California Prison Overcrowding: How’s That ‘War on Drugs’ Working Out?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California prisons violated the US constitution – their cramping of prisoners in overcrowded conditions constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. California’s public finances are also in terrible shape, which means two things.

One, they’re in no position to build more prisons. Two, having so many prisoners is a key reason for their bloated budget in the first place.

California spends over $10 billion a year jailing and taking care of prisoners. Furthermore, for every prisoner incarcerated, they had to be pursued and arrested by police officers and tried in courts. All these things cost money.

Source: www.ibtimes.com...

Legalizing drugs is the most logical situation to ending the failed 'War on Drugs'; keeping the failed 'War on Drugs' will fuel the black market for drugs and lead to the unnecessary suffering of more minor drug users and bankruptcy of society in general.

reply to post by ironfalcon


The solution will be to put them in hotels and to work. Watch for the solution and it tells you what they want.

reply to post by ironfalcon


I feel a 404 coming on.

But to answer the question, "how is that 'War on Drugs' working out", I would say it depends on who you ask. I'm sure there are plenty of legislative and government officials that would think the amount of revenue generated by this farce is working out just fine.

Prohibition never works, as proved by the US banning of alcohol, all that arose from that was to give criminals easy access to cash and power, which of course results in violence as individuals and groups try to solidify their power base.

The story of drugs is a quite an interesting one if you if you care to do the research, for example hemp was made illegal, not because of the effects of it as a narcotic, but because of money. The Du Pont family, one of the reported PTB families had acquired the patent for nylon, but knew that for it to be successful he needed to get rid of hemp because it was used in all the processes he wanted to sell nylon to, Hearst who ran the media campaign against hemp also needed it to be banned, he had the largest timber holdings in the US and someone had managed to find a way to make paper pulp from hemp using a machine called the decorticator and Hearst stood to lose a lot of money.

There is the moral issue also, at what point does the state have the right to tell a person what they can or cant do in their private life? Just exactly who does your body belong to, you or the state?

Drugs do have a negative impact on society, but banning them compounds the issue, it drives those that use drugs underground, makes criminals of normal people, and allows the true criminals to amass huge wealth and power and of course the ensuing violence, not to mention the drain on the national cash reserves, just think of how many billions (trillions over the decades since the bans began) that have gone into the hands on the criminal gangs, and continue to go each year, more bans and more prohibitions just make it worse for the people and better for the dealers

About time the issue was looked at with a clear rational head rather than knee jerk reactionary attitudes