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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,538
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How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure?
#8579548 - 06/30/08 02:09 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? June 30, 2008 - AlterNet
The day we legalize drugs is the day we can begin to clean up the mess that the drug prohibition experiment has created.
How long does an experiment need to continue before it's declared a failure?
For alcohol prohibition, our US version, it was about 13 years. Between mafia crime, poisonings from adulterated beverages, and the dropping age at which people were becoming alcoholics, Americans decided that the "Noble Experiment" -- whether it should actually be regarded as noble or not -- was a bad idea. And they ended it. New York State did its part 75 years ago today, ratifying the 21st amendment to repeal the 18th amendment, bringing the Constitution one state closer to being restored. It took another half a year, until December 5th, to get the 36 states on the board that were needed at the time to get the job done. But Americans of the '30s recognized the failure of the prohibition experiment, and they took action by enacting legalization of alcohol.
Industrialist John D. Rockefeller described the evolution of his thinking that led to the recognition of prohibition's failure, in a famous 1932 letter:
"When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before."
In the context of today's leading prohibition -- the drug war -- it's important to realize that those other drugs were made illegal even before alcohol was. It was December 17th, 1914, when the Harrison Narcotics Act passed the US Congress -- ostensibly a regulatory law to synchronize America's system with a new one being adopted by countries around the world. But law enforcement interpreted it as prohibiting drugs -- coca and opium, and derivatives of them such as heroin and cocaine, were the ones in question then -- and law enforcement got its way.
Which means that drugs have been illegal for almost a century. And yet despite a century of prohibition -- a century of fighting opium -- the Taliban could somehow make a hundred million off of it last year, that's how much of it is still being used. Our addiction rate in the US is higher today than it is believed to have been at the turn of the 20th century, and while other things that have certainly changed that could affect drug use, if you're fighting a "drug war" to end drug use, if addiction goes in completely the opposite direction, then you have a problem. A recent example of things going in the completely opposite direction as intended is cocaine prices on the streets of our cities, which according to DEA data is about a fifth of what it was in 1980 when adjusting for inflation and purity. The goal of the eradication-interdiction-arrest-incarceration strategy is to raise prices, in order to discourage use. Oh, and the drugs have gotten worse too -- who had ever heard of crack cocaine before 1986 -- 72 years after passage of the Harrison Act?
Marijuana prohibition, enacted in 1937, is an even less successful experiment than opiate and cocaine prohibition. For the harder drugs one might say at least that some young people have trouble getting them, although that's really just the kids who aren't into drugs. But marijuana can be purchased by virtually any high school student in the country, at virtually any high school in the country, and generally from other students. When kids are dealing drugs to other kids, and that is happening everywhere, what is the result of the experiment? What is its conclusion? Is further research really necessary at that point?
No, it's not. The findings are on the drug prohibition experiment are conclusive -- it's a failure. And while many of the people waging the drug war believe it's noble, that belief is misguided -- with half a million people incarcerated in US jails and prisons for drug offenses, the prohibition experiment is anything but noble.
The day we legalize drugs is the day we can begin to clean up the mess that the drug prohibition experiment has created.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: veggie]
#8579631 - 06/30/08 03:42 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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> How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure?
Until the Government wins and the people bow to the will of the Government.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: veggie]
#8579797 - 06/30/08 06:48 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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As long as there's profit to be made from drugs, there will be a war on drugs.
It's a win win situation for the government. Either you buy the drugs they ship in and profit them that way, or you buy the drugs and get arrested and become slave labour.
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dill705
Amazed



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: Visionary Tools]
#8580561 - 06/30/08 02:55 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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I was hoping this would be on a major news outlet, but it s a pretty concise and well written article.
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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MHbound
Ballin Out At All Cost


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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: dill705]
#8580987 - 06/30/08 05:11 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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To everyone who says the government profits from the drug war you are so far from the truth. Housing ONE PRISONER costs tax payers oh lets see...Something like 30K a year to feed, and bathe and give television and telephone service. We need more police officers...We dedicate the DEA for drugs. They lose money, and they know it. But for them to say hey we were wrong again just like with alcohol would be committing suicide. I could continue, but I choose not to. Just read up its sick to think how much money we lose every year. Sure the government might make a few dollars here, and there raiding a few pounds of cocaine and then selling it back out into the community as an undercover, but that money goes right back into the drug world for some other helpless dealer.
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dill705
Amazed



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: MHbound]
#8580997 - 06/30/08 05:13 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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That dealer is me. Our gov fucks me in the ass all the time, and all I ever ask for is a reach around. Do you think I ever get it? 
No.
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus


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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: MHbound]
#8581359 - 06/30/08 06:43 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MHbound said: To everyone who says the government profits from the drug war you are so far from the truth. Housing ONE PRISONER costs tax payers oh lets see...Something like 30K a year to feed, and bathe and give television and telephone service. We need more police officers...We dedicate the DEA for drugs. They lose money, and they know it. But for them to say hey we were wrong again just like with alcohol would be committing suicide. I could continue, but I choose not to. Just read up its sick to think how much money we lose every year. Sure the government might make a few dollars here, and there raiding a few pounds of cocaine and then selling it back out into the community as an undercover, but that money goes right back into the drug world for some other helpless dealer.
Profit is sometimes a hard thing to envision in the context of the big picture.
Drug control - $12 billion/yr
Incarceration - $30 billion/yr
Police protection - $9.1 billion/yr
Legal adjudication - $4.5 billion/yr
Having a populous trained to recognize their own bodies as government regulated property, and to gorge exclusively on government approved brands of pharmaceuticals and fast food - PRICELESS
-------------------- Know your self. Know your substance. Know your source. The most distorted perspective possible is the perspective that yours is not distorted.
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dill705
Amazed



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#8581387 - 06/30/08 06:48 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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This may become my new sig... with your permission of course.
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus


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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: dill705]
#8581620 - 06/30/08 08:21 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Feel free
-------------------- Know your self. Know your substance. Know your source. The most distorted perspective possible is the perspective that yours is not distorted.
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dill705
Amazed



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#8582442 - 06/30/08 11:45 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Cool.
-------------------- My advice is to find those things that give pleasure and do them often without too much attachment and relax and wait for the show to end. -Icelander- I like free markets and all. Truly I do, at least in general, but there needs to be some kind of oversight in recognition of sustainability. Life works the same way, on a bunch of sustainable systems. Why not honor what made us what we are and take some lessons? Nature FTW! ~dill705~
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AuroricDistortions
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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: Seuss]
#8585874 - 07/01/08 09:48 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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> How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure?
The author must not have heard me; I declared it worse-than-a-failure many years ago...
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Visionary Tools



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: MHbound]
#8586868 - 07/02/08 06:37 AM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MHbound said: To everyone who says the government profits from the drug war you are so far from the truth. Housing ONE PRISONER costs tax payers oh lets see...Something like 30K a year to feed, and bathe and give television and telephone service. We need more police officers...We dedicate the DEA for drugs. They lose money, and they know it. But for them to say hey we were wrong again just like with alcohol would be committing suicide. I could continue, but I choose not to. Just read up its sick to think how much money we lose every year. Sure the government might make a few dollars here, and there raiding a few pounds of cocaine and then selling it back out into the community as an undercover, but that money goes right back into the drug world for some other helpless dealer.
Watch american drug war.
It may cost you the taxpayer to house criminals, but for those in the drug war and prison industry, it's seriously profitable.
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archetype
Stranger



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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: Visionary Tools]
#8587814 - 07/02/08 01:20 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Visionary Tools said:
Quote:
MHbound said: To everyone who says the government profits from the drug war you are so far from the truth. Housing ONE PRISONER costs tax payers oh lets see...Something like 30K a year to feed, and bathe and give television and telephone service. We need more police officers...We dedicate the DEA for drugs. They lose money, and they know it. But for them to say hey we were wrong again just like with alcohol would be committing suicide. I could continue, but I choose not to. Just read up its sick to think how much money we lose every year. Sure the government might make a few dollars here, and there raiding a few pounds of cocaine and then selling it back out into the community as an undercover, but that money goes right back into the drug world for some other helpless dealer.
Watch american drug war.
It may cost you the taxpayer to house criminals, but for those in the drug war and prison industry, it's seriously profitable.
Many people don't notice it, but the legal pharmaceutical companies make huge profits as an effect of the war on drugs. There's a bunch of crazy shit that goes on behind the scenes in the drug war that governments are involved and profit in and nobody notices it because it's hidden pretty well. There's also special interests within military wars that are tied to drug cartels and whatever else and our government profits from the people it promises to oppose while those people manufacture and distribute gargantuan amounts of the hardest drugs.
This was a really well-written article that gets straight to the point and has plenty of credible information. I like how they said that the hardest drugs are harder to get for the average young person, but that's just those not really involved in the drug scene. I find that to be really true and an often overlooked fact. I, too, just wish this was a larger news source.
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All keystrokes performed on this user's account are completely random and are not to be taken seriously.
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MHbound
Ballin Out At All Cost


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Re: How Long Does Drug Prohibition Need to Continue Before It's Declared a Failure? [Re: archetype]
#8587844 - 07/02/08 01:32 PM (15 years, 10 months ago) |
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While I agree with both of your statements...Can it really offset the billions spent each year??? I doubt it.
What I think is happening is that the greedy individuals in the government are profiting off of the drug war, and doing everything in their power to keep it going.
Sure the government may make some money off of the drug war, but do they take enough to offset the cost spent? No way. I think its now a fight to prove to the general public that they are right, and we are wrong about the war. I could be way off on both of these, but who knows what to think with those people running the country.
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