USA - Conservative nonsense (war on drugs)

[bottlekop]

Conservative Nonsense in the War on Drugs
by Jacob G. Hornberger, February 17, 2006

Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their
professed devotion to “freedom, free enterprise, and
limited government” and their ardent support of policies
that violate that principle. One of the most prominent
examples is the drug war. In fact, if you’re ever wondering
whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good
litmus-test question is, How do you feel about the war on
drugs? The conservative will respond, “Even though I
believe in freedom, free enterprise, and limited
government, we’ve got to continue waging the war on drugs.”
The libertarian will respond, “End it. It is an immoral and
destructive violation of the principles of freedom, free
enterprise, and limited government.”
The most recent example of conservative drug-war nonsense
is an article entitled “Winning the Drug War,” by Jonathan
V. Last in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, one of
the premier conservative publications in the country. In
his article, Last cites statistics showing that drug usage
among certain groups of Americans has diminished and that
supplies of certain drugs have decreased. He says that all
this is evidence that the war on drugs is finally
succeeding and that we just need to keep waging it for some
indeterminate time into the future, when presumably U.S.
officials will finally be able to declare “victory.”
Of course, we’ve heard this type of “positive” drug-war
nonsense for the past several decades, at least since
Richard Nixon declared war on drugs back in the 1970s. What
conservatives never tell us is how final “victory” will
ultimately be measured. Like all other drug warriors for
the past several decades, Last doesn’t say, “The statistics
are so good that the drug war has now been won and
therefore we can now end it,” but rather, “Victory is right
around the corner. The statistics are getting better. Let’s
keep going.”
Last failed to mention what is happening to the people of
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where drug lords compete violently to
export illegal drugs into the United States to reap the
financial benefits of exorbitant black-market prices and
profits that the drug war has produced. Recently drug gangs
fired high-powered weapons and a grenade into the newsroom
of La Manana, killing Jaime Orozco Tey, a 40-year-old
father of three. Several other journalists have been killed
in retaliation for their stories on the drug war, and
newspapers are now self-censoring in fear of the drug
lords. There are also political killings in Nuevo Laredo
arising out of the drug war, including the city’s mayor
after he had served the grand total of nine hours in
office. According to the New York Times, “In Nuevo Laredo,
the federal police say average citizens live in terror of
drug dealers. Drug-related killings have become
commonplace.” The New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists says that the U.S.-Mexico border region is now
one of the world’s most dangerous places for reporters.
Not surprisingly, Last did not mention these statistics in
his “We’re winning the drug war” article.
During Prohibition, there were undoubtedly people such as
Last claiming, “Booze consumption is down. We’re winning
the war on booze. Al Capone is in jail. We’ve got to keep
on waging the war on booze until we can declare final
victory.”
Fortunately, Americans living at that time finally saw
through such nonsense, especially given the massive
Prohibition-related violent crime that the war on booze had
spawned. They were right to finally legalize the
manufacture and sale of alcohol and treat alcohol
consumption as a social issue, not a criminal-justice
problem.
Both conservatives and liberals have waged their war on
drugs for decades, and they have reaped nothing but drug
gangs, drug lords, robberies, thefts, muggings, murders,
dirty needles, overcrowded prisons, decimated families,
record drug busts, government corruption, infringements on
civil liberties, violations of financial privacy, massive
federal spending, and, of course, ever-glowing statistics
reflecting drug-war “progress.”
Americans would be wise to reject, once and for all, the
war on drugs, and cast drug prohibition, like booze
prohibition, into the ashcan of history.

-artical from "the future of freedom foundation"(fff)
-founder of the fff and author, Jacob G. Hornberger.
-----------------------------------------------------------
will post article “Winning the Drug War,” by Jonathan V.
shortly.

[bottlekop]

Winning the Drug War

by Jonathan V. Last
02/10/2006 12:00:00 AM

America may be doing it quietly, but it's happening nonetheless.


