Is it time to abandon the drug war?

Is it time we stopped the drug war and try something else? It seems that no matter how much money and or resources are committed to ending illegal drug use it just seems to keep getting worse. Look how many more people are in prison starting during the 80,s since the so-called drug war started. A good majority of the violent crimes committed are due to drugs and the big profits to be made from illegal drugs. Could the money that the US spends on enforcement and incarceration of drug offenders be better spent on treatment and education? Would our society be better off if we were to legalize drugs and treat them much like we do alcohol?

I'm not sure if this is very sound reasoning. While I agree that drugs should be legalized, I am not so sure the government's spending towards the 'drug war' will suddenly be put to better use. That is, while jail time may go down, money spent on incidents relating to legal drug use may increase. We simply don't know.

I often wonder to myself how much of the government soaks up in terms of all the problems alcohol and cigarettes may cause. (Police hours, publically funded research, etc.)

Here is a chart showing some differences between the US and the Netherlands. The Netherlands have a more tolerant stance on drugs and seem to have less drug use and money spent on drug enforcement.

There is a ton on money spent on alcohol related problems but I bet it is not nearly as much as if alcohol were illegal. I bet if you asked a teenager if it was easier to get beer or weed I bet they would say it was easier to get weed. If we can get the huge illegal profits out of illegal drugs we could get a better handle on the problem. People are going to use drugs no matter what. Watch TV for an hour and count how many commercials tell you to take a pill for wheight loss or hair loss, have a headache take this pill etc.... People are encouraged to take drugs everyday. We need to start trying other alternatives. The Netherlands model is not perfect but there society seems to be better off due to their drug policies.

I think "people are going to do it anyway" is a bad argument.

People are probably going to murder anyway, too. I don't think we want murder legalized, though.

Taking drugs and murdering others are 2 different things entirely. Taking drugs is something that you do to yourself and murder is something that you do to others.

It is clear that prohibition does not work. Why keep banging our heads against the wall doing the same thing over and over when it does not work is ludicrous.

The only way you can stop people from getting high is to stop pain and bordem.

They could get rid of all drugs today and people will find something else to get high on. Man some people inhale gas and whipcream cans, to get high.


Its a huge waste of money and time. You should look on who wants to keep them illegal. Bush and Miller Beer, Phillip&Morris are big contrbuters to the war on drugs.

[edit on 14-3-2005 by Snowman9]

Could you imagine the sheer amount of lobbyist that would flood DC from the alcohol and tobacco folks if we tried to legalize all drugs...if we tried to even legalize pot? It would never happen without some type of unbelievable event such as "Marijuana has more anti-carcinogens and cures AIDS".


Majic's Political Easter Egg: Be the first to post the year in which the movie Reefer Madness was produced in this thread and send Majic a U2U with a link to your post, and you will be awarded 500 PTS points.

[edit on 7/15/2006 by Majic]

Its a myth that the majority of violent crime is connected to drugs. The majority of folk doing time for drugs in this country are non-violent offenders serving mandatory federal sentences for simple possession (if they throw in an intent to sell you could do 5 years straight time for less than four oz of crack). There isn't a war on drugs. That's also a myth. There is what we call revenue transfer. When a small community builds a prison in their area they get jobs and an instant population boost which takes social program monies out of the hood and transfers them into rural communities. The bodies they fill those prisons with are young black men from larger cities forced to do mandatory fed time for simple possession. What we have is privately owned prisons with federal budgets taking money out of the tax payer pockets to house non-violent so called "criminals" because of a lie that was told over and over again by politicians in 1988. "Crack is more addictive than powder."

Of those in prison on federal mandated crack crimes black Americans make up 84.7%, and although its estimated that more whites are crack users than blacks, whites make up only 5.4% of those serving time for crack under federally mandated minimum sentences. Due to the stiffer penalties for crack 2/3's of the over all prison population is this country is of color. There is no doubt the prison population boom is directly connected to the immoral, racist drug laws in this country.

As its been said there is no war on drugs. It's a war on black and poor communities. Imprisoning our citizens is big business --it's no wonder the US is the leading jailer the world over. Add the prison lobbies to the alcohol and tobacco lobbies.


