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.
@30 – Mr. Fusion
In general I agree with you, but the U.S. lend-lease program helped the Brits and Soviets to build their forces. And the addition of American forces helped turn the tide.
Next week: How America Lost the War on Drinking & Driving and Speeding.
RBG
I’m a bit in the middle as far as legalising all narcotics. I suppose I’d allow it for the Darwinian effect but, I can’t get past the potential costs to lives that might have a better chance of being productive if drugs were not readily accessible.
I do have a major problem with all of law enforcement being turned into profiteers at citizens expense. I’d really like to get the Constitution I learned about in school back on the books.
#32 – RBG
“Next week: How America Lost the War on Drinking & Driving and Speeding.”
Leaving aside the untrue implication that speed, per se, is dangerous, we’re therefore left with the even more untrue implication that ingesting a substance, any substance, that causes a change in one’s thought patterns, endangers others.
RBG, could you – for a change – explain exactly how my sitting in my home and smoking a joint / drinking a beer / snorting cocaine / taking aspirin endangers you? Either you are being dishonest and deliberately deceptive or you are demonstrating an inability to utilize simple logic.
Where does the government get the right to tell me I can consume this psychoactive substance, but not that one?
In what way is the personal, private consumption of a psychoactive substance analogous to operating a vehicle in a state of impairment that places others at risk?
Do you have any answer? Boiled down to it’s essence, can you provide clarification of this false equation you have placed before us:
Taking a drug = physically endangering the lives of others
Hmm? Looks like total bullshit to me… so enlighten us. Tell us how my thought processes – not public behavior, which is already regulated – put your life at risk. I really look forward to hearing this.
@34 – “Where does the government get the right to tell me I can consume this psychoactive substance, but not that one?”
Wben you end up like Chris Farley (might gross out some, but you might want to look at reality for once).
Bullshit.
I just checked the National Archives and searched the Websites of the NYT, CNN, UPI and Reuters, and guess what?
The only person I could find who has ended up like Chris Farley is….. Chris Farley!
Anyway, not just ‘bullshit’ but bullshit X 100,000,000. That’s a ridiculously lowball estimate of the number of people who consume marijuana regularly. But we can also factor in users of heroin, cocaine, and a number of other drugs. And all quite alive and functioning, thank you.
And while we’re at it, why not bring in people who ended up like brother Farley from taking legal, legitimate medication as prescribed?
Just about everything you can name has, somewhere, sometime hurt someone consuming it. So let’s make everything illegal, right?
If I show you an autopsy photo of someone who died from consuming aspirin, will you agree that no one should be allowed to consume aspirin, under threat of arrest and imprisonment?
I mean, gimme a fuckin’ break, OK?
– and since the substance which accounts for most of the money wasted and lived ruined by the drug war is marijuana, a substance which has no known fatal dose, how’s about you show us a picture of a marijuana “victim” that the drug laws prevent all of us from sharing a horrible fate with?
Jee-bus X. Christ on a stick, what a pathetically lame-ass rationalization for waging wholesale war on millions of American citizens. You should be ashamed of yourself; fucking Harry J. Anslinger himself wouldn’t’ve had the gall to suggest such a thing.
I really thought you were more intelligent than that. Goes to show, I suppose…
#35, jag,
Very poignant point.
There are some though that feel they have every right to die like Farly, John Belushi, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, or even Sam Stone. Some feel it is OK to see your life totally fucked up and go through hell like Keith Richards, Steve Earl, James Taylor, David Cosby or any of the meth heads in our local jail.
What these selfish people don’t see is the damage they do to others. Although I have only caught snippets, A&E currently has a program called Intervention. Maybe these “I have every fucking right to …” assholes should watch an episode or two.
If they could contain their drinking a beer or smoking a joint solely to their house there wouldn’t be a problem. But they can’t and won’t.
Oh, come off it, Fusion.
“There are some though that feel they have every right to die like Farly, John Belushi, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, or even Sam Stone. Some feel it is OK to see your life totally fucked up and go through hell like Keith Richards, Steve Earl, James Taylor, David Cosby or any of the meth heads in our local jail.”
