Replies

There’s another thread today, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3186061/posts, by a Town Hall GOPe type.

If one follows his links we find his entry in the “foolish war on drugs” that uses a propaganda video froM something called the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3186061/posts

I think International Centre is all we need to know, but this is the type of tripe that so-called conservatives and libertarians are falling for when it’s filled with lies and obfuscations.

For example. Portugal Is presented as a great example of the benefit of legalizing drugs.

But their stats are all BS stats that mean nothing. Eg Portugal now has one of the lowest rates of dope smoking in Europe.

But they don’t say if it went up or down after egaliAtion, which is the question.

It’s full of BS lying like that. It pretends to be the scientific answer.

It’s like Global Warming — it’s Science. Can’t argue with Science.

“We fought it like we have every war since WW2 so we were bound to lose.”

What are your ideas for successfully fighting this war? IMO, the only way to have any impact on the drug market by force is to have a militarized 24/7 surveillance police state and I consider that to be losing. Look at the battle on every front:

Dealers/Users- There are nations where drug dealing is punishable by public death penalty and possession is punished by years in prison. Yet people continue to use and deal. There will never be a shortage of poor people willing to risk their life to get rich. There will never be a shortage of mentally ill people willing to do anything to escape. Someone caught in addiction takes no account of laws.There is also no witness or victim in most drug deals so very few are caught.

Smuggling and Border Control- Drugs are so small and powerful that you will never stop smuggling without stopping all legal border traffic. A package that fits in your palm is worth more than most yearly salaries. You can buy any drugs you want in prison, where everyone is searched and under surveillance. A drug mule can transport $100k worth of drugs in their stomach, then it gets cut and sold for $500k on the street. The more you fight it, the more advanced methods of smuggling become profitable. Through chemistry, drugs can be concealed as nearly anything.

Manufacturers and growers- As long as privacy and freedom exist, you will NEVER stop drugs that can be grown in anyone’s closet or cooked in a backyard lab. You might be able to eradicate drugs that require vast farm fields in unique climates by physically controlling the fields. However, it would require many simultaneous shooting wars, occupation of vast amounts of land and overthrow of various governments all across the world. If you go after one country at a time, the others simply get more business.

Politics and Corruption- The biggest problem is the incredible amount of easy profit to be made and the corruption that stems from it. Look at how much money and power bootleggers gained during alcohol prohibition. The office of POTUS was even occupied by a big bootlegger's son. Before that, most of them were poor immigrants. More than 70 years later, prohibition money still maintains influence in our government.

The situation today is far worse than in the 1930s:
-Drugs are hundreds of times more profitable, smaller, lighter and easier to smuggle than booze.
-Modern communications, machinery and finance allow exponentially more smuggling than in the 1930s. The cartels are running subs and planes constantly now.
-Drug prohibition has gone on for 40+ years while alcohol prohibition was only 13.

After 40+ years, entire nations are owned by warring cartels and certain parts of our government have obviously been bought by drug money.

IMO, the resources spent on simply maintaining the scope of the WOD far exceeds the cost of damage caused by legalizing all drugs. Not to mention the incalculable costs of living in an increasingly corrupt militarized police state.