Article

2010-05-14 Home Front: Culture Wars

40 Years and 1 Trillion Dollars Later: The War on Drugs is a Failure

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Beavis 2010-05-14 10:41|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 and that it made them resistant to police bullets.

Well partly true, that's why the 1911.45 Colt was invented, the troops were shooting the Moro Tribesmen, who were high on drugs and they didn't stop them, the .45 Knocked them down and thy didn't get back up and kill you.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2010-05-14 11:44|| 2010-05-14 11:44|| Front Page Top

#2 Looks like California has officially surrendered.

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-05-14 11:48|| 2010-05-14 11:48|| Front Page Top

#3 You're fighting to control someone elses life, and you call that liberating?

The war on Drugs is a Criminal Enrichment Program, just like Alcohol Prohibition was.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2010-05-14 12:03|| 2010-05-14 12:03|| Front Page Top

#4 Failure?

Hardly. Never is there the postulation of what the place would look like if we all looked the other way. Just look at the ratty neighborhoods and expand that easily ten fold. It's really not about drugs. Drugs are simply the means for the money and power. That game will never go away. It's about the will to keep the destructive and predatory down to background noise. They are the elements of a population that have no bounds or compulsion to work within a system, but to exploit anything and everything they can to gain what they want.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-05-14 12:52|| 2010-05-14 12:52|| Front Page Top

#5 BP, while I doubt Napolitano's sincerity, I must say I agree with what she says at the end of this article: "This is something that is worth fighting for because drug addiction is about fighting for somebody's life, a young child's life, a teenager's life, their ability to be a successful and productive adult."

If government can't do that for us, WTF can it do?

My problem is that I don't care how much money they've spent because I can't believe it's ever been anything but a kabuki dance. The enforcement has always been selective and ineffective. You're right about one thing: somebody's making a hell of a lot of money. The power of that money to corrupt our government is most frightening to me as is the decline of our civilization.

Check out that link I posted to the CNBC special on marijuana. They have a slide show and one of the pictures shows a family getting ready to move out of Mendocino County in northern California after the pot house next door to them burned. Ask yourself, would you want your kids growing up in a town like that? Really? Yes? No? Well, before you write off Mendocino County remember that northern California is quite literally one of the most beautiful places on this planet. You want to give a place like that over to marijuana cultivation? Really?

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2010-05-14 12:53|| 2010-05-14 12:53|| Front Page Top

#6 No I wouldn't that's why I'd like drug use legalised, rather than forced underground, prices raised to crime causing levels and effects hidden.

I'd just expand the laws on "Drunk and incapable" to refer to drugs.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2010-05-14 13:02|| 2010-05-14 13:02|| Front Page Top

#7 A distant relative was in intel from OSS days... by the time of Carter he was too high a GS rating for Carter to fire so he transfered him to be an acting Drug Tsar in hopes he would quit.

The first day on the job it took him an hour and a half of security checks and pat downs to make it to his new office.

Within 10 mins. of getting there his secretary knocked on his door and said "These Gentlemen are here to see you". She ushered in a bunch of mobsters who made threats against him and his family if any of their shipments were interfered with.

He never wanted the job, thought about how long it took him (the new boss) to enter and how long it took the mobsters to make it to his office.... and decided the DEA was totally corrupted with his life in danger..... He said... "I didn't want this war... I am a Cold Warrior and not a Drug Warrior.... just keep my staff aware of where your shipments are and we'll be elsewhere until I am transfered back to my field".... six months later he was back "safely" in the spook field..

Posted by 3dc 2010-05-14 13:16|| 2010-05-14 13:16|| Front Page Top

#8 I agree w/BP. Decriminalize and tax/regulate like alcohol.

Posted by Broadhead6 2010-05-14 13:45|| 2010-05-14 13:45|| Front Page Top

#9 I knew the WoD was over in Christmas 2009 when not only just us young good-for-nothing grandchildren, but my entire property-owning, taxpaying older family sneaked away at some part of the holiday or other to smoke weed. At that point, what's the meaning of sneaking off? Everybody does it. It's like drinking wine.

There's just too much profit in continuing the system as is. Connected people would lose money if we repealed prohibition, and obviously that can not be allowed to happen.

Posted by gromky 2010-05-14 14:33|| 2010-05-14 14:33|| Front Page Top

#10 Socialism and drugs. Both opiates of the masses. Why resist one and not the other. Surrender to both, you'll have a wonderful civilization. /sarc off

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-05-14 16:50|| 2010-05-14 16:50|| Front Page Top

#11 2 can play that game.
Socialism is some bureaucrat deciding what you can and can't do with your life.

WoD = Socialism.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2010-05-14 16:54|| 2010-05-14 16:54|| Front Page Top

#12 I worked at a max security prison. The guard said they can't keep drugs out of there so how are we gonna keep them out of the schools.