Yep. Freedom is about being free to be everything you can be, to achieve and accomplish, to make a difference, to set an example, etc, etc, etc.
But like it or not, freedom also means being free to throw in the towel, to chuck it all, to fuck up and give up. Freedom is the right to choose one’s path in life, and that includes the path to Hell, whilst riding in a handbasket.
Wonderful, ain’t it, how the War On Drugs, by imprisoning and ruining the lives of millions at a cost of half a trillion dollars, prevented Farley and Belushi and Cobain and Janis from doing any harm to themselves, huh?
Ain’t it swell how the laws against drugs stopped them? Doesn’t it make you feel all warm and toasty inside, how our wonderful government has let violent criminals walk the streets, to prey on you and your fambly – in order to protect that guy walking by with a reefer in his pocket from himself?
…and here you make one of the dimmest statements I’ve seen here in a lonnnng time:
“If they could contain their drinking a beer or smoking a joint solely to their house there wouldn’t be a problem. But they can’t and won’t.”
That’s exactly the sort of idiocy that brought us the fabulous success that was Prohibition. Since a small minority of people cannot handle responsible use of a given substance, then the majority – who can handle it – must be punished, never mind that the abusers and fools continue, despite the legal sanctions, to foolishly abuse…
Either one of you geniuses care to tell us exactly how the drug laws prevented Farley from offing himself?
And BTW, last time I looked, both David Crosby and Sweet Baby James were alive and well, as are the millions and millions and millions of people all over the world who consume psychoactive substances, and lead normal, lawful, uneventful lives – the vast majority, as has always been the case and will always be.
Are you guys developing Alzheimer’s or are you just stupid? Have you forgotten – we don’t ban things simply because the always-present minority of mankind who are self-destructive and dim can’t handle ’em. The fact that some people will misuse their freedom is never a justification for taking that freedom away from everyone.
In a way, it’s quite amusing to hear you knee-jerk liberals reciting the right-wingers’ bogus, simplistic rationalizations against personal freedom and responsibility for one’s own actions. Ideologues all, behind the labels of “liberal” and “conservative”, you are brothers, united in your bullshit egotistical conviction that you are superior to others, and therefore have the right to mandate how others should live. Fuck that “equal rights” shit, right, guys? Not when you, just like the Bibble-thumping theocrats you knock, simply know that you’re right!
I suspect there’s something in the water here at DU that kills brain cells – and you’ve been drinking straight from the hose.
Any one of you noble proponents of the govt’s right to micromanage your life care to step up to the microphone and refute anything I’ve said?
Didn’t think so. Maybe nobody noticed you can’t back up your worthless arguments. You can always pretend.
So, the score currently stands:
RBG: 0
Jägermeister: 0
Mr. Fusion: 0
• • • • • • • •
Ironic, ain’t it? I bet if I look, I can find a photo of some mangled corpse who got that way from doing stupid things, as a consequence of abusing…. Jägermeister! Therefore, it’s time it’s time to reinstate Prohibition, right, Jäg??
Huh?? Wazzup? Cat got your tongue? You pass out at the keyboard? 🙂
# 6 andrewwi said, in December 2nd, 2007 at 6:52 am
The only way for “THE WAR ON DRUGS” to end is if all the dumb-asses quit using them.
You so beautifully crystallize the ignorant thinking that keeps the “war” going…
Drug abuse is a health care issue, not a criminal one… But no politician ever lost an election pandering to the chickenshit suburbanite population with their heads permanently stuck up their asses.
34 THC
Yes, and drugs “per se” are not dangerous… only what happens after you ingest or administer them.
Please take your junk scien… junk opinions elsewhere.
