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MikeOLogical
Doctor ofShroomology
Registered: 01/30/04
Posts: 4,133
Loc: florida
Last seen: 4 years, 11 months
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Winning the War on Drugs
#2923736 - 07/24/04 02:07 PM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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Source: Daily News, The (Bogalusa, LA) Contact: pub@edailynews.info Copyright: 2004 The Daily News Website: http://www.edailynews.info/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1325 Author: Danny Hanemann Note: Danny Hanemann is the photographer and a regular columnist for The Daily News.
WINNING THE WAR ON DRUGS
Seems to me...
In case anybody hasn't noticed yet, we're losing the war on drugs. Despite every governmental effort, the problem is only getting worse. The policies of the last eight administrations have relied on three basic strategies to create a drug-free America: interdiction, education, and incarceration. All told, these efforts cost the U.S. taxpayer over $400 billion per year.
Consider interdiction. Drug production constitutes the primary source of exports for several South American countries. Arguably, the economies of both Colombia and Bolivia would collapse without the drug trade. No economic incentive the U.S. can offer is going to persuade these nations to abandon production. In the Middle East the Afghan people have already resumed the planting of poppies, even as American forces occupy the country.
According to U.S. government reports, the drug enforcement agencies have never been able to interdict more than one percent of the total worldwide crop. Our borders are so porous that we can't stop people from entering illegally; much less countermand the influx of drugs. After completing a major study, the U.S. General Accounting Office concluded that no amount of money would improve interdiction of drugs at our borders. Interdiction has proven to be a costly and dismal failure.
Regarding education, there is no substantive evidence that anti-drug education programs work on a permanent basis. Programs such as D.A.R.E. or Partnership for a Drug Free America offer limited but temporary diversion but, as youngsters grow older, peer pressure and the lure of quick money supplant the lessons they attempt to teach. Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' crusade had as much chance of success as programs advocating sexual abstinence. One only needs to look at the rising rate of drug use to dismiss the efficacy of these and like programs.
What about incarceration? According to a 2001 report by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services and the Department of Correctional Services, the United States leads the world in locking up its citizens.
U.S.A....2,078,570
China....1,549,000
Russia...846,967
India.....313,635
Violent crime accounts for 49% of inmates sentenced. Property crime accounts for 19%. Drugs account for 20 %. Public disorder accounts for 11 %. No doubt, many, if not most of the violence and property crimes may be also be attributed to the illegal drug trade. Watch the local news broadcasts out of New Orleans and that fact will quickly become apparent to even the casual observer.
Mandatory sentencing, longer sentences and the construction of new prisons have resulted in a slight drop in the crime rate but every time a dealer is removed from the street, another quickly replaces him.
A parallel can be drawn with the 'Noble Experiment' of the prohibition era. The outlawing of alcohol created an organized crime syndicate of national proportions and, overnight, made criminals of hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens.
How deadly is the substance abuse epidemic? Here are some interesting statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse regarding the death rate attributable to various drugs in an average year.
Tobacco kills about 390,000.
Alcohol kills about 80,000.
Second hand smoke kills about 50,000.
Cocaine kills about 2,200.
Heroin kills about 2,000.
Aspirin kills about 2,000.
Marijuana kills 0. There has never beer a recorded death due to marijuana at any time in U.S. history.
All illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 people per year, or about one percent of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco. Tobacco kills more people each year than all of the people killed by all of the illegal drugs in the last century.
So what's the solution? Legalization. By legalizing drugs the government can control the distribution and standardize dosages, thus preventing overdose deaths. The $400 billion now wasted on the war on drugs would easily fund clinics to distribute these drugs and to offer withdrawal programs for those who wish to break their habit.
Additionally, by eliminating the profit motive from the illegal sale of drugs, street crimes, including burglary, robbery and murder would plummet. Addicts would not have to steal to supply their habits and drug lord turf wars would end, just as they ended at the repeal of prohibition. Prison populations would also decline as non-violent offenders are released.
Currently, it is easier for a teenager to buy marijuana than to buy beer or tobacco. By selling marijuana through drug stores, teenagers would lose access to the drug and high taxes on the product would add to government coffers instead of draining them.
Finally, the Middle Eastern and South American nations, and the terrorist groups they fund would lose a vital source of income. Production of the attendant crops would shift to the American farmer and benefit that segment of the economy.
Unfortunately there's not a single politician on the 'Hill' with the guts to propose such legislation, so the war will go on and we will continue to lose.
'We have met the enemy and he is us.'
Pogo
-------------------- We got Nothing! we're no longer selling jars.
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Redo
CTA
Registered: 04/13/04
Posts: 1,296
Last seen: 18 years, 7 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: MikeOLogical]
#2924639 - 07/24/04 09:18 PM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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Nice article, all they need to do is legalize pot and all those other hard drug deaths would go down as well.
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MAGnum
veteran
Registered: 07/08/04
Posts: 2,421
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: Redo]
#2924760 - 07/24/04 10:21 PM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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Redo, this is the first time we've agreed on something.
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Le_Canard
The Duk Abides
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: MikeOLogical]
#2925000 - 07/25/04 12:21 AM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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Great article! Too bad it makes too much sense.
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Redo
CTA
Registered: 04/13/04
Posts: 1,296
Last seen: 18 years, 7 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: Le_Canard]
#2925065 - 07/25/04 12:57 AM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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itll be another 30 years before we get some solid foundation for legalization, then it may be longer until its widely accepted. By then well all be in jail for 50 years on > 1 gram charges for marijuana.
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ReeferRoller
Stranger
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 16
Last seen: 19 years, 5 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: Redo]
#2925076 - 07/25/04 01:01 AM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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I agree completely.
