Those other countries are less concerned with crime, which is bunk; or Americans are uniquely tempted by and addicted to crime, which is also bunk; or there is something fundamentally amiss in the U.S. criminal-justice system (bingo).
At this point, any attempts to overturn the legal system in this country and/or the federal government in general would require an uprising of the citizenry unlike the world has ever seen. I just don’t think Americans have it in them anymore.
Drop in U.S. Cocaine Use Due to Waning Popularity, New Colombian Drug Strategies
By Join Together Staff | July 29, 2013 | Leave a comment | Filed in Drugs
The dramatic decrease in cocaine use in America is due to a number of factors, ranging from changing trends to new drug control strategies implemented by Colombia, according to NPR.
The 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found the number of Americans ages 12 or older who are current users of cocaine has dropped by 44 percent since 2006.
One reason cocaine’s popularity has declined is it simply went out of fashion, according to Peter Reuter, a professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, who researches drug problems. “The drug went out of vogue a long time ago,” he told NPR. “Lots of people experiment with it, but very few of the people that experiment with it in the last 20 years have gone on to become regular users of it.”
Sorry but the bingo is bunk too. The real reason our incarceration rate is so much higher than other industrialized nation is that we have a certain demographic in our population that they do not. This demo, as a whole, has proved to be violent and criminal. I don't care what anyone says I see it every day where I live.
Civil discipline should result from actions that deprive others of life, liberty, and property arbitrarily and/or without due process. If drugs are administered in a manner that does harm to others, then the one who administers them should be punished. We struggle with the nature and extent of harm caused by recreational drug use. It is not an easy reality to address, especially since there are wide differences of opinion, tolerance, and use.
I believe there are too many people who are punished too severely for minimal offenses, and that the system as it stands deprives many of quick access to justice. There are some who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo; who benefit from instilling unnecessary red tape. Most of them are in DC, but those types may also be found at every level of government.
We are at a point to where so many companies depend on our ‘police state’ for profits and individuals for their livelihoods, it has taken on a life of its own. Just imagine how many people would lose their jobs if we ended drug prohibition and a good part of the domestic side of our “War on Terrorism”. Of course, most of those jobs should have never existed in the first place, and the people doing them produce exactly NOTHING.
Funny how when the federal government proclaims a “War Against (x)”, our wallets get plundered, the Constitution shredded, and the problem the so called “War” was intended to address only gets worse/continues unresolved.
“U.S. and district attorneys have been fattened to a state of hypertrophic authoritarian obesity...”
Chris Christie comes to mind.
I learned all I needed to know when Jenny Granholm made a deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger to ship California prisoners to Michigan to keep union guards employed.
I never heard it said better.
Free Republic has changed a lot over the years I’ve been here. Ten years ago, this article would have been shouted down as being a bunch of liberal claptrap. I think it’s good that more people are opening their eyes to what this republic has become. It’s sad that we’ve gone so far down the path of authoritarianism that the only real solution is a lot of death and destruction.