THE United States has “ended its war on drugs” and is now moving its focus to prevention and treatment, the US drugs chief has told top Irish drug officials.
President Barack Obama’s drugs adviser Gil Kerlikowske held a series of meetings yesterday with Drugs Minister Pat Carey, Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and Department of Justice secretary general Sean Aylward.
The former police chief said the US had formally ended its much heralded – and hugely expensive – “war on drugs”. “We’ve talked about a ‘war on drugs’ for 40 years, since President Nixon. I ended the war,” said Mr Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).
The Obama administration is increasing its budget for demand reduction by 6.5%, bringing it to $5.6 billion (€4.5bn). But the US is still spending $15.5bn on supply reduction.
Mr Kerlikowske said internationally, the US was focusing less on crop eradication in Afghanistan and Columbia. He said the aim in Afghanistan was now on encouraging farmers to grow alternative crops.
This story smells like BS to me, especially the last sentence.
The ‘War on Drugs’ is over, the war on language continues (we know call it demand/supply reduction).
Re: #1 ME
‘Now’ not ‘know’ (running my own war on spelling).
So,
If we STOPPED fighting wars on drugs in OTHER NATIONS, it would save us $15BILLION DOLLARS??
AND lower our taxes by about 1/3??
yay, I’m going to get hooked on something and get smoke all the pot I can for JOBs, JOBs, JOBS.
yay, I’m going to get hooked on something and smoke all the pot I can for JOBs, JOBs, JOBS.
Old news. This was actually announced several weeks ago.
It all depends on how you phrase the announcement:
“We are going to try to reduce the demand for drugs by treating the consumers of drugs; hopefully less demand will reduce the production problem.”
Most 1st world countries have been dealing with their own drug problems very effectively by addressing the demand side. Educate, prevent and treat. It is only the United States that has been adamant about fighting the supply while doing nothing to deal with the users (aside from untreated jail terms). And the United States policies have been a total failure. We don’t deal with the problem because it would be admitting that America is not perfect and has an out of control drug usage problem.
Of course, thinking differently, aka “Change” is something that small minded people can not easily accept.
Change, one item at a time, leading to a better America.
COLOMBIA not ColUmbia, this is like the 5th time I’ve caught this website mispelling a countries name, WTF? It’s just insanely poor journalism. SPELL THE F’EN NAME RIGHT, IT’S COLOMBIA.
PS: Rant was meant for the irish examiner, although I’ve caught Dvorak.org mispelling Colombia many times, at least this time they were only quoting. Bad journalists.
this pisses me off. our gov will do say anything to benefit itself… the gov should be doing stuff for us, not itself 🙁
This isn’t some narc trying to trap us is it?
How about an amnesty — let the poor suffering drug crimes prisoners breathe the breath of freedom once more!
When will they stop fighting the war on poverty?
War on Drugs 0 / Drugs 1
The only nation I know of that has ever manged to actually reduce the use of drugs in a meaningful way is Japan back in the old days.
They made the owning, dealing and use of opium a capital crime and when you got caught was when you got decapitated. The Japanese police may not have been that good about sorting bystanders out from the guilty. Say what you want they completely stopped all trade in opium.
Organized crime wouldn’t touch the stuff and they wouldn’t let their people touch the stuff.
Drug use is like a sexually transmitted disease. It is passed from one user/dealer to others. It’s obvious how to stop it but nobody has the spine to do that so we let generation after generation destroy themselves and everything they touch and live with the crime and corruption that goes with the drug trade.
Most Americans would claim to be much to humane to do what the Japanese did and that the actions of the Japanese were cruel and inhuman but when you look at the actual body count it doesn’t add up in our favor.
They stopped the devastation of the opium trade in months after which nobody had their lives ruined or died from the stuff or the crime and corruption that goes with it while the stuff is still a festering wound in our flesh.
I’d legalize weed and tax the stuff to get it out of the drug dealers hands and use death theorpy on meth making/dealing and cocaine dealing. If that didn’t work I’d termainate anywone who tested positive but that’s just me.
If you want to keep the stuff around don’t vote for me for dictator for life. ?;^) I wasn’t running for the office anyway.
Vote for Obama and his supporters. That way you can be sure the illegal drug trade will become an even bigger fixture of American life for generations to come.
They are doing such a marvalous job of keeping the drug trade and Mexican crime south of the boarder that Arazona should be declared an unoffical Mexican province or at least it’s under the thumb of the Mexican crime syndicates.
The kidnap capital of the world is Mexico City and Phoenix is second. Oboma and the gutless wonders are worthless when it comes to dealing with a situation like this. They can’t even control the drug trade in DC.
When I’m down I think they are getting part of the action and they don’t want to control it.
Really? Are they still arresting people for possession of marijuana? The War on Drugs is to much of a profit center for the Blue Mob (the police).
If only the US spend this much tax dollars on general education! There probably wouldn’t even be much of a drug problem. But there’s far more money spent in public schools, about how great a military career will be, when they graduate. Than anything explaining the health issues of drug abuse. Frankly, I think the tobacco and alcohol industries lives in fear such a program. Because teaching young people how to avoid screwing up their lives with one form of addiction. Can’t exclude effecting the sale of the legal additive products that fuel the economy. Or at least fuel Congress.