Drug War // Current TV

Penn Jillette Goes On Epic Obama Weed Tirade

In a recent episode of his podcast "Penn's Sunday School," comedian Penn Jillette laid his opinions on the Obama drug policies out on the table.

Jillette, who has never done drugs or drank alcohol in his life, expressed particular concern over the policies' broad-sweeping, all-inclusive nature. Namely, that people are going to prison because of marijuana use.

"Now, he has not left this to states' rights," Jillette posited. "As you know, medical marijuana... you can get in California, and the feds are coming in to try to stop this. States' rights don't mean jack sh*t to the Obama administration on anything except gay marriage."

Another point of contention for Jillette was the fact that President Obama mentioned that he had smoked "weed" and done "maybe a little blow" in his 1995 book "Dreams from my Father."

Jillette cited it as a prime example of the fact that not all drug users turn out to be menaces to society:

"What troubles me about this... I think it's beyond hypocrisy. I think it's something to do with class. A lot of people have accused Obama of class warfare, but in the wrong direction. I believe this is Obama chortling with Jimmy Fallon about lower class people. Do we believe, even for a second, that if Obama had been busted for marijuana -- under the laws that he condones -- would his life have been better? If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he uses, and 'maybe a little blow'... if he had been busted under his laws, he would have done hard f*cking time. And if he had done time in prison, time in federal prison, time for his 'weed' and 'a little blow,' he would not be President of the United States of America. He would not have gone to his fancy-a** college, he would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars, he would not have a beautiful, smart wife, he would not have a great job. He would have been in f*cking prison, and it's not a god damn joke. People who smoke marijuana must be set free. It is insane to lock people up."

Jillette and co-host Michael Goudeau then went on to discuss statistics from uncited sources, but with the general suggestion that the number of people currently locked up in federal prisons for marijuana-related crimes is too high. Both men posited that Obama changing his drug policies would lighten the load on the prison system and give recreational drug users a chance to contribute to society.

Watch the full clip above.

Classic rant...emotional, but measured, genuine.In a recent episode of his podcast "Penn's Sunday School," comedian... more

rodstradamus
added this
9 days ago
|
1 comment

A Judge’s Plea for Pot

THREE and a half years ago, on my 62nd birthday, doctors discovered a mass on my pancreas. It turned out to be Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. I was told I would be dead in four to six months. Today I am in that rare coterie of people who have survived this long with the disease. But I did not foresee that after having dedicated myself for 40 years to a life of the law, including more than two decades as a New York State judge, my quest for ameliorative and palliative care would lead me to marijuana.

My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery. For about a year, my cancer disappeared, only to return. About a month ago, I started a new and even more debilitating course of treatment. Every other week, after receiving an IV booster of chemotherapy drugs that takes three hours, I wear a pump that slowly injects more of the drugs over the next 48 hours.

Nausea and pain are constant companions. One struggles to eat enough to stave off the dramatic weight loss that is part of this disease. Eating, one of the great pleasures of life, has now become a daily battle, with each forkful a small victory. Every drug prescribed to treat one problem leads to one or two more drugs to offset its side effects. Pain medication leads to loss of appetite and constipation. Anti-nausea medication raises glucose levels, a serious problem for me with my pancreas so compromised. Sleep, which might bring respite from the miseries of the day, becomes increasingly elusive.

Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep. The oral synthetic substitute, Marinol, prescribed by my doctors, was useless. Rather than watch the agony of my suffering, friends have chosen, at some personal risk, to provide the substance. I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep.

This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue. Being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I am receiving the absolute gold standard of medical care. But doctors cannot be expected to do what the law prohibits, even when they know it is in the best interests of their patients. When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy.

Sixteen states already permit the legitimate clinical use of marijuana, including our neighbor New Jersey, and Connecticut is on the cusp of becoming No. 17. The New York State Legislature is now debating a bill to recognize marijuana as an effective and legitimate medicinal substance and establish a lawful framework for its use. The Assembly has passed such bills before, but they went nowhere in the State Senate. This year I hope that the outcome will be different. Cancer is a nonpartisan disease, so ubiquitous that it’s impossible to imagine that there are legislators whose families have not also been touched by this scourge. It is to help all who have been affected by cancer, and those who will come after, that I now speak.

Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight. It is another heartbreaking aporia in the world of cancer that the one drug that gives relief without deleterious side effects remains classified as a narcotic with no medicinal value.

Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice, I feel obliged to speak out as both a judge and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease. I implore the governor and the Legislature of New York, always considered a leader among states, to join the forward and humane thinking of 16 other states and pass the medical marijuana bill this year. Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering.

Gustin L. Reichbach is a justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn.THREE and a half years ago, on my 62nd birthday, doctors discovered a mass on my... more

rodstradamus
added this
13 days ago
|
2 comments

Should I Vote For Ron Paul 2012? Complete Guide to Ron Paul's Stance on Every Issue

Love or hate him, Texas Congressman Ron Paul just might be the least understood... more

Radical_Centrist
added this
11 days ago
|
0 comments

Poll: Medical Marijuana Laws For States Supported By More Than Two-Thirds Of Republicans

WASHINGTON -- Nearly three-quarters of Americans and more than two-thirds of Republicans believe federal officials should respect state laws on medical marijuana, a new Mason-Dixon survey of 1,000 likely 2012 general election voters found.

"What the results of this survey show is that there is absolutely no political justification for what President [Barack] Obama is doing with respect to medical marijuana laws," Steve Fox, director of government relations for The Marijuana Policy Project, told HuffPost on Tuesday afternoon. "Across the board ... there is extremely strong support for respecting state medical marijuana laws."

Medical cannabis is currently legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia but remains illegal under federal law, even in states that have passed laws allowing for its use in medical treatment. Federal officials have ramped up enforcement actions around state medical marijuana laws but mounting evidence suggests such actions may not poll well in November.

Asked whether voters felt President Obama should respect the medical marijuana laws in these states, or use federal resources to arrest and prosecute individuals who are acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws, 74 percent of voters nationally said the president should respect state laws, 15 percent said he should prosecute in accordance with federal law and 11 percent weren't sure.

Further, Fox noted, the survey question specifically mentions that some states allow for the regulated cultivation and sale of medical marijuana and the more sympathetic term, "patient," was never even used.

Non-intervention polled well across parties and demographics, with 75 percent of Democrats, 67 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of independents signaling their support for a hands-off federal approach to state medical marijuana laws. A full 75 percent of women stated they support states' rights when it comes to medical marijuana, which is somewhat surprising, given ample public polling in Colorado and California that suggests more women oppose legalization than men.

A non-intervention policy was also broadly supported across racial groups, with 73 percent of whites, 73 percent of Hispanics and 81 percent of blacks in favor, although polling for minorities may be less accurate: 71 percent of all respondents were white.

Respondents were interviewed nationwide from May 10 through May 14, 2012, by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. of Washington, D.C. Eighty-five percent of respondents were 35 or older, and as a whole were split 48 percent male to 52 percent female.

The margin for error is 3 percent.

The poll comes as the Obama administration has unleashed an interagency crackdown on the cannabis industry, with raids on pot dispensaries, many in California, that were operating in compliance with state law. Since October 2009, the Justice Department has conducted more than 170 aggressive SWAT-style raids in nine states that allow medical marijuana, resulting in at least 61 federal indictments, according to data compiled by Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group.

While medical marijuana is legal under laws in 17 states and the District of Columbia, federal law says any use of marijuana is illegal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/republicans-state-medical-marijuana-laws_n_1519176.htmlWASHINGTON -- Nearly three-quarters of Americans and more than two-thirds of... more

JRBarilla
added this
15 days ago
|
3 comments

Why Nancy Pelosi is Right to Slam Obama's War on Pot

President Barack Obama’s emphasis on raiding medical marijuana dispensaries drew a rebuke from none other than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) this week, who warned in a prepared statement that she has “strong concerns” about her political ally’s policy.

Since President Barack Obama took office, “more than 200″ state-approved medical marijuana facilities have been raided, according to Kris Hermes, spokesperson for Americans for Safe Access (ASA), who spoke to Raw Story on Thursday.

“That exceeds the number of raids his predecessor, George W. Bush, oversaw during his entire eight years in office,” he said.

The startling statistic wasn’t lost on Pelosi either, whose statement comes just days after she received a petition by marijuana patients in her district.

“I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California, and undermine a policy that has been in place under which the federal government did not pursue individuals whose actions complied with state laws providing for medicinal marijuana,” she said.

