The War On Drugs Funds Our Enemies From Street Gangs To Bin Laden

[DistressedAmerican]

I posted this as part of another thread but thought it deserved one of its own.
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People using these substances are ADDICTS not criminals.

Continuing to lock them in prison does not fix the problem. It is both costly AND totally ineffective as a means to combat consumption of these drugs.

If we were to legalize these now prohibited substances and make it available with a doctor's prescription (with an eye to getting them off) it would go a long way to reorienting our society's paradigm toward the addiction as a disease model and away from addict as weak, immoral, criminal.

Keeping these substances illegal does three things:
1) It creates the previously mentioned black market which drives international crime.

2) It drives the cost of the drug up for people with addictive disease. That drives street level crime (violent and property). Addicts will steal, murder etc, to get what their body demands. They are not in control of these behaviors.

and

3)It forces addicts to seek drugs on the street of questionable source and quality contributing to overdose deaths.

Continued prohibition has proven totally ineffective at curbing the consumption of these substances, it has merely changes the economics of the situation. Prohibition makes a regulate-able and taxable social problem into an out of control bonanza for the "evil doers". It threatens at the individual level (drug crime) and the macro level(terrorism, international drug smuggling).

Legalization would allow government control of the production of these sources. It could be taxed to support drug treatment. And it immediately takes the black incentives out of the situation that fuel our worst enemies from street gangs (recently highlighted by Bush in the SOTU) to Pablo Escobar to Bin Laden. We can end the importation of these substances overnight.

Prohibition has never worked it takes a bad problem and makes it worse. That is why we need to legalize.

That being said do you have a good reason why they SHOULD be treated as contraband?
DA
http://www.seedsofdoubt.com/distressedamerican/main.htm

[mordarlar]

1. I disagree.

Lagalize drugs and you will be solving some problems with new ones.

[DistressedAmerican]

2. What new ones?

Let's do the cost benefit anaylsis.

[mordarlar]

3. My parents were addicts. One is dead now and one is recovering....

through a treatment for bipolar. Addicts in my experience do not simply harm to feed a habit. They harm because their judgment is not right. Trust me i could write a book.

[DistressedAmerican]

6. Did prohibition stop the people you know from becoming addicts?

Did it help them get off? Your's is just one case study of how the current methods have failed.

I'm sorry about your experiences but, I do not see how drug prohibition helps.

[mordarlar]

9. The law helped stop my mothers use. She has not used in near 7 yrs....

Prior to this she attempted to light a child with lighter fluid in a haze where she hallucinated that my dead father was talking to her. Almost drove her 5 and 8 yr old children into a lake. Stabbed someone because she was angry at them. Was raped in front of my eyes by another addict. Left us constantly, once for two months, when i the oldest was 13. My principal would let me go home from school to care for my younger siblings. At one point we ate apples off of a public tree because we had no food. Another time we ate a Marine ration, my uncle had sent as a souvenir, for three days. She tried to kill our pet because she was angry at us. Screamed in our neighbors yards at 3in the morning high. She was "kept" by an addict for three weeks trapped in a room because he thought MOSES was telling him to keep her. The list goes on...

My father died at 32 in a car accident, he was unconscience at the wheel. I have seen addicts slice themselves to ribbons, seen overdoses, nursed withdrawls, watched unbelievable beatings, seen people try to jump from moving cars with children sitting next to them. I have seen 5 yr old children in diapers because their parents were USELESS and smoked crack around them since they were infants.

NEVER WILL I SUPPORT LEGALIZED DRUGS.

[Dez]

12. As a child of an addict

I can see how you want to lock up ALL addicts, for what your mother did in her drug-crazed state of being. Do you think that locking up pot smokers for 50 years, and taking away their cars/possessions is fair 'punishment'for their 'crimes'? Do you think that forcing addicts to use needles infected with HIV is punishment enough for them, since they are drug users?? Do you think the drug war will ever be able to round up ALL the addicts? How many more prisons (for profit!) will we have to build to lock up these horrible people, whose only 'crime' is being a drug addict, for when you lock them up, you deny them the necessary treatment they require to deal with their addiction. If your mother had been an alcoholic instead of addicted to the other drugs, I wonder if you would be proposing we go back to prohibition against alcohol. Look what an utter failure that was! Organized crime moved in and took over, and the crime rate skyrocketed.
The crime rate in Vancouver is crazy due to drug crimes, robberies, cars stolen, houses broken into, all so they can get money to satisfy their druc-starved bodies. If it were legalized and REGULATED, the crime rate would drop instantly! The addicts would be able to get their fix at a price which would almost eliminate the crimes being commited now. How can you support a system which supports organized crime?? I really don't see your point, other than you have a deep hatred of your mother and all addicts out there, and you feel you need to 'punish' all addicts for what you had to experience as a child. It's a pity you have so much hate in your hearts towards people who are ill, and not able to get the help they need to get better.

