The war on the war on drugs

The Reporter ^ | feb 3, 2012 | jimshi

[jpsb]

Since President Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971 the United States has jailed tens of million of its' citizens. In 2008 alone 1.5 million American were arrested and 500,000 were imprisoned. At a cost of $45,000 per prisoner per year over 22 billion dollars were spent in prison costs alone for just those busted in 2008. I would imagine the costs to the courts, parole officers and police departments are equally large. And then there is the unmeasurable societal cost of a lost income to a community and the breakup of families effected should it be a mom or a dad imprisoned. These are grim figures and even grimmer when one realizes that well over half of all drug busts are marijuana related. That's right pot smokers and pot dealers. We are spending 40 billion plus a years to throw pot heads in jail.

While the direct costs to us are huge there is still the question of indirect costs. Most of the pot heads avoid arrest and most of the money they spend on pot goes to the Mexican Drug Cartels. One needs only look to Mexico to see what that money and the corruption it brings has done to Mexico. Legalizing marijuana would go a long ways towards denying the drug cartels their life blood of US dollars. I feel certain American farmers would be more then happy to meet domestic cannabis demand and do so within the law.

There is also an argument to be made that our federal drug laws are in fact unconstitutional. A the turn of the 19th century there were no federal drug laws. When Congress foolishly prohibited alcohol in 1913 it felt compelled to amend the Constitution to do so, believing correctly in my view, that the federal government lacked the authority to prohibit any American from consuming any substance. Similarly a Constitutional amendment should be necessary to enable the federal government to prohibit the use of recreational drugs. Since there is no such amendment federal drug laws are unconstitutional. Prohibition of drugs is a state issue, not a federal issue. If states like California wish to allow the use of marijuana the federal government is not authorize by our Constitution to prevent it. And should cities and towns in a marijuana friendly California wish to enact local laws prohibiting marijuana they a free to do so.

I can certainly understand the moral and health arguments against highly addictive hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. But I am unimpressed when those same arguments are used against marijuana legalization. While I do not smoke pot I know a great many people that do, regularly. They all go to work, pay their bills and raise their children just like everyone else. The only bad thing I have noticed is they tend to eat more junk food then the rest of us. They love potato chips and twinkles. Yuck.

All things considered I think it is time to declare a war on the war on drugs. The war costs us billions where we could be making billions instead. It is empowering a corrupt and violent anti American culture right on our border . The federal government has no authority to wage this war and the tools it uses property seizures, no knock raids and such endanger our individual liberty and property. Marijuana users are not drug crazed criminals looking to rob and mane. They just hungry munchkins out to get a bag of chips.

[aces]

Yep, and let’s be honest, the supplies of weed coming in from around the world are in the quantities of oil tankers, not what they want us to look at, the folks with 20 pounds on their back to a country that smokes tons a day...
The federal “G” is the cartel...

Really stupid, we need to take our country back and not have a bunch of pansy politicians deciding how we should live...Obamma, get off our backs..