“Proven medicinal uses of marijuana include improving the quality of life for patients with cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other severe medical conditions,” she added. “I am pleased to join organizations that support legal access to medicinal marijuana, including the American Nurses Association, the Lymphoma Foundation of America, and the AIDS Action Council. Medicinal marijuana alleviates some of the most debilitating symptoms of AIDS, including pain, wasting, and nausea. The opportunity to ease the suffering of people who are seriously ill or enduring difficult and painful therapies is an opportunity we must not ignore.”

“We applaud Pelosi’s leadership in urging President Obama to address medical marijuana as a public health issue,” ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer said in a media advisory. “Rather than defending a policy of intolerance, President Obama should end his unnecessary and harmful attacks once and for all.”

“The fact that a Democratic congressional leader like Nancy Pelosi is willing to call out a president from her own party over the huge gap between his administration’s actions and its previous written pledges shows just how important and popular an issue medical marijuana really is,” added Nate Bradley, a former California police officer and current medical marijuana patient who works for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Hopefully other elected representatives from California and other medical marijuana states will soon call on the president to get control of his federal agencies and stop breaking his campaign promises. It sure would be nice to hear Gov. Jerry Brown finally stand up in defense of our state’s duly enacted laws.”

Pelosi, who has long supported medical marijuana, is not alone in rebuking the Obama administration’s medical marijuana raids, but she is the highest ranking official to do so thus far.

The San Francisco Democratic Party passed a resolution (PDF) last week calling for Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to curb the raids, and nine other members of Congress wrote the administration late last year demanding more respect for states’ rights with regards to marijuana. There’s also a bill in the house, put forward by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX), that would allow individual states to set their own policies with regards to marijuana.

They’ve got the American people behind them, too: a Gallup poll last year found that a record high 50 percent of Americans favor legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol. When asked about medical marijuana in a prior Gallup survey, the approval rating jumped to 70 percent.

Continued at: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/155285/why_nancy_pelosi_is_right_to_slam_obama%27s_war_on_potPresident Barack Obama’s emphasis on raiding medical marijuana dispensaries drew... more

JRBarilla
added this
26 days ago
|
2 comments

5 Special Interest Groups That Help Keep Marijuana Illegal

There are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books.

Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rightsexperts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.

There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past.

However, we at Republic Report think it’s worth showing that there are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books:

1.) Police Unions: Police departments across the country have become dependent on federal drug war grants to finance their budget. In March, we published a story revealing that a police union lobbyist in California coordinated the effort to defeat Prop 19, a ballot measure in 2010 to legalize marijuana, while helping his police department clients collect tens of millions in federal marijuana-eradication grants. And it’s not just in California. Federal lobbying disclosures show that other police union lobbyists have pushed for stiffer penalties for marijuana-related crimes nationwide.

2.) Private Prisons Corporations: Private prison corporations make millions by incarcerating people who have been imprisoned for drug crimes, including marijuana. As Republic Report’s Matt Stoller noted last year, Corrections Corporation of America, one of the largest for-profit prison companies, revealed in a regulatory filing that continuing the drug war is part in parcel to their business strategy. Prison companies have spent millions bankrolling pro-drug war politicians and have used secretive front groups, like the American Legislative Exchange Council, to pass harsh sentencing requirements for drug crimes.

3.) Alcohol and Beer Companies: Fearing competition for the dollars Americans spend on leisure, alcohol and tobacco interests have lobbied to keep marijuana out of reach. For instance, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors contributed campaign contributions to a committee set up to prevent marijuana from being legalized and taxed.

4.) Pharmaceutical Corporations: Like the sin industries listed above, pharmaceutical interests would like to keep marijuana illegal so American don’t have the option of cheap medical alternatives to their products. Howard Wooldridge, a retired police officer who now lobbies the government to relax marijuana prohibition laws, told Republic Report that next to police unions, the “second biggest opponent on Capitol Hill is big PhRMA” because marijuana can replace “everything from Advil to Vicodin and other expensive pills.”

5.) Prison Guard Unions: Prison guard unions have a vested interest in keeping people behind bars just like for-profit prison companies. In 2008, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association spent a whopping $1 million to defeat a measure that would have “reduced sentences and parole times for nonviolent drug offenders while emphasizing drug treatment over prison.”There are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our... more

FreeSpiritMuse
added this
26 days ago
|
15 comments

Mainstream Media Outlets Are Buying the Drug Czar’s “Third Way” Lie, Hook, Line, and Sinker

Media outlets have published reports from Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske’s Tuesday speech at the Center for American Progress. As you might expect, several of the stories are straight transcription jobs, lacking response comments from drug reform advocates, or independent data. In two cases, the reports contain blatant falsehoods.