THERE'S A WONDERFUL SCENE in the movie Traffic in which a captured drug kingpin, played by Miguel Ferrer, is being interrogated by two federal agents. Ferrer says to them disdainfully: "You people are like those Japanese soldiers left behind on deserted islands who think that World War II is still going on. Let me be the first to tell you, your government surrendered this war a long time ago."
It's a brilliant bit of filmmaking; it's also bunk. Over the last five years, while no one was paying attention, America has been winning its war on drugs.
The cosmopolitan view has long been that the fight against drugs is a losing battle; that the supply of drugs pouring into America is never-ending; that drug lords are unrelenting zombie-supermen--kill one, and five more spring up.
The American drug problem grew to epidemic proportions throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In 1979, agencies of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health performed a national household survey of illicit drug use; substances included marijuana, cocaine, heroin, banned hallucinogens and inhalants, and unauthorized use of sedatives, stimulants and analgesics. As of 1979, the numbers were horrifying: 31.8 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 had used drugs; 16.3 percent of them had used in the last month. Among those ages 18 to 25 it was worse: 69 percent had used at some point; 38 percent in the last month.
But throughout the '80s, those numbers shrank. Sophisticates derided "Just Say No," but by 1993, only 16.4 percent
of 12- to 17-year-olds had used, and only 5.7 percent had used in the last month. In the 18-to-25 age bracket, 50.2 percent had tried drugs, but only 15 percent had used in the last 30 days. It was a remarkable success.
From 1993 to 2001, the numbers become less rosy: Among ages 12 to 17, the percentage of youths who had tried drugs increased almost twofold. In the 18-to-25 crowd, the increase was less marked, but still noticeable.
There's a reason we pay so much attention to these two age groups. As Tom Riley, the director of public affairs at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), explains: "If people don't start using drugs as teenagers--the mechanism of addiction clicks much more quickly in the developing brain--then they are unlikely to ever go on to serious drug abuse. If we can reduce the number of teens who use drugs, we change the shape of the problem for generations to come."
After 2001, the tide turned again. Since then, teen drug use is off nearly 19 percent. Which means that 700,000 fewer teens are using drugs today than just a few years ago.
What happened? For one thing: funding. Since 1998, the ONDCP's real budget has increased, from $8.2 billion to $12.4 billion. That extra money has mostly gone to law enforcement and drug treatment, attacking both the supply and the demand sides of the problem. Measures for demand are fuzzy, but the supply side of the equation - the "war" part of the war on drugs--has solid metrics.
Each substance is its own front and has its own dynamics. Drug supply is shockingly local. Take coca, the substance from which cocaine and crack are derived. From 1998 to 2001, world coca production increased from 586,100 metric tons to 655,800 metric tons, with the lion's share grown in Columbia. Since then, the ONDCP orchestrated a campaign to spray 140,000 hectares of Colombian coca fields with glyphosate (you know it as Roundup). The result: world coca production is down 20 percent.
With other substances, the news is even better. On Nov. 6, 2000, the Drug Enforcement Agency raided an abandoned missile silo in Wamego, Kan., which housed the world's leading LSD operation. By 2004, LSD availability in America was down 95 percent. The market still hasn't recovered.
The supply of all the major drugs is down, but at the same time, drug interdiction is up. In 1989, 533,533 kilograms of the four major drugs were seized by U.S. authorities. By 2005, the total had risen to 1.3 million kilograms.
Earlier this week, the ONDCP released a report outlining their order of battle for 2006. Director John Walters is not the type to go running for the nearest TV camera. Yet the quiet success he has overseen is a powerful reminder that the bad guys are not 10 feet tall; that failure is not inevitable; that the war on drugs is a war worth fighting; and that we're fighting it well.
- artical was contributed to "the philadelphia inquirer" feb 5th 2006
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ahh yes the " not ten feet tall "bad guys" " that wouldn't even exist if the war on drugs was not in effect. there's no ileagal drug market if drugs are not ileagal. if there's no ileagal drug market a lot of negative things could be remedied. especialy in the area of "drug safety and hazard prevention".

the message should NOT be that "drugs are dangerous, and always have drastic long lasting negative effects on ones metal and phsichal health. THEY WILL. and I emphasize... they WILL KILL YOU!". or "drugs arr frum ther dee-vil. an you'll go te he-ell if ya touch em".as many governments now "teach".

the message should be "respect drugs, they ARE good, and are gifts to man kind. however they can be harmful if taken with no regaurd to their exceptional power. much like driving a car. if you drive like an idiot you will probably end up dead. but if used resposably it is a wonderful tool for traveling quickly from one point to another. a car will help you travel and get places physichaly. drugs will help you travel mentaly to a greater place of understanding."
any way... so as not to get to0 serious, if you don't like my non-eco friendly car analagy(sp) (more like a parrable ) ... then swiy can just take the "marijuana bicycle" instead danm it! nothing wrong with that mind you... ... yeah.

