Posted on 07/06/2012 4:52:57 PM PDT by BfloGuy
From the New York Times article, "Numbers Tell of Failure in Drug War the War on Peaceful Americans Who Voluntary Choose to Use Intoxicants Not Currently Approved of By U.S. Politicians and Government Officials":
"When policy makers in Washington worry about Mexico these days, they think in terms of a handful of numbers: Mexico’s 19,500 hectares devoted to poppy cultivation for heroin; its 17,500 hectares growing cannabis; the 95 percent of American cocaine imports brought by Mexican cartels through Mexico and Central America.
They are thinking about the wrong numbers. If there is one number that embodies the seemingly intractable challenge imposed by the illegal drug trade on the relationship between the United States and Mexico, it is $177.26. That is the retail price, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data, of one gram of pure cocaine from your typical local pusher. That is 74 percent cheaper than it was 30 years ago.
Prices match supply with demand. If the supply of an illicit drug were to fall, say because the Drug Enforcement Administration stopped it from reaching the nation’s shores, we should expect its price to go up.
That is not what happened with cocaine. Despite billions spent on measures from spraying coca fields high in the Andes to jailing local dealers in Miami or Washington, a gram of cocaine cost about 16 percent less last year than it did in 2001. The drop is similar for heroin and methamphetamine.
These numbers contain pretty much all you need to evaluate the Mexican and American governments’ “war” to eradicate illegal drugs from the streets of the United States. They would do well to heed its message. What it says is that the struggle on which they have spent billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of lives over the last four decades has failed.
Most important, conceived to eradicate the illegal drug market, the war on drugs cannot be won. Once they understand this, the Mexican and American governments may consider refocusing their strategies to take aim at what really matters: the health and security of their citizens, communities and nations."
I'm still horrified that your private property can be seized, not on conviction, but simply on being charged with a crime. But everyone assumes they're bad guys and it'll never happen to me.
Precisely. Though they always insist that this is "different." There's no winning. How long do you suppose before bath salts become an illegal substance.
Nope. You don't get to end the debate here. The War on Drugs has also turned our country into a police state with no-knock drug raids, the seizure of private property just on the suspicion of dealing drugs, and an explosion in property crimes and murders.
You are right that illegal drugs can't be bought in stores or baseball games (?), but they're only a phone call away. You're the one, sadly, who's very, very wrong.
Now, we can end the debate.
And that's a belief I can understand. I'm not sure it's true, but it might be. Though, from anecdotes told me by older relatives over the years, it doesn't sound like drinking really declined during Prohibition. It just went underground.
Good for her! My nephew didn't fare so well. Heroin killed him at the age of 26. New York's drug laws are the toughest in the nation, but he had no trouble getting it.
Of course it won't. I never even hinted such a thing.
The only solution is to raise children to neither need nor want drugs. We cannot, however, prevent drugs from getting here. And turning the United States into a police state in an attempt to control drug-use causes more problems than it appears to have solved.
No. Drugs would remain a serious, serious problem. I don't deny that. My concern is that life for the rest of us is becoming harder and more dangerous with the stupefying increase in governmental powers allowed by the attempt to control drugs.
The price of illegal drugs will go back up once a new large group of addicts are added into the mix.
I know one person who has been kept off drugs because they are illegal....... me. Legalizing drugs would be absolutely idiotic.
A death sentence for trafficking drugs would be a good start if winning the drug war is important enough.
A fatal assumption. Always. but always, ask yourself "how can this be used against me?" when dealing [esp proposing] with laws.
That idea terrifies me. Consider no-knock raids, with drop-bags, consider the ludicrous mindreading of "intent to sell", consider that even recently SWAT raids have been executed due to someone's political stance and then, by golly, you've just given the government carte blanche to kill anyone who opposes them.
Who knew anyone concerned with personal liberty was trafficking drugs? I'm shocked!
I don't run into many that can shovel high density perjoratives at that rate.
“Not only with straw but also weed, seeds, leaves, hemp, coca, and poppies.”
In the past, my opinions have aligned somewhat with yours, though I do have some libertarian reflexes - as long as ability to test for drugs goes along with their legalization - and to deny jobs, benefits, etc.
Here’s where I’m worried: Governments have tended to raise taxes on cigarettes and alcohol so high - and drinking ages have been legislated upwards that at this point in time, it’s EASIER for an underage kid to get weed or stronger stuff than it is for them to get alcohol or cigarettes.
So often that’s what young kids do...and that concerns me.
I’m more worried about the cost of “legal” alternatives to sobriety vs. the not legal kind - lowering the taxes on legal things would do more (in my posited opinion here) in the long run to prevent drug abuse than a policeman on every corner because it would be far cheaper to drink and smoke cigarettes than it is to use illegal alternatives.
That is decidedly not the case now with “sin” taxes on “legal” things and no tax at all on illegal stuff.
I don’t think the solution is to legalize and tax everything - unless there is a big stick of personal accountability attached to drug abuse.
I don’t like any of our choices when it comes to illegal drugs, particularly when kids are involved.
I think employment-based drug testing has lowered recreational drug use far more effectively than the law ever has. Even if drugs were legalized, I doubt many companies would alter their drug testing policies. Heck, more and more companies are testing for nicotine and tobacco is perfectly legal.
And medical marijuana? Good luck with that. Some California defense contractors learned this lesson the hard way when they bypassed their corporate health care providers to get medical marijuana prescriptions from a private physician. They were fired when they popped on a drug test.
The states should be setting those policies within their borders instead of the federal government, agreed?
You are right. Company drug policies will screen out users. Transportation workers (drivers, etc.) are under federal drug testing requirements.
Good points. Even legalization has problems. In the oh-so tolerant Netherlands, the government website has announced a ban on the drug “khat” because it causes health and social problems. But wan’t that why we banned drugs in the first place?
The libertarians say that marijuana doesn’t hurt anybody. But the oh-so-tolerant Dutch government now proposes banning marijuana with at least 15 percent THC content. Hey, what a dictatorship! Why not let the people decide?
There will ALWAYS will be boundaries that most people won’t cross. A libertarian can say cheerfully, hey, let’s legalize prostitution, who gets hurt? But then organized crime comes in with sex slaves. Back come the police again.
Again, thank you. (I think) :-)
Phone call away? Where is that number listed?
Seven-Eleven is listed quite prominently, with Map Quest directions and everything. Fortunately your CS’s are not advertised on the Seven-Eleven website, yet.
OK, OK. I get your point.
But don't you have anything to say about the drastic expansion of police powers over the last few decades? I mean, you must read about the innocent people invaded by SWAT teams, their pets shot and their children terrified.
And how about people whose cars, boats, and houses are impounded simply on the suspicion of drug activity.
How about the outlawing of asthma inhalers putting millions of asthmatics in danger so, supposedly, they can't be used to make drugs? Is that sensible in your mind.
Those are the parts of the War on Drugs that have gone wrong, in my opinion. And trust me, that number may not be in the phone book, but it's damned easy to get.
Also, one more thing, they aren't "my" drugs. I don't use the things.
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