Here are the worst offenders:

ABC (republished by Yahoo!): “Obama's Drug Czar Stumps for 'Third Way' Policy”

“To hear President Obama's drug czar tell it, the leading voices on drug policy are kind of crazy,” reads the lede to Chris Good’s exceptionally lazy piece. While Kerlikowske utterly mischaracterized the position of drug reform advocates, he didn’t actually call them crazy.

This line from Good’s report is also wrong: Kerlikowske was “promoting the White House's new National Drug Control Strategy, which calls for a focus on treatment and prevention rather than punishment.” If Good had actually read Obama’s 2013 federal budget proposal, he’d know that it allocates nearly 60 percent of the federal budget to drug law enforcement, AKA “punishment.”

C-SPAN: “Drug Czar Outlines ‘Third Way’ for U.S. Drug Policy”

The vaunted cable outlet’s report is only three paragraphs, but still contains a huge error. “Mr. Kerlikowske told the audience that the past few years has seen a reduction in the use of cocaine and methamphetamine, and that the White House has approved elimination of mandatory sentencing guidelines that disproportionately affected minorities.” Actually, the White House didn’t approve the elimination of the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine in 2010, it simply reduced it from 100-to-1, to 18-to-1. And not only did Obama not “eliminate” the disparity, he also failed to make the new sentencing guidelines retroactive.

The best report came from the Hearst Newspapers. Reporter Dan Freedman sought comment from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition’s Tom Angell, noted that the current federal drug budget allocates nearly 60 percent to enforcement, and added that “Kerlikowske's de-emphasis of law enforcement stood in contrast to a crackdown that U.S. attorneys in California ordered last year on medical marijuana businesses operating under state law.” Gold star for you, Dan Freedman.

http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/02/mainstream-media-outlets-are-buying-theMedia outlets have published reports from Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske’s Tuesday... more

JRBarilla
added this
28 days ago
|
0 comments

Student abandoned in DEA holding cell 5 days, where he found meth, and had to drink own urine to survive

Daniel Chong, a 24-year old student at UC San Diego, was taken into custody during a... more

EngineeredObsolescence
added this
28 days ago
|
5 comments

The cost of a nation of incarceration

Is it fair to call the United States the "incarceration nation"? That's what some experts say. And even some veteran law enforcement and correction officials think something's gone wrong. Our Cover Story is reported now by Martha Teichner:

At the Gadsden County Jail near Tallahassee, Fla., there are bunks, and mattresses on the floor.

The jail has a capacity of about 150 inmates, but there are presently 230 inmates in the facility right now.

Walter McNeil, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, sees the same story everywhere he goes in the U.S.

In one "pod" of Gadsen jail, in which there are 24 bunks, there are 28 inmates - and by the time the weekend comes, there will be five or six more inmates.
That's nothing compared to California. Overcrowding was so bad there, the U.S. Supreme Court called it "cruel and unusual punishment," and last May ordered the state to cut its prison population by more than 30,000.

Nationwide, the numbers are staggering: Nearly 2.4 million people behind bars, even though over the last 20 years the crime rate has actually dropped by more than 40 percent.

"The United States has about 5 percent of the world's population, but we have 25 percent of the world's prisoners - we incarcerate a greater percentage of our population than any country on Earth," said Michael Jacobson, director of the non-partisan Vera Institute of Justice. He also ran New York City's jail and probation systems in the 1990s.

A report by the organization, "The Price of Prisons," states that the cost of incarcerating one inmate in Fiscal 2010 was $31,307 per year. "In states like Connecticut, Washington state, New York, it's anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000," he said.

Yes - $60,000 a year. That's a teacher's salary, or a firefighter's. Our epidemic of incarceration costs us taxpayers $63.4 billion a year.

The explosion in incarceration began in the early 1970s - the political response to an explosion in urban violence and increased drug use.

"So 'Tough on crime,' 'three strikes, you're out,' 'Let 'em rot, throw away the key' - all that stuff resulted in more mandatory sentencing, longer and longer sentencing," said Jacobson.