[Woodman]

Blaming the drug war on conservatives is ridiculous.

Liberal Democrats had both houses of congress and the presidency wrapped up, and made no real headway in ANY of the projects that they were pushing for. Decriminalization of recreational drug use was NOT one of them.

They proved themselves to be administratively impotent to their political base.

Likewise, the Republicans, have since, gained control of both houses of congress and the presidency, but THEY TOO have failed to meet the expectations of their own constituents.

You really have to appreciate how much money is being generated by this ridiculous drug-war effort in order to understand that it is so huge that it transcends standard concepts of political partisanship.

This isn't a "Liberal vs. Conservative", nor a "Republican vs. Democrat" issue.

[Nagognog2]

Politically speaking, the War On Drugs is what you would call a "Third-Rail" issue. Implying that any politician who touches it to change it would get killed. Imagine how those drooling hyena's on Fox News would react to a politician who stood up and called for the re-legalization of marijuana. It would be a gin-soaked blood-bath!

The only politician likely to raise this as a serious issue would be a lame-duck. In other words, one whose carreer is already at an end. Such as a retiring president. But I don't think little King George would do that as his final glory. He'd be more likely to start executing 12 year olds for smoking pot while speaking in tongues at his news conference.

[korky8097]

They way they speak with the public about it is the part that angers me most (well high up there on what angers me), we show them all the logic, research, solutions, and raw information in the world and all they do is run away from it. We have done nearly all the work for you, what is left to ponder.

[Scape]

The government is pretty much set up in such a way that it retards progress now. It takes way to long to get anything done because all people do is just bitch about crap they dont even know anything about. Politicians trying to make drug laws who have never touched drugs in their life is about as logical as peewee herman running a childrens day care.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

don't remind me about how hypocritical neo cons are. Just listen to some good old fashioned rush limbaugh sean hannity bill o'rielly and see them preach from limited government free markets and all that but in the same sentance call for wiuretapping our own citizens and setting up a berlin wall down south, and most of all putting people in prison 25 to life for smoking weed. This is from a libertarian by the way.

[Woodman]

"Neo-Cons,"?
Are you fucking kidding me?

Before you go planting all of your hopes on the Left, let us just agree that in a "free" society, limited government is a good thing.

Many socialists would not agree; but of course, Hitler was a socialist, and so was Joseph Stalin. Their answer to democracy is clear for all to see.

Limited government is a GOOD thing.

I find it interesting that all of the leftist hype against wiretapping (which I happen to agree with) is juxtaposed against a cacophony of recent cries from Liberal Democrats to CANCEL an upcoming ABC mini-series about 9-11 because it paints the Clinton administration in a bad light (Clinton, being a sacred cow to all liberals). There has even been suggestion to use congressional powers to do it.

Video "book-burning" as far as I'm concerned.

So, while I do remember several major cinema outlets reluctant to feature "Fahrenheit 9/11" for reasons of commercial backlash, the only major issue that I recall right wing had with the film was that it was being depicted as a “documentary”, when several Michael Moor’e’s claims were clearly unverifiable.
Still, I don’t recall any calls for censorship, and if there were, then fuck them.

It is somewhat unsettling to see the endless supply of “useful idiots” -Lenin’s term, not mine- ( http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=135140 ) that perpetuate this ridiculous “war” on drugs; people who are determined to remain willfully ignorant of the circumstance that directly affects them by way of channeling their energy toward a minor enemy (a paper-tiger) that they have been brainwashed into hating, while deliberately ignoring a major contributor to the source of their own frustration even as it walks among them.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

are you talking to me dude?

[BUZZFACTOR]

Here's one for you statistic mongers: of all drug related deaths in the US 71% died from tobacco related illness, 26% died from alcohol related illness, and that leaves 3% for all other deaths due to o.d., drug related HIV AND AIDS deaths, drug related murders, etc. etc. Gov't makes tax $$$ on cigs and booze. FOLLOW THE DOLLARS---------