Posted on 09/14/2010 2:26:24 PM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
The growing tendency here to question U.S. drug policy has nothing whatsoever to do with ideology or an affinity for drugs. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that while the "war on drugs" has done nothing to curb the U.S. appetite for mind-altering substances, its unintended consequence has been to empower organized crime networks. These gangs, which aggressively target children as customers and low-level employees on both sides of the border, are undermining the economy and the quality of life in the binational El Paso-Juárez metropolitan region.
Right. Just like Prohibition did nothing to curb the people's desire to take a drink, but it sure did provide lots of money for Capone and his pals to run around shooting up Chicago and other cities with Tommy Guns.
In point of fact "The War on (certain) Drugs" was never about drugs at all.
There's plenty of evidence that Harry Anslinger, widely-credited as the "father" of drug prohibition in America, was effectively bribed by Dupont, the Hearsts and various pharmaceutical companies. DuPoint (chemicals to, among other things, make paper) and the Hearsts were very interested in suppressing Hemp, which happens to produce a better-quality paper than trees, and is both cheaper and faster to grow. The Hearsts had a very nice vertical monopoly not only in newspaper publishing but also in forests - the source of their paper, and which would have been severely damaged in value had hemp-based paper come to the fore. "Coincidentally" Harry's interest in this substance coincided almost to the day with the granting of a patent on a "decorticating" machine, which allowed the stalk to be mechanically separated from the pulp - necessary to make the aforementioned paper. Gee, such a coincidence.
Then there was racism. The original stated reason for marijuana prohibition was that "those evil mexicans" liked it. (Ever seen the original Reefer Madness? Watch it some time and note who's doing the smoking!) We were a bit more blatant in those days with our racism - now we try to hide it.
Then, not so much.
The real issue however, especially today, is money. The DEA is a monstrous federal machine, as are the federal and state prison systems. A huge percentage of the people incarcerated are there for non-violent drug offenses. Repeal the laws and you have fewer prisoners, less money, and no DEA. Pretty simple to figure that one out.
The simple fact of the mater is that the "War on Drugs" cannot be won. People will not stop wanting to get high. Alcohol sales do quite well, even in Depressions. Gee, that's hard to figure out too, right? NOT!
All of this would be academic except that the gang-bangers we enable with this war shoot people. In Mexico's border towns, they shoot a lot of people. 2,200 in Juarez alone this year so far. On a per-capita basis this would be over 22,000 murders in New York City. What would be our reaction to that sort of murder rate on this side of the border?
Then there's the fact that Mexico's government has effectively failed. There's simply too much money in the drug trade; the police are corrupted and so is the military. Drug traffickers roam the nation with impunity, cutting off the heads of rivals or those who they think might "out" them and engaging in brutal ambushes through the northern part of the nation. In some border towns bullets have struck buildings on our side of the border from "spray and pray" episodes inside Mexico a couple of miles away!
Incidentally, those guns aren't coming from the US, as is often claimed. Oh sure, those that can be traced are to a material degree. We don't bother sealing our border, so why would you think we would stop someone carrying a pistol over it - even though it's illegal for someone who is not a citizen or legal resident to buy a gun in America. But most of the guns can't be traced. Specifically, it has been illegal to possess or manufacture a machine gun (any weapon which fires more than one round for a press of the trigger) for civilian sale or use since 1986. Pre-86 weapons can be (and are) owned privately and legally in most states in the US (with a very-complete background check and fingerprinting, plus a $200 tax stamp from the BATFE), but with a tiny supply prices are outrageous ($10k and up) and as a result those who do legally own them take very good care of them and their security. Nearly all of the automatic weapons used in Mexico are coming from places like Venezuela, Afghanistan and China - where they are both cheap AND there are no serial number requirements - thus they're untraceable. We can enforce all the laws we want over here, but it won't stop anyone in Mexico from getting a gun made in China or Afghanistan!
It doesn't end there of course. When you have lots of money and you buy guns and ammunition with that money you then find other "good" things to do with your new-found "power".
Things like kidnapping, extortion and similar gangland criminal activity. This of course makes genuine entrepreneurship too dangerous to bother with, as anyone who "makes it" becomes an instant target for the gangs to seize and hold for ransom (or worse.)
All of the above has been empowered and in fact caused by our drug laws.
Repeal the laws and legalize the drugs, let the people do what the hell they want with their own bodies, and the money flow into the criminal gangs disappears.
So do the gangs, the guns, the kidnappings, and the murders.
But so do the prisons, the DEA agents, the cops, the judges, and the courtrooms here in the US, and that makes people sad. After all, if they weren't arresting all these people for consensual adult activity and locking them up (thereby destroying their economic futures!) they'd have to go get real jobs and actually produce something of value in the economy instead of destroying productive labor!
We've made murder a business, and there are over a million Americans who directly profit from this insane "war."
If there was any evidence that we could "win" that war and eradicate drug abuse, all of this might be worth it.
But we've blown more than seventy years on the attempt, and more than 40 in our current "push" that started with Nixon. We've won nothing, we've empowered criminal gangs all around the world, we've been directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people over that time, and all the money we've spent on this has been utterly wasted, when we could instead be selling the drugs at pharmacies to anyone who can present ID, collecting a tax stream from the desire of the people to "sin" (as we do with booze and tobacco.) With that tax stream we could fund treatment for those who become addicted and have money left over, while the gangland shootings - both in the US and Mexico - would immediately cease.