(click on the link to access the following pages)Is it fair to call the United States the "incarceration nation"? That's... more

Vierotchka
added this
1 month ago
|
1 comment

Legalizing pot would raise more than Buffett Rule

Over the past week, President Obama spent time promoting the Buffett Rule surtax on millionaires and paid a visit to Colombia in which he reiterated his opposition to legalizing drugs. Though the two issues were unrelated, it's worth remarking that legalizing drugs would actually do more to reduce deficits than implementing the Buffett Rule.

The Buffett tax, which failed to advance in the Senate last night, would have raised $5.1 billion in 2013 (theoretically its first full year of implementation), according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Yet a 2010 study by the libertarian Cato Institute found that legalizing marijuana alone would save the federal government $3.3 billion in reduced enforcement expenditures per year and raise an additional $5.8 billion in revenue assuming it would be taxed. If all drugs were legalized, the study estimated it would save the federal government $15.6 billion a year and raise an additional $31.2 billion in revenue -- for a total of $46.8 billion. That's slightly higher than the $46.7 billion the Buffett Rule tax is projected to raise over the full decade.

These numbers only pertain to the federal government, but the majority of the cost of the drug war is imposed on state and local governments. If governments at all levels are included, the Cato study projected that full drug legalization would reduce total budgets by $88 billion when one includes enforcement savings and new tax collections.

To be sure, the issue of drug legalization is less about the budget and more about personal liberty. Those who oppose prohibition believe that individuals should be allowed to do whatever they want and risk the consequences as long as their actions don't harm others in the process. But it's also interesting to put the costs of the drug war in perspective.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/legalizing-pot-would-raise-more-buffett-rule/485101
----------------------------------------------------------------

Not to mention take a significant revenue stream away from gangs/cartels and keep millions of nonviolent users out of the private prison machine!Over the past week, President Obama spent time promoting the Buffett Rule surtax on... more

JRBarilla
added this
1 month ago
|
2 comments

Obama’s New Drug Control Report Calls for More Workplace Drug Testing, Nationwide Zero Tolerance Laws

The first thing you should know about President Barack Obama’s 2012 Drug Control... more

JRBarilla
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Ron Paul "What If You Started Using Something You Grow & Stopped Buying Expensive Drugs!"

April 12, 2012 C-SPAN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJs9891ZUnI

JRBarilla
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Regulate marijuana billboard grabs eyes near Mile High Stadium | The Raw Story

Colorado’s Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol has just fired its first... more

McSpocky
added this
1 month ago
|
0 comments

Oaksterdam University raided by the Feds

The US has one fourth of the world's prison population. It seems Obama wants to... more

mybologna
added this
1 month ago
|
2 comments

Drug Lord Thanks Obama, Bush, & Reagan For War On Drugs

Top 701 richest person say thanks for the war on drugs and the on going prohibition!... more

Radical_Centrist
added this
2 months ago
|
0 comments

End the Failed War: A Call to End the War on Drugs & Revamp Our Nation's Drug Policies

There are currently an estimated 23.2 million people in the United States, age 12 or older, in need of treatment for alcohol or illicit drug abuse (Levinthal 2010). This is a far cry from the “Drug Free America” we were promised by politicians and policy makers when the near forty-year-old War on Drugs began in the United States. In 1972, one year into the current policy of drug prohibition, the federal allocation of drug money present in the country was $101 million and in the year 2000 that number was reported to be around $20 billion (Booth, 2007). Along with the fact that the amount of illicit drugs in the country has continually grown during the War on Drugs, illicit drugs have grown stronger and more potent than ever before as black market manufacturers and dealers compete to have the best product on the streets (Booth, 2007). Such facts are a clear indication that the current drug enforcement policies in the U.S. are failing to accomplish what officials have stated as their goals.