Families Against Mandatory Minimum Sentences



[edit on 15-3-2005 by Saphronia]

Majic's Political Easter Egg: Be the first to post the year in which the movie Reefer Madness was produced in this thread and send Majic a U2U with a link to your post, and you will be awarded 500 PTS points.

[edit on 7/15/2006 by Majic]

the movie Reefer Madness was produced in 1936

Majic's Political Easter Egg: Be the first to post the year in which the movie Reefer Madness was produced in this thread and send Majic a U2U with a link to your post, and you will be awarded 500 PTS points.

[edit on 7/15/2006 by Majic]

the movie was produced in 2005

The end of the failed "war on drugs" is long past over due.
Some of the problems are:
A) People are exceptionable ignorant about drug facts
B) Government Agencies are incredibley addicted to drug war funding
C) Corporate greed feeds the legislation, as it always has

Legalisation will take huge funding away from the drug cartels, the terrorists,
and the government black ops agencies which instigate the destabilization of
governments around the world to be used like pawns.

Legalisation will take huge funding out of the hands of privately own and corporate run prisons

Legalisation will require the government to admit to lying to the public for over seventy years while at the same time knowlingly poisoning their water, air and food.


Say no to drugs, say yes to DU, Prozac, viagra, aspartme, alcohol, lead, mercury, etc, etc, etc?

Its time for the lies and the government sponsored terrorism to end.

Majic's Political Easter Eggs

Originally posted by JohnDoe43
the movie Reefer Madness was produced in 1936

Correct! It was originally titled Tell Your Children and got its new title from Dwain Esper before it was released.

Source: Wikipedia

500 PTS Points!

America will never give up on the war on drugs. They make way more $ "fighting" drugs than they will by legalizing them and raking in profits on sales tax. hmm,drugs are bad??? the pineal gland anyone?

en.wikipedia.org...

Several speculative and as yet untested hypotheses suggest that endogenous '___', produced in the human brain, is involved in certain psychological and neurological states. As '___' is naturally produced in small amounts in the brains and other tissues of humans, and other mammals[1], some believe it plays a role in promoting the visual effects of natural dreaming, near-death experiences and other mystical states. A biochemical mechanism for this was proposed by the medical researcher JC Callaway, who suggested in 1988 that '___' might be connected with visual dream phenomena, where brain '___' levels are periodically elevated to induce visual dreaming and possibly other natural states of mind.[2]

Thread Resurrection GO!

Aright, instead of creating redundant thread and disregarding good information that already exists on the internet, I want to bring back a classic discussion that didn't get far enough.

The United States of America (individual states really) has come a long way in working to fight the War on Drugs. Actually to fight back against the Federal government's staunch opposition to states rights when it comes to going against the federal drug laws.

With a majority of Americans supporting legalization and reulation of marijuana, who do the anti-marijuana politicians think the public is they are serving? Four states are moving steadily towards full legalization and regulation with or without federal agreement.

First and foremost, I want to speak out publicly against the federal government for fighting Industrial Hemp farming. It makes no rational sense to keep laws on the books that ban growing a plant that has uses for everything under the sun. It can be used for carbon sequestration, building materials, a weed killer (ironically), foodstuffs, biofuels, clothing, biodegradable plastics, and a plethora of other things. Here's a great link if you're wondering if my claims are well founded: 10 reasons to kill absurd ban on growing hemp. Why can I buy hemp at Wal-Mart or craft store that comes from Canada or China, but never from a hard working American farmer?

According to Wikipedia 24 of the states in the US have decriminalized even non-medical cannabis, with New York, Chicago and Rhode Island working on doing so themselves.

And now, for the medical argument.

There are currently 17(!) states (and Washington DC) with medical marijuana laws on the books, the most recent addition being Connecticut, and for some reason the Federal government only feels the need to go after dispenseries in Colorado and California.

Oddly enough, the drug scheduling system lists Marijuana as a Schedule I Narcotic, having NO medicinal benefit. Not only do the Mayo Clinic and almost every university clinic disagree, even the US Federal Government issues medical marijuana (Compassionate Investigational New Drug program begun in the 1980s), grown at the University of Mississippi and pre-rolled into cigarettes, to patients around the country. Only 4 are alive today.

How's that for a hypocritical argument? No medical value, and still giving out medical cannabis.

Anyhow, I'm simply trying to argue that the US rethink the way it prosecutes drug crimes and rethink it's classification system. I'll take comments off-air.