Posted on 07/01/2020 3:46:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
Protesters say America’s criminal justice system is unfair.
It is.
Courts are so jammed that innocent people plead guilty to avoid waiting years for a trial. Lawyers help rich people get special treatment. A jail stay is just as likely to teach you crime as it is to help you get a new start. Overcrowded prisons cost a fortune and increase suffering for both prisoners and guards.
There’s one simple solution to most of these problems: End the war on drugs.
Our government has spent trillions of dollars trying to stop drug use.
It hasn’t worked. More people now use more drugs than before the “war” began.
What drug prohibition did do is exactly what alcohol prohibition did a hundred years ago: increase conflict between police and citizens.
“It pitted police against the communities that they serve,” says neuroscientist Dr. Carl Hart in my new video. Hart, former chair of Columbia University’s Psychology department, grew up in a tough Miami neighborhood where he watched crack cocaine wreck lives. When he started researching drugs, he assumed that research would confirm the damage drugs did.
But “one problem kept cropping up,” he says in his soon-to-be-released book, “Drug Use For Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear,” “the evidence did not support the hypothesis. No one else’s evidence did either.”
After 20 years of research, he concluded, “I was wrong.” Now, he says, our drug laws do more harm than drugs.
Because drug sales are illegal, profits from selling drugs are huge. Since sellers can’t rely on law enforcement to protect their property, they buy guns and form gangs.
Cigarettes harm people, too, but there are no violent cigarette gangs -- no cigarette shootings -- even though nicotine is more addictive than heroin, says our government. That’s because tobacco is legal. Likewise, there are no longer violent liquor gangs. They vanished when prohibition ended.
But what about the opioid epidemic? Lots of Americans die from overdoses!
Hart blames the drug war for that, too. Yes, opioids are legal, but their sale is tightly restricted.
“If drugs were over the counter, there would be fewer deaths?” I asked.
“Of course,” he responds. “People die from opioids because they get tainted opioids. … That would go away if we didn't have this war on drugs. Imagine if the only subject of any conversation about driving automobiles was fatal car crashes. … So it is with the opioid epidemic.”
Drugs do harm many people, but in real life, replies Hart, “I know tons of people who do drugs; they are public officials, captains of industry, and they're doing well. Drugs, including nicotine and heroin, make people feel better. That’s why they are used.”
President Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex. America’s drug war funds a prison-industrial complex. Hart says his years inside the well-funded research side of that complex showed him that any research not in support of the “tough-on-drugs” ideology is routinely dismissed to “keep outrage stoked” and funds coming in.
America locks up more than 2 million Americans. That’s a higher percentage of our citizens, disproportionately black citizens, than any other country in the world.
“In every country with a more permissive drug regime, all outcomes are better,” says Hart. Countries like Switzerland and Portugal, where drugs are decriminalized, “don't have these problems that we have with drug overdoses.”
In 2001, Portugal decriminalized all drug use. Instead of punishing drug users, they offer medical help. Deaths from overdoses dropped sharply. In 2017, Portugal had only 4 deaths per million people. The United States had 217 per million.
“In a society, you will have people who misbehave, says Hart. “But that doesn't mean you should punish all of us because someone can't handle this activity.”
He’s right. It’s time to end the drug war.
Apparently,the prison guard union is or was the largest campaign contributor of California governors.
This guy is stupid. Legalize marijuana and have opioids over the counter. Doctors over prescribe opioids.
Great. So instead of having a narco-prison-industrial complex, they have a narco-medical-industrial complex.
The author would have had far more credibility if he pointed this crap out.
Politicians are on this gravy train as well
The only drug that shouldn’t be legalized is crystal meth. But if you go down the legalized drug road where do you stop?
Cocaine? Seriously?
Now that I think of it, a lot of the politicians are probably loaded on something or at least drunk on power.
I know.it’s all bad.
The only practical solution is two-fold: (1) legalize all narcotics, and (2) eliminate drug treatment from medical insurance coverage and taxpayer- funded programs.
You’re free to get strung out on whatever you want to invest, but you’re on your own when it comes to dealing with the consequences.
Sorry — that’s INGEST, not invest. LOL.
Works for me.
Legalize pot?
Pothead drivers have killed more people in my neck of the woods than WuFlu.
Stossel is ignorant on this issue. There’s been no war on drugs, which is nothing more than a misapplied metaphor. Addicts have been relegated to quacks who recommend more drugs for more addiction and mental problems.
Innocent people all over America are being victimized by drug criminals in many ways, and the drug society requires enormous amounts of government resources and much more government spending. Legitimize those criminals, and you will render most Americans legally defenseless against their murders, thefts and other schemes. When police arrive at an incident, they need to have access to the criminal histories of addicts and pushers.
‘He’s right. It’s time to end the drug war.’
assuredly this article won’t go well with this forum’s crowd; but, he’s right, and so is Stossell...
‘Pothead drivers have killed more people in my neck of the woods than WuFlu.’
you keep track of that, do you...? what do your numbers say...?
Five times more. At least.
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