“Drivers positive to psychotropic drugs were significantly more likely to be culpable than drug-free drivers. Drivers with Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in their blood had a significantly higher likelihood of being culpable than drug-free drivers.” (Australia)
http://tinyurl.com/yqkrgr
“Culpability studies have recently demonstrated an increased risk of becoming responsible in fatal or injurious traffic accidents, even with low blood concentrations of THC.” (Norway)
http://tinyurl.com/2485nx
I don’t much care how you kill or harm yourself at home, as druggies do already. (They don’ need no stinkin’ legalization laws.) But do it as long as you can’t influence other adults or kids with public drug use. Or influence them by killing them on the road as above (or else-ways). Or through higher health insurance premiums the rest of us must then pay, etc.
There are drugs now that will addict with first usage. And in that regard, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Let’s see any government even think about legalizing those. And that is where the bootleggers and pushers must go if soft-drugs are legalized. (Aside from unleashing a Pandora’s box.) Or do you think those people would then move into insurance or flipping burgers?
I’m sure you’re one of the more responsible junk-hogs but for others, laws – such as seat belt laws & helmet laws – are out there to protect people from themseves and others whether they want it or not.
If you don’t like it, do the opt-out thing with more drugs.
RBG
I dunno, I kinda like anarchy…
#19, JoaoPT, I didn’t confuse oldest with most profitable, I just pointed out that prostitution seems to be a very profitable business, one of two I can name where, “when you sell it, you still got it.” Weapons dealers make a profit, but they still have to buy the wares they sell. Sorry for the confusion.
Everyone can agree that when alcohol was illegal it created a black market trade in the product. The underground trade then caused many needless deaths trying to secure the profits. The same has happened to the other drugs. Taking an essentially non-violent offense and putting large profits behind it motivates a great percentage of the street violence we see today. It is shameful that some believe prisons will somehow reform drug addicts even with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. No one can argue that our prison system is overflowing with people convicted of drug offenses. Every day another violent criminal is released so they can add a non-violent drug offender. I am just asking: Is it worth it? If we were truly going on the merits of health concerns shouldn’t alcohol and tobacco also be illegal?
@Jägermeister (ironically using an alcohol brand as your handle)
You are a very sick to post such truly disgusting pictures, then to use them as evidence to support your point. Yes, drugs kill people! Point made! I bet you are the type to revel in rancid dot com.
#41 – RGB, I understand your opposition to driving under the influence. I’m opposed to it as well. I would support far far stricter sentences for it…
But that isn’t the issue. If it were, instead of talking about decriminalization, we’d be talking about prohibiting alcohol again.
Virtually the only success the government can claim is the decline in the number of Americans who smoke marijuana
And thats a real shame since that is the most innocuous of all the illegal drugs, and is far safer than alcohol.
#46
“And thats a real shame since that is the most innocuous of all the illegal drugs, and is far safer than alcohol.”
Historically, the US is famous for attacking the weak ones and then claim it was a formidable opponent no one but them could have been able to defeat.
45 OFTLO
I was requested to respond point-by-point to 34 THC. ie:
“…we’re therefore left with the even more untrue implication that ingesting a substance, any substance, that causes a change in one’s thought patterns, endangers others.”
I also made the point that some wars, such as the war on D&D and street racing are not “won” either. But would you stop waging these wars?
Personally, I think the war on drugs provides an additional service. It helps point out society’s selfish scum without the need for expensive mindreading equipment. Yes, there are a lot of them, aren’t there?
Kids these days…where do they get their ideas from?
RBG
just a drive-by comment until I’m done with today’s errands…
#41 – RBG
“Yes, and drugs “per se” are not dangerous… only what happens after you ingest or administer them.”
Aaah, yes. More – ¿como se dice? – horseshit.
Funny, innit, how legal, prescribed drugs are far more dangerous and kill and injure far more people than the illegal ones…
Unless, of course, you are gullible enough to imagine that the determination of which drugs are illegal came about by careful analysis and sound logic, rather than pandering to public paranoia and prejudice.
Speed, in it’s various forms, is pretty bad shit, although it doesn’t actually kill many people. It does fuck up lives, though, just as does crack cocaine.