[Dez]

5. The drug war kills more people

than the drugs kill. Prohibition was a complete failure, and it still is. There has always been drug addicts, and there always will be. It's a fact. Persecuting drug users and filling our prisons (prisons for profit= slavery, still alive in Amerika!) only ruins lives and breaks up families. Our drug war machine has turned this country into a police state, and the U.S has invaded all countries, placing DEA in those countries, forcing other countries to hold our 'values' as their own. How many more have to die, as a result of the drug war, before people wake up, and say NO MORE WAR! You can't win this war!

[mordarlar]

7. Disagree...

>>>Persecuting drug users and filling our prisons (prisons for profit= slavery, still alive in Amerika!) only ruins lives and breaks up families.<<<

ADDiCTION destroys lives and breaks up families.

>>>Our drug war machine has turned this country into a police state<<<

Our government has turned our nation into a police state. Our government is RESPONSIBLE for most of the drug trafficking in this country. And we are going to give them MORE control?

>>>and the U.S has invaded all countries, placing DEA in those countries, forcing other countries to hold our 'values' as their own.<<<

They will do this anyhow. Whether we have legalization or not. America likes to run other's countries.

Parents OFTEN addict their own children. Not to mention those who will make money off of this new "legal" trade will encourage addiction. Our pharmaceutical companies are as corrupt as they come. There will not be a decrease in drug abuse there will be a rise.


Violence, unemployment,increasing poverty, neglect and the countless other issues facing the families of addicts ARE NOT GOING TO GO AWAY with legalization. And they will not improve our country.

[DistressedAmerican]

8. Let me get this clear...

Are you really trying to suggest that the profits going to pharm companies would be worse than them going to terrorists, drug smugglers and street dealers????

Are you suggesting that they would be less scrupulous (under government oversight) in their efforts to create addicts????

you are right about the government profiting from smuggling. That is the only reason we cling to these counter productive policies. Well, that and it wouldn't fly in moralisic red state churches.

That being said their profiting from it is an impediment to be overcome. Not an excuse to keep following the same flawed practices.

I am not suggesting this as a solution to addiction. I suggest that the money for the stuff go back into public programs (along with the money now spent on interdiction and incarceration)in the form of taxation.

You have yet to address my real point here. Addiction will persist. It is better to direct the profits to good and it is better to bring theses people out of the dark alleys where we can try to get them some help.

[mordarlar]

10. I suppose the government is going to just give them away...

People will still have to BUY THEM. The money will still have to come from SOMEWHERE. You know where? Where it has ALWAYS COME FROM. Do you HONESTLY think addicts are going to retain GAINFUL employment to feed their families AND a drug habit? Where is the insurance going to come from? The GOVERNMENT?

And then what WILL YOU DO when someone does harm someone? With a drunk you can tell them not to drive. You going to tell addicts they cannot have children they will not take care of? Or just wait till they harm them and THEN PUT THEM IN PRISON? Prison for addiction or prison for the results of an addiction?

So your way the only difference is that the corrupt government, the corrupt corporations and the rich who can afford people to care for their families and the drugs are free from accountability. Sounds GREAT!

[DistressedAmerican]

11. Yes, the money will be coming from the consumers primarily

However, the costs added by the black market make the amount of money coming out of the families far greater. If someone harms someone else directly they should be punished regardless of the law.

However prohibition encourages not discourages these incidental crimes by inflating the prices and making users statutory criminals. The victimless part of the activity, the possession and consumption are my issue. If other related crimes continue then by all means prosecute them.

None of the corruption you are talking about isn't happening under existing prohibitions and more than likely the scale is even larger as the illicit nature makes it a huge profit center. I ask again where would you rather see the money go to the terrorists, etc. or into public programs and yes even into the pockets of the "corrupt drug companies". Who is WORSE? Channeling that money out of illegal hands is what I am talking about.

Let's approach it this way. What exactly would you propose we do to stop the drug problem in the country and why?

[bemildred]

13. They are not new problems.

We have plenty of drug problems right now.

Drug abuse is a real problem, but it is a medical and social
problem. The criminal justice system is a lousy and disfunctional
"solution" to the drug abuse problem. That is why the "drug war"
needs to be relpaced with a national health care system that
provides free drug treatment and drug abuse support services for
those affected by drug abuse problems.

Just my 2 cents.

[HawkerHurricane]

4. Three groups benefit from prohibition

1. Preachers (and politicians), who gain converts and votes by pushing the 'drug menace'.

2. Police (and prison guards), who gain promotions and pay raises combating the 'drug menace'.

3. Smugglers (and producers), who gain enormous profits from the drugs they sell.