For most of the duration of the War on Drugs, there has been an assumed presupposition that law enforcement focuses on the dealers and sellers of illicit drugs but the numbers do not add up. “Of the 1,841,182 arrests for drug law violations in 2007, 82.5% (1,518,975) were for possession of a controlled substance. Only 17.5% (322,207) were for the sale or manufacture of a drug.” (McVay, 2008) At the same time, most federal drug laws prohibit any chance for probation or parole. Demographically, most people incarcerated for drug possession or “intent to sell” illicit substances are of minority races and from the low-income bracket of the socioeconomic scale (Levine, 2003). When the private prison industry costs taxpayers $50 billion annually and the majority of their inmates are nonviolent drug offenders, it raises a few eyebrows to say the least. At the same time, you have the tobacco and alcohol industries hypocritically as the largest contributors to the Partners for a Drug Free America campaign (Booth, 2007). In the 2007 documentary American Drug War: The Last White Hope, CIA Clandestine Officer Robert Steele may have surmised it all best when he stated:

"The drug war is a perfect continuing example of why we will never win the war on terrorism because it captures the ineffectiveness of U.S. government and it captures the fact that it's being used against poor people and not against the people who benefit most from drugs, which are bankers that launder the money." (Booth, 2007)

The backlash against the War on Drugs has consistently escalated over the past two decades and the movement has mainly focused on supporting the decriminalization or legalization of marijuana. Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in not just the United States, but the entire world (Levinthal 2010). This November, the State of California will vote on whether or not to legalize marijuana at the state level and tax it. The recent economic atmosphere has certainly lit a fire under the marijuana reform movement as states look for ways to recover from the current recession. Now that marijuana reform has hit the mainstream debates, the spotlight has expanded to encompass the entire War on Drugs itself. More and more political and social leaders are speaking out against the current drug policies in the United States each week in both the mainstream and alternative media. The proceeding reviews of literature will address the social, political, and economic dilemmas of the current War on Drugs and envision avenues for which the United States may turn down in order to end it while revamping our social values, norms, and policies in regard to drug use for the betterment of the entire nation as a whole. The economics of the War on Drugs is a hot topic currently and thus the starting point for the following research.

In a 1993 article titled Drug Prohibition: A Legal and Economic Analysis, Walter Block supports the legalization of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin with his argument based in economic and legal analysis. His economic argument is based on pure, capitalistic free market values and ideology as he states there is, “nothing in the tenets of value free economics that would preclude the legalization of drugs.” (Block 1993) Block goes on to discuss basic fundamentals of free market economics, asserting that it bases itself on the premise that no trade occurs unless both parties assume they will both benefit and that there will always be third parties, uninvolved in the trade, who are distressed “when consenting adults engage in voluntary capitalist acts.” (Block 1993) With this, he denounces the argument against drug legalization that claims it would lead to an increase in economic welfare since in all instances of free market trade the economic welfare of all participants is enhanced and that third parties not liking the sale of drugs occurring does not equate to a violation of the third party’s rights as would a trade that resulted in the third party’s murder, for example. Legally, Block refers to Libertarian legal code and argues that each person’s body is their own property and they should be free to put whatever they wish into it. He likens prohibition to slavery on the premise that restrictions are made on our own personal bodies (Block 1993).

The analysis by Block brings to light a daunting contradiction in the current political atmosphere in regard to drug prohibition... Continued at: http://scopicthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/03/end-failed-war-call-to-end-war-on-drugs.html

There is an inevitable time ahead where the federal government will have no choice but to admit their failure and respond accordingly. How they should respond is debatable, but significant amounts of research time, gathered evidence, and living, breathing examples to model new policy initiatives after do exist. A complete overhaul of our society’s perception of drug use, drug users, and our goals for dealing with the negative aspects of drug use in society with helping in mind rather than punishment is severely needed. The American people can no longer tolerate this war on them by their own government economically, socially, and psychologically. Academic study and analysis, as evident in the aforementioned articles, has destroyed the antiquated knowledge base upon which the current policy of prohibition is built. It is time for a new way.There are currently an estimated 23.2 million people in the United States, age 12 or... more

JRBarilla
added this
2 months ago
|
31 comments

Is Cartel Violence Getting Too Close to the Border?

A gun battle in Piedras Negras, which killed a Mexican police officer, prompted... more

Radical_Centrist
added this
3 months ago
|
0 comments

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal

Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or... more

Radical_Centrist
added this
4 months ago
|
0 comments

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal

Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or... more

JRBarilla
added this
4 months ago
|
32 comments

Raise the Crime Rate, an article on the abysmal state of American prisons

From the article... "Statistics are notoriously slippery, but the figures that... more

Saladin
added this
4 months ago
|
25 comments

select your country

Community Spotlight

TAGS

tagged w/ Drug War

top videos

find current on tv

find current online

recent comments

© 2012 Current TV, LLC All Rights Reserved

the basics

follow us online

tools

stay in touch

© 2012 Current TV, LLC
All Rights Reserved