But marijuana kills no one (the laws kill plenty of people, though), cocaine and heroin rarely kill, and when they do, it’s almost always either (a) because of an accidental overdose, due to the black-market origins and the attendant absence of QA; or (b) because of someone with a preëxisting cardiac condition who foolishly decided to take it anyway, Heroin deaths, likewise, are either ODs from unexpectedly high dosage, as mentioned, or asphyxiation, from inspiration of one’s own vomit, something most user are intelligent enough to take steps to prevent.
In short, despite the bullshit bandied about by those with a vested interest in keeping drugs illegal, drugs, particularly the illegal ones, rarely kill.
But all of that aside, let me blow a huge, gaping hole in a cornerstone of your “argument”, below the waterline:
“I don’t much care how you kill or harm yourself at home, as druggies do already. (They don’ need no stinkin’ legalization laws.) ”
Really? So staying home and getting high is safe, and as good as no prohibition at all, is it? Nice to know. Try telling that to some of the innumerable innocent people who have died violently at the hands of home invaders with guns and badges who blew them away by mistake – and sometimes deliberately – in the course of ‘protecting them from themselves.’ People like that 92-year-old woman in Atlanta, who blew her away in a hail of 40 bullets, on a tip from a lying informant, then planted marijuana in the apartment to get themselves off the hook. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, I bet you’re gonna tell us. Fuck that Constitutional nonsense about “the right to be secure in one’s home”, this is a war!
Your thoroughly bogus (and completely invisible and undetectable) epidemic of vehicular carnage caused by dope smokers is so laughably, demonstrably false as to be beneath dignifying with any comment other than to note how between 80 and 100 million Americans, by conservative esimates, have regularly smoked pot over the last 40 years, yet somehow no one in all this time has noticed them mowing down innocents left and right with their wild driving
– until our truthful, ethical, uncorruptible government started looking for ways to attempt to rationalize the billions they’ve squandered (and stuffed in their and their friends’ pockets) under the pretext of “fighting the drug menace”.
‘Junk science’, RBG? Just check the provenance of your “statistics” if you want examples. They’ve made deception and propaganda into an art form; e.g., a person with THC in their bloodstream, sitting on a bus bench and hit and killed by a drunk driver is officially counted as a “marijuana-related traffic fatality.” THAT’s the sort of “proof” your drug-warrior pals have to offer. And no shortage of suckas like you who buy it, lock, stock and barrel, because it reinforces your prejudices.
Musr run now. It’s been real……..
#48 – I also made the point that some wars, such as the war on D&D and street racing are not “won” either. But would you stop waging these wars?
There is a war on Dungeons and Dragons? Really? Okay. YES. I would definitely stop waging that war.
Also, there is no “war on street racing” per se… any more than there is a war on jay-walking. Street racing is just illegal and police will arrest you if you engage in it.
D&D?
Really?
Personally, I think the war on drugs provides an additional service. It helps point out society’s selfish scum without the need for expensive mindreading equipment. Yes, there are a lot of them, aren’t there?
Your value judgment is just that… yours… It’s subjective and likely not well informed. I don’t think that people with substance abuse problems are selfish scum. I think that addicts are suffering from a profound misery that certainly began before they ever started using drugs, and are in desperate need of help. If anyone is selfish scum, it’s the slack jawed compassion-free authoritarian who chooses to only see a criminal and lock them safely away from society rather than to seek to address the problem.
Where I agree with you is in those cases where driving under the influence is involved.
Now… Honestly… Is it the magic or the demons? What about D&D requires a war? I hope all those miscreant magic users and fighters out there can make a successful saving throw against warrantless persecution by the police…
#49, THC,
Funny, innit, how legal, prescribed drugs are far more dangerous and kill and injure far more people than the illegal ones…
I didn’t know that. But taken into perspective, many “legally used” drugs are used for extremely ill people. If it is suspected the person can not tolerate the drug, they are taken off it. That is what medical supervision is for.
Then you turn around and tell us that:
cocaine and heroin rarely kill, and when they do, it’s almost always either (a) because of an accidental overdose, due to the black-market origins and the attendant absence of QA; or (b) because of someone with a pre-existing [sic] cardiac condition who foolishly decided to take it anyway,
…
In short, despite the bullshit bandied about by those with a vested interest in keeping drugs illegal, drugs, particularly the illegal ones, rarely kill.
