugs, legal or otherwise dumb down society?
Legalizing drugs might get rid of the stupidity of thinking one can/should control what other people want to do?
What is the net stupidity of one set of rules over the other?
>>Smooth move as usual. The DivX codec will save
>>space on your computer allowing its use for
>>all the other valuable things you do with it.
>>You are already about 3 years behind the curve.
Woo! Smackdown from Mister Bobbalina!
I hate to tell you this son, but in the 29 years that I’ve been using personal computers, this is the FIRST TIME I have ever encountered a file that required me to download and use DivX. I guess there are a lot of other people “behind the curve” too, eh? Maybe more people would jump on that bandwagon if DivX worked properly with Vista.
Or maybe they were just turned off by the spyware-laden version that DivXNetworks Inc. was distributing a couple of years ago?
And not to worry about my space constraints, I have more space than you can shake a stick at. Besides, something like that I’d delete from my HD anyway, after I watched it. Which I’m not going to do, as I don’t have any interest in downloading and installing a codec just to watch a single video clip of what things would be like if drugs were legal. Interesting topic, but not worth the trouble. If it’s another 29 years until I need DivX again, I figure I came out ahead.
@26 – “how do drugs, legal or otherwise dumb down society?”
What’s the difference in effect of taking an Aspirin and smoking pot?
Seriously, all you junkies… smoke your bongs and joints… it doesn’t really matter because the U.S. is on a downward spiral on so many other areas, so being a junkie and passing on fucked up genes to the next generation is okay… the world isn’t going to be run by you anyway.
Peace and out.
Jägermeister
@27 – Mister Mustard
The DivX plugin really rocks on Windows 2000.
“Maybe more people would jump on that bandwagon if DivX worked properly with Vista.”
Vista has a very small install base for good reasons. 😉
#10, Greg Allen,
Dane said, Has America ever won a war, no?
Do you remember a short unit in your high school history class about something called “World War II” …
Uuuhh, nope. I think you have been brainwashed by all those John Wayne movies.
The main theater during WWII was Europe and North Africa. The British had the Germans beaten in North Africa and the USSR had the Germans beaten on the Eastern Front. While American participation was a major factor, the Germans would have been beaten by Britain and the Soviets anyway.
Japan was almost single handily beaten by the US. Japan though was a side show to the main arena.
Although the US has won at least three wars recently. One in Granada and another in Panama. The last was Desert Storm, but there was a lot of allies that helped out. Somalia and Kosovo were peace keeping operations.