El Paso tried to pass a resolution on this matter and was threatened by Congressman Sylvester Reyes with loss of Federal Funds. That's right - for expressing an official opinion a city was threatened by our federal government.
Do we still live in a nation where we have a Constitution setting forth a limited Federal Government, or do we live in a nation where a city's right to speak officially on a matter it deems important is intentionally suppressed with threats?
How much more will you tolerate America, and how much of this violence has to come here, across our borders and into our nation, before you put your foot down and recognize this for what it is - a huge scam and revenue game, not a matter of public health and welfare?
You lie!
It was an absolutely intended consequence, if you rightly consider entities like the DEA to be organized criminal organizations.
Indeed, all the war on drugs has done, like the war on poverty, was to subsidize drug users with prison time, saving their necks and getting them free whores as drug counselors instead of using the money for, say, the orphaned kids and abused.
Do it like in China: plug the guy, make the community pay for the bullet.
How about just the decriminalization of pot? At least that would get the Cartels out of our parks.
California alone has a $40+ billion a year pot revenue.
The unintended result of “the U.S. appetite for mind-altering substances”, combined with the dumbing down of the public school system, the MSM obseession with T&A (not that there’s anything so wrong with T&A) has taken us to the brink of Obamacide: societal breakdown and/or coming civil unrest.
Mass “mind-altering” has got have an efect on social altering. Most of the zombies are Democrats who are living their utopian dream for kumbaya.
Does this need a sarc tag?
It would be nice to not be *paranoid* about anything. Fat chance of that happening in our lifetimes.
I think that’s just for personal consumption, not wholesale trade.
Mexico's drug problems have been around long before they decriminalized them.
And that makes such a difference.
Learn from history, or you will be dammed to repeat it.
We are reliving the 1920s all over again, only worse. Prohibition simply DOESN’T work.
Anyone that believes otherwise, has their heads in the sand.
And they gotten so much better.............
“(Ever seen the original Reefer Madness?)”
Play Faster! *puff puff* FASTER! *puff puff* FASTER!!!
That movie is truly the most unintentionally hilarious flick I’ve ever seen (next to An Inconvenient Truth, of course ;)
Yep, in 1936 Hemp was predicted to overtake the then more profitable cotton and opium industries with the introduction of what is essentially a “hemp gin”.
In 1936, drug makers such as Merck and Bristol were patenting dozens of hemp-based drugs. They were believed to be more effective and safer than the more expensive opium based drugs.
Then in 1937, a senate hearing was held based on testimony of a few “experts”. Their testimony was full of blatant lies. Many hemp industry people testified about the benefits of hemp so a tax was agreed upon instead of a ban.
The stamps stopped being issued because the government simply stopped printing them and the hemp industry died against the will of the people and without a vote.
That was 1937. Just imagine how the pay-for-play industry lobbyists are robbing us today...
My wife still laughs remembering when she was shown the movie in health class in the mid 60's. No one who saw it could take pot prohibition seriously afterward.
The drug legalization crowd doesn’t ever seem to really think through all the consequences, especially the unintended ones, of their policy. Just who do they think is going to produce and market legalized drugs? Do you think the criminal element will just fade away and say “gosh darn, we can’t compete?” Will marijuana farmers be able to get subsidies like other farmers? Just why will “children” no longer be targeted? (”Legitimate” tobacco and alcohol producers have used ad campaigns which appeal to the young.) The drug which probably produces the most violent crime and accidental death in this country is alcohol, which is perfectly legal. Booze can never be eliminated, because it is entrenched in our culture and yields billions in tax revenue to the govt. Legalize marijuana and you will see the same problem with it also. The idea that laws, and the limitations on supply they entail, do not minimize consumption is simply false. Many people will not do drugs precisely because they are illegal and costly. Certainly no one on FR should be ignorant of the fact that legalizing MJ or any other controlled substance will cause a drop in price and therefore an increase in consumption. After all, that’s the logic behind the “take the profits away from the gangs” argument. What will be the effect of all those new stoners on society? Don’t we have enough people who goof off, can’t work productively, and drive impaired already?
We hear..... agenda21, codex alimentarius, population control, healthcare death panels, planned parenthood, subsidized abortions, war, pandemic hopefuls pushing tainted vacinations made in europe, does anyone out their think for a second that these cretans are not involved with the drug trade?
Tp bolst its “collars”, the DEA has taken their war on drugs into doctors’ offices. The losers in this, besides the doctors, many of whom are tried on trumped up charges, are the chronic pain patients. I know, because I’m one. Never had a drug or alcohol problem in my life, yet I’m under-treated with insane spinal pain. It destroys lives, ruins careers, relationships, everything. A parent loses a child to drug abuse and testifies to Congress that Oxycontin must be taken off the market. Many lose sight that Oxycontin was made and is a Godsend for those who suffer with chronic pain.
Doctors are afraid to prescribe enough. We have to sign pain contracts, see our doctors every 28 days, take drug tests to prove we’re taking the drugs and not selling them. Fine, I’ve got nothing to hide, but this pain is unrelenting and never takes a day off. It’s estimated that there are 70,000 chronic pain patients in the U.S. with 20 grand of them being in near suicidal pain. The only thing that helps are opitates. This issue is well documented. A quick google search on the DEA’s war on pain will have a person reading for a long time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.