Posted on 12/14/2001 10:15:53 AM PST by Native American Female Vet
No longer 'Just Say No': Bush says quit drugs and fight terrorism
By Associated Press, 12/14/2001 13:52
WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush said Friday that drug users aid terrorists who get their money from global trafficking in narcotics. ''If you quit drugs, you join the fight against terrorism,'' he said.
Bush offered a new argument in the fight against drugs while signing a bill to expand a federal anti-drug program over the next five years.
''Drug abuse threatens everything, everything that is best about our country,'' he said. ''It breaks the bond between parent and child. It turns productive citizens into addicts. It transforms schools into places of violence and chaos. It makes playgrounds into crime scenes. It supports gangs at home.''
''And abroad, it's important for Americans to know that trafficking of drugs finances the world of terror, sustaining terrorists,'' the president said. The administration has linked the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan to heroin trafficking. The terrorist group, led by Osama bin Laden, is suspected in the Sept. 11 attacks on America.
The bill signed by Bush expands the Drug-Free Communities Support Program, which helps community groups reduce illegal drugs. The program's budget is about $50 million, and would almost double in five years under the bill.
''Over time, drugs rob men, women and children of their dignity and of their character,'' Bush said.
''Illegal drugs are the enemies of ambition and hope and when we fight against drugs we fight for the souls of our fellow Americans.''
You could eliminate the profit motive overnight by making drug use and possession legal. No black market, no promise of killer profit, no terrorist subsidation.
In order to launder their drug profits of $8 to $12 billion per year in US dollars, the Columbian drug dealers took over the Colombia Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE) and is now their sole source of funds. These drug dollars are made possible ONLY because of the criminalization of drugs.
The BMPE purchases these dollars at discount rates of about 30% and converts them into pesos in Columbia, effectively cleaning the money for the drug dealers. In turn the BMPE makes these billions of dollars available as a commodity for sale outside of any regulated financial system.
Increasingly, these dollars, which are a direct byproduct of the WOD, are being funneled to terrorists looking for anonymous ways of acquire large reserves of US dollars. (During their trial in NY, prosecutors proved that the people responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing received funds from a BMPE broker working out of Venezuela.)
Without the billions of dollars in illicit funds generated every year by the criminalization of drugs, terrorism would not have access to the hundreds of millions of dollars it needs to obtain anonymously. While they would still be able to obtain some money from other sources, it would be enormously more expensive for them, and it would be far far easier for US intelligence to trace its source.
The WOD has produced not one positive effect in this country or the world. It has expanded our government, raised our taxes, imprisoned millions of non-violent offenders on our dime, trampled our constitution, left thousands dead, and it has provided a market for vast networks of criminal enterprises whose reach is constantly expanding beyond the drug business.
And you can still buy any drug in America anytime you want to.
That way, the money doesn't go to foreign terrorist it stays right here. It would give farmers a couple of more cash crops as well.
Additionally, prices would fall dramatically so addicts most likely wouldn't need to bash old ladies over the head to pay for a days high.
Additionally, we could get rid of a couple of wholly Unconstitutional Federal Agencies and get the border patrol back to it's job of shipping illegals out of this country instead of running around trying to stop something they never have and never will be able to stop.
Just a few thoughts.
L
Oh, puh-leeze. I'm strongly against the drug war, but we hardly bombed "most of Afghanistan" - and the Taliban was the main reason poppies were not being planted, and they're gone. That is a moronic assertion on your part - instead, it shows the resilance of the suppliers of a black-market product, not any latent heroin conspiracy on the part of the Bush Administration. Let's keep the critiques sane...
I agree drug money corrupts - but I find tex-oma's assertion nuts. The United States was getting ready to give MORE money to the Taliban prior to 9/11 to help them in their efforts to eradicate opium poppy cultivation. And it's a rather simple concept that once the Taliban was gone, poppy cultivation would resume like so many other activities formerly banned by the Taliban. It doesn't take any dark government conspiracy to accomplish that...
Gee, George, I wonder why drug trafficking is so profitable for terrorists. Could it be that the illegality of drugs makes it such a profitable enterprise for thugs? Is that why they don't traffic in legal substances like alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine? And aren't you the same George W. Bush that awarded the Taliban $45 million earlier this year for destroying poppy fields?
Does the phrase "tyranny of the majority" mean anything to you? If not, read the Federalist Papers pronto.
Americans are quite schizo on this subject. Recall the drugged out honorary FBI agent (or whatever was his honorary title) Elvis Presley! Recall our prescription drugged children. Recall Prozac and Viagra! It's time to change tactics.
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