So you want to discount things like Hillbilly heroin, AIDS and Hepatitis (sharing dirty needles), drunk drivers, huffers and glue sniffers that suffocated, methanol, as well as ODs.
Cat, you are a moran. A stupid one at that.
I have little issue with pot and support relaxing restrictions on it. Especially for medical use. At the same time though, I would support even stricter penalties for those who drink and drive. I would also like to see tobacco banned outright.
Drugs are my excuse for being stupid. And Gay.
There was a “War”? That’s another thing that George Bush (both of them) has lied about. It looks like they forgot one crucial thing. Like telling the youth that these drugs are actually bad for them. Visit any school, and you’ll probably find at least one or two Go-Navy and Join the Army posters. And nothing at all about how doing drugs will screw you up. H*ll the gov’t has spent more money selling us the Iraq War, than they ever did selling the drug war.
I’m not a drug users, and I think it’s a very bad idea for anyone else to experiment with these things. But if people want to screw up their lives and their health by abusing them. Then shouldn’t alcohol and tobacco use also be illegal? Obviously there is a double standard. The acceptible vises have been “grandfathered” as vital economic commodities. The reason narcotics are illegal is because they can be addictive and they hurt people’s health. Tobacco and booze can also be additive and hurt peoples’ health. The only difference is that they is a hugely powerful lobbying body behind tobacco and booze, keeping any kind of education against their abuse from appearing in public schools. And by association, the illegal drugs get a free ride of the “ignorance is bliss” policy. Because what could effect one, might just effect the other. And even Hollywood continues to glamorize tobacco and booze use, while completely avoiding any scripts that might be seen as an anti-drug message. The news, entertainment, and governmental spheres have been thoroughly compromised as far as this so-called “war or drugs” is concerned. They are all, in effect, traitors! Having sold out to the other side.
49 THC. If it’s a horseshit argument, it’s because that was yours to begin with in #34.
Prescribed drugs kill more than illegal drugs you say. Even if that was true, try an experiment where you stopped all prescribed drugs and illegal drugs and tell me which side of the ledger results in more deaths and heart-ache. So do cars result in more deaths than illegal drugs. Try a different argument.
“But marijuana kills no one” you say. That would be a lie as I proved above and here’s more:
“Toxicology studies were performed on a subset of highway fatalities in Alabama … it was found that almost 17% tested positively for marijuana” http://tinyurl.com/26o7q9
Yeah, yeah, and lots of folks go to jail after a “fair” trial too. So by your “thinking” all laws should be struck down to avoid every such miscarriages of justice. Statistically, your isolated anecdote is worthless.
As is your paranoid wishful thinking that you present as evidence that all scientists are somehow part of the grand conspiracy to suppress illegal drugs. ‘Cept the studies that support your cause, of course. Your blather doesn’t even pass the layman’s smell test: Dope slows reactions and, over the long run, will be responsible for fatal accidents.
If you can deny this and all the other predictable, repeatable, verifiable studies that contradict you then all I can say that it must be fun to live in your world where reality doesn’t matter.
RBG
Having reviewed all these posts; I hereby declare Amsterdam off limits to RBG and sentence THC to more of the same in Amsterdam. (I’ll go halves on some tickets THC ?) I suppose there’s a place for everything and maybe there’s a time to have a place in this world..dunno for sure, I just wonder if we spent the time and money , we always seem to spend fighting our own nature and proclivities, helping people who never found anything better than drugs and maybe just some research into providing whatever it is that’s missing from the lives of these people that only drugs could fill..I know I’m coming across as one of those bleeding heart types but, I still wonder what we could do if we didn’t believe force and more force was easier than knowledge and understanding. Don’t take me too wrongly, after reading many of the posts and posters in here for the last couple of years, I’d kinda like to force my richard up a couple or three posteriors.. Oh yeah, on that note; James Hill, you don’t need any excuse for either of the two activities you name..you can just be yourself, a smart, drug-crazed gay dude…or not.