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Locus
Registered: 03/11/04
Posts: 6,112
Last seen: 3 years, 1 day
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: ReeferRoller]
#2927137 - 07/25/04 08:57 PM (19 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yepp, and I too agree.
-------------------- The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. ~ Albert Einstein "Fear is the great barrier to human growth." ~ Dr. Robert Monroe ~~~*Dosis sola facit venenum*~~~ *Check my profile to listen to my music*
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DoctorJ
Registered: 06/30/03
Posts: 8,846
Loc: space
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: MikeOLogical]
#2941132 - 07/29/04 03:13 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
All told, these efforts cost the U.S. taxpayer over $400 billion per year.
ummm... I'm pretty sure the real number is $40 billion
of course, a penny is too much, but just for the sake of accuracy...
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NNY
Z?
Registered: 07/17/04
Posts: 120
Loc: USA
Last seen: 18 years, 7 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: DoctorJ]
#2954349 - 08/01/04 11:32 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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i dunno according to the DEA website the war on drugs is a smashing success. in fact, according to the DEA only 5% of americans use drugs. and the DEA wouldnt put blatant lies on their own fact sheet, would they? right?
Quote:
Fact 1: We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts.
The Legalization Lobby claims that the fight against drugs cannot be won. However, overall drug use is down by more than a third in the last twenty years, while cocaine use has dropped by an astounding 70 percent. Ninety-five percent of Americans do not use drugs. This is success by any standards.
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/index.html
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MikeOLogical
Doctor ofShroomology
Registered: 01/30/04
Posts: 4,133
Loc: florida
Last seen: 4 years, 11 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: NNY]
#2954944 - 08/02/04 02:30 AM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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depends on what your definition of a drug is... according to my DARE officer, caffiene and nicotine are drugs... guess we better give him that fact sheet and set him straight...
-------------------- We got Nothing! we're no longer selling jars.
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NNY
Z?
Registered: 07/17/04
Posts: 120
Loc: USA
Last seen: 18 years, 7 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: MikeOLogical]
#2957789 - 08/02/04 07:34 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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i dont really think it depends on any definition of what a drug is, that number is completely impossible.
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Twirling
Barred Spiral
Registered: 02/03/03
Posts: 2,468
Last seen: 2 years, 1 month
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: NNY]
#2957872 - 08/02/04 08:01 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think the large drop in cocaine use has little to do with law enforcement and more to do with the fact that there was a huge boom in the coke use in the late 70's/early 80's followed by backlash once people learned what coke use could do.
95% of Americans not use drugs?...... That just doesn't seem possible.
-------------------- The very nature of experience is ineffable; it transcends cognitive thought and intellectualized analysis. To be without experience is to be without an emotional knowledge of what the experience translates into. The desire for the understanding of what life is made of is the motivation that drives us all. Without it, in fear of the experiences what life can hold is among the greatest contradictions; to live in fear of death while not being alive.
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: Twirling]
#2957960 - 08/02/04 08:34 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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"here were an estimated 2.6 million new marijuana users in 2001. This number is similar to the numbers of new users each year since 1995, but above the number in 1990 (1.6 million). In 2002, over 14 million Americans age 12 and older used marijuana at least once in the month prior to being surveyed, and 12.2 percent of past year marijuana users used marijuana on 300 or more days in the past 12 months. This translates into 3.1 million people using marijuana on a daily or almost daily basis over a 12-month period(1)." http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/marijuana.html 14 million people in 2002 used marijuana in the past month to being surveyed, and there are approximately 290 million people in the US (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html )
14/ 290 = 04.8% of Americans had used marijuana
So assuming then there are a bit more Americans who use other illegal drugs than marijuana, the DEA statistic isn't far off, if by drugs they only mean illicit drugs
Though who knows the accuracy of that statistic, millions of more Americans may smoke but not want to admit it because of its illegality
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
Registered: 07/18/03
Posts: 7,991
Loc: Cave of the Patriarchs
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: Ravus]
#2957966 - 08/02/04 08:37 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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Though my statistic may be slightly flawed, because it is assuming that no Americans 12 and under smoked marijuana, which is obviously false, but it is probably a small number in the scheme of the total population to marijuana smokers, as most regular smokers are above 12 years old to my knowledge
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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acoostick
Gonzo
Registered: 07/06/04
Posts: 300
Loc: Tennessee
Last seen: 10 years, 8 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: Ravus]
#2960232 - 08/03/04 01:12 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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also dude not everyone took the test... mainly the test relied on grades 6-12... probably some college surveys, probabl some job surveys.. just guestimating i would add another 4.8 percent just to marijuana smokers
-------------------- Shine On,
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acoostick
Gonzo
Registered: 07/06/04
Posts: 300
Loc: Tennessee
Last seen: 10 years, 8 months
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Re: Winning the War on Drugs [Re: acoostick]
#2960292 - 08/03/04 01:34 PM (19 years, 7 months ago) |
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also I am proud to say I belong to a METH STATE
"Meth production is soaring in Tennessee, and the DEA predicts that trend will continue.
Even today, Tennessee is leading the region in meth production. The Volunteer State accounts for 75% of all the meth seizures in the Southeast.
The labs that are discovered in Tennessee are characterized as small and unsophisticated, but, these labs can be deadly for police because the owners are often armed and determined to defend them with violence if necessary."
-taken from News Channel 5 inconjunction with the DEA
back in the day all the white-trash here drank moonshine, now a days they all make meth, haha there is always some place exploding because all of the white trash are stupid and dont know shit about chemicals....
also check this! in every "country" county in Tennessee the CO-OPs and garden-type stores keep all meth products in one section for convenience... BAHAHAHAHAha
-------------------- Shine On,
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