There has to be another way to attack the problem. The present plan doesn't seem to be working.

Posted by BrerRabbit 2010-05-14 17:36|| 2010-05-14 17:36|| Front Page Top

#13 The guard said they ~~can't~~ won't keep drugs out

Significant difference btwn can't and won't.

Posted by Besoeker 2010-05-14 17:40|| 2010-05-14 17:40|| Front Page Top

#14 My wife went to visit a woman friend today. The woman broke down and just started sobbing. Her 27 yr old daughter is strung out on drugs. She goes to the doctors she knows to go to who will prescribe hydrocodone for some ailment or complaint. Most likely she uses illegal drugs also. She steals money from her mother to support her drug use. Her mom tried to get her into drug rehab and she signed herself out and walked away. Counseling was set up for her; she didn't follow through. She had a baby and gave up the baby to the father. She is not going to straighten her life out unless she wants to or she is forced to by going through the police-court-correction system or she dies. Drugs are a problem. In her case some of the drugs she uses are legalized. Drugs are a problem for her and for others close to her. There are lots of people like her across society.

Marijuana may not be such a big problem other than the criminal element around it and it seems to rob people of their motivation. Abuse of prescription painkillers is a problem. Cocaine, heroin, and meth are big problems--these drugs ruin lives and present a huge cost to society.

We do attack the problem on a lot of fronts across society; federal and local law enforcement, Coast Guard and border interdiction, education, intervention, drug testing, DEA monitoring of doctors, rehab, counseling. It's not like we are not doing things at the present. These efforts seem fragmented and not well-coordinated. Two questions arise: Can we afford these efforts? Can we afford not to do these things to control drug problems? There has to be a huge demand for illegal drugs for criminals to attracted to big profits.

Posted by JohnQC 2010-05-14 17:54|| 2010-05-14 17:54|| Front Page Top

#15 Doctor shopping for pain pills is a much bigger problem than kids buying pot. it is openly and notoriously practiced and almost everyone looks the other way.

/spit

Posted by abu do you love 2010-05-14 18:41|| 2010-05-14 18:41|| Front Page Top

#16 JohnQC
She's got a life problem you're blaming on drugs.

I'd bet she's self-medicating because she's got a form of depression.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2010-05-14 18:47|| 2010-05-14 18:47|| Front Page Top

#17 Abu I wouldn't go that far. When I lived in Savannah my neighbor was a pain mgt specialist 18 months, 2 DEA raids and found innocent he dropped the practice and went back to being an internest. Wasn't worth the headaches and paperwork. A lot people are worse for that inevitability.

Drug addiction, IMO, is genetic certain people are predisposed just like some drink too much, eat too much, etc. Legalize it, tax it and fund rehabs with the money. No society is free if has to tell its citizenry what it can and cannot ingest.

Posted by Beavis 2010-05-14 18:55|| 2010-05-14 18:55|| Front Page Top

#18 Pot should be legalized but the other stuff should probably remain illegal. Imagine when the baby boomers retire they are gonna want to smoke pot and remember the 60s. There is a lot of tax revenue to be harvested there and we can promote buy American!

Drug users should be released from our overcrowded prisons and sent to rehab and parole. Those involved in sales of all but pot should have their sentences increased, or at least those arrested going forward. Drive up the prices and risk that way.

Posted by rjschwarz 2010-05-14 19:13|| 2010-05-14 19:13|| Front Page Top

#19 BP, we'll respectfully disagree.

The Socialist Bureaucrat and drugs are the same. Both are sought after by people seeking to solve a problem only they both steal human free will and install dependency.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-05-14 19:52|| 2010-05-14 19:52|| Front Page Top

#20 If a single life is saved, then it's a victory. The fact is countless lives have been saved. And let's revisit the math: 1 trillion over 40 years. ReallY? Not a bad investment IYAM. Hey, we spent almost the same amount in 1 year for a "stimulous" snow job that did nothing but line the pockets of Dems. We'll never get rid of drugs, but it doesn't mean we have to get on our knees and put our lips around a crack pipe. No doubt about it that some drugs are much worse than others. But the fact remains, legalization will not rid of us of the WoD. It will only be more focused as we seek to secure our investment in the drug trade.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2010-05-14 22:40|| 2010-05-14 22:40|| Front Page Top

23:55 DMFD
23:42 gorb
23:41 Adriane
23:36 gorb
23:33 gorb
23:28 Secret Master
23:22 OldSpook
22:52 phil_b
22:51 JosephMendiola
22:44 JosephMendiola
22:43 Rex Mundi
22:41 Frank G
22:40 Rex Mundi
22:39 phil_b
22:39 Frank G
22:37 OldSpook
22:35 OldSpook
22:14 phil_b
22:14 Old Patriot
22:03 Free Radical
22:01 JosephMendiola
21:52 phil_b
21:46 JosephMendiola
21:40 JosephMendiola