To make it clear, the statistics are politically motivated, dishonest and therefore worthless – except to ideologues obsessed with promulgating drug myths in spite of all known fact.
Read this again. There is no known fatal dose of THC. There is not one single incident of anyone ever dying from an overdose. Ever. Period.
And, exactly as in the example I gave, when any person – whether an at-fault driver, a not-at-fault driver, or a totally uninvolved, blameless passenger – dies consequent to a traffic accident – that person is labelled, dishonestly, unscientifically, a “drug-related” fatality. The implication that drug intoxication had any relevance to the cause of the accident is dishonest, unethical and immoral. And needless to say, it is in no way scientific. Implying that the presence of a drug in the bloodstream of a party who absolutely, in no way whatsoever, bears any responsibility for causing the accident is a sleazy, underhanded
propaganda tactic used only by persons who have no interest in the truth, only in promoting their ideological agenda.
Propagandists, in order to succeed, need an audience of gullible, credulous individuals with insufficient critical thinking skills to be able to see through their carefully engineered partisan lies and distortions. People like you.
#21 – dude, you have vista!? obviously you have more problems than i thought (including the inability to choose a decent OS). If you dont have the Divx codec by now, then like bobbo said, you’re 3+ years behind the rest of us – which figures, since you have vista (sucks ass) installed
#41 – being stoned makes me a better driver. plus traffic is so bad these days its not like i get to drive faster that 20 mph even at the best of times
#56 – RGB
Oh, please, you’re embarrassing yourself now. Do you think “D&D” refers to “Dungeons & Dragons” in a topic with a number of posts (ie” #32) that refer to “Drinking & Driving?”
You know… I swear I couldn’t think of anything other than Dungeons and Dragons, and since D&D seemed sufficiently funny to respond to, I stuck with it.
My mind thinks DUI or DWI when I think about drinking and driving.
On another note, there was a D&D Driving School in the town I grew up in. Their driver training cars were all over the place.
#62 – #60 tallwookie: “being stoned makes me a better driver”
Not to mention a better disengagement from reality. Say hi for me to the parents of the kids you kill, will you? I give you exhibit “A” in the fight against legalizing recreational drugs.
It should be a given that anyone driving under the influence of marijuana is impaired. Less so than alcohol, of course, but more so than sober and that’s enough to warrant severe criminal punishment.
But that isn’t a good enough reason to make pot illegal, and if it is, outlaw alcohol. Period.
Alcohol is far more deadly. It leads not only deadly traffic fatalities but to heightened and deadlier incidents of domestic violence as well.
Alcohol is a killer and unlike pot, actually is addictive. Also unlike pot, alcohol can impair you far beyond the point of basic functionality.
So if the fact that someone might do something dangerous in a car while on the otherwise harmless effects of marijuana is enough to make it illegal, then you have to apply that standard across the board.
In fact, you might want to ban cars too, because drunks and stoners may be able to gain access to cars that aren’t theirs and use them to “accidentally” kill people.
Look. Government is my Dad or it isn’t. If we want a paternal society, so be it. I don’t think we do. So lets quit with this hypocritical bullshit of saying we need to criminalize all this drug use.
If a drug is safe, and pot is, legalize it. If if it can be reasonably demonstrated to pose a significant health risk, like meth, then make it illegal.
Attack traffickers and treat addicts. Quit pumping billions into a fucked up “war” that serves only to escalate the violence associated with the drug trade.
59 THC. “My sitting in my living room, sharing some fine wine and exquisite hashish with friends, and watching films or listening to music, or just conversing and savoring the experience does not serve as a model…”
I couldn’t illustrate my point better about lowlife responsible for sucking kids into the world of addictive drugs.
I give you exhibit “B.”
Geez, wish I could also choose whichever laws I might want to obey and which I don’t. As I was saying, the beauty of current drug laws is that statistically they eventually catch up to the outlaws and those with self-induced phonemophobia (fear of thinking) and neatly segregate them from the rest of us in one way or another.
And like Drinking & Driving, just because it’s impossible to stop them all, you don’t give up the fight.
RBG