Armed Illegal Aliens and Mexican marijuana cartels take over US National Parks

The war on drugs should take a different approach, it shouldn't be stopped. It's a statistical fact that areas of high drug usage have higher crime rates. 75% of kids in Detroit don't graduate high school. Detroit has the highest unemployment rate, crime rate, and one of the worst drug problems in the US. That type of trend exists throughout the U.S. Rather than telling kids simply not to do drugs, more focus should be put on getting kids out of high school, and possibly into college.

On the terms of overall enforcement, 1980's Miami, FL is the prime example of what happens when proper drug enforcement doesn't take place.

 

association != causation

 

I brought some things for trading that I was told the locals would like. I think it was a couple pairs of jeans and some cassette tapes I had. I think Billy Joel was popular. I took rubles in return, but I was not driving a hard bargain. I was there to see the Soviet Union as a tourist.

I do remember sharing some Vodka at 6:00 am on a train from Moscow to Leningrad with a pretty interesting Russian man. I was there in December - the vodka was necessary to keep warm.

The coolest part of my stay was renting some ice skates and skating through Gorky Park. All the pathways were iced and one could just skate through the park. At the time it was very cool ~ this was around 20 years ago.

 

One of the biggest issues with drugs is the social costs of medical services. In countries like Afganistan the addict spoke themselves to death with little cost to society.

In the US addicts are treated in the emergency room when they overdose or are find in ill health on the streets. The cost to treat crack babies is enormous and continues for through their education through years of special education classes. There are also enormous costs for drug rehab and treatment. Imagine if herion were illegal and the US had 10 million herion addicts in the streets. Wouldn't that be fun.

I spent some time in East Berlin just before the Wall came down and I didn't see any drugs. There was plenty of vodka and beer though.

 

Much of the 'overdosing' is caused because of crap drugs made in a bathroom tub with no quality control. Costs are much, much higher via the enforcement methods, jailing and other policies currently set forth.

Miami is/was an importing hub for drugs. If anything the war on drugs has caused the problems areas have that are import centers for drugs. Look at what happened under prohibition.

If drugs are legal you can create quality controlled items that have a much less risk of killing, make them less addictive, force counseling in order to get the next fix. You can make tax revenue off the drugs, saving the tax payers billions of dollars a year from 'enforcement' alone.

Drugs that are not truly drugs such as marijuana should be immediately taken off the list, other items such as anabolic steroids should as well. Any item that is not truly addictive and or dangerous like crack/heroin should be immediately removed from prosecution and legalized.

 

I am glad to see the drug users and dealers in jail.
They should increase the punishment to both the user and dealer.

 

Yes excellent backed up logic as always.

If you put 'all the drug users' in jail, guess what? Most of your neighbors, family, politicians and more would be in jail.

As it is prescription drugs are being used and abused because of current laws.

I forgot it depends on 'what drugs' to you.

Do you wish all steroid users and their dealers were in jail?

 

You said the war was failing and I suggested increasing the penalty.

 

Just what the war on drugs needs - a surge. What exactly is victory in the "drug war"?

Since we can't even keep drugs out of prisons there is zero chance of keeping them out of a free society.

 

Drugs fund terrorism in Colombia, Mexico, and the Middle East.

Afganistain is at both the center of the war on terrorism and drugs.



FBI sting captures teen distributing herion, even after friend's fatal overdose

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/3_charged_following_teens_drug.html

 

Correction the WAR ON DRUGS funds it. Just like prohibition funded organized crime.

 

The US has just started bombing drug dealers in Afghanistan.

 

I don't want to have to pay for a drug user to get 3 meals a day and a warm place to sleep. And that is why I am against stiffer laws for users. I am all for regulation of drugs and drug traffic, to get money, and to really curb drug abuse by making cartels and dealers compete with the real vultures of the global market, big corporations. If you want to fight a war on drugs the only way to do it is to make it unprofitable to sell or import drugs, or if you could kill it demand side, as in convince everyone to just say no, and that obviously isn't working. As far as pot goes our current attitude in this country is like Russia refusing to produce vodka. Marijuana has always been grown in the US and it is wonderful cash crop especially for producing things like clothes, paper, and of course cash is still made with hemp, only now we import it before we stamp our seal on it.

 

Even if the government controlled both production, and sales the user would still find a cheaper product else where (aka the corner). The majority of drug use comes from low poverty areas, if they can't afford basic medication let alone rent, how are they going to afford a constant fix provided by the government? If they sell a fix for $10, Joe Smith on the corner will sell his own for $5. A whole new and much more dangerous underground would be formed.

You could also make tax revenue off of drugs now with a fair tax.

 

Really, so when the government axed prohibition, there was an underground after the fact supplying many their liquor? Maybe on an extremely, extremely small scale some private sales still took place. By and large however the underground aspect of liquor products was killed off.

Your stance is not backed up by any actual facts............

BTW I never said 'provided' by the government.

Even if what you claimed was true, which it definitely is not. The underground product would not be any more dangerous than it is now.

 

There are still bootleggers today making whitelightning today and the ATF are still chasing them.

When ABC and ATF agents raided the still in May 2006, they found 1,728 one-gallon jugs used to hold liquor, 600 pounds of sugar and 50 pounds of barley, according to the indictment handed down Nov. 8 in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010703498.html

 

Still, I'm sure this is almost nothing compared to what was going on during prohibition.

 

Bootleggers are still running their goods.

 

There's even a North Carolina moonshine page

http://www.ibiblio.org/moonshine/

 

Your right there wasn't a large underground formed after prohibition was eliminated. However, alcohol doesn't and never had have the same mass production, mass distribution, and mass addiction associated with it. Drug cartels are also backing up operations with $xxx,xxx,xxx. This situation can't be compared to alcohol, and prohibition.

Where are the facts in your stance? You can't provide facts, and neither can I on the terms of control, and violence. However, I did provide factual information in a previous post on how I think the war on drugs should take a different approach. There is a direct correlation between high school dropout rates, crime, poverty, and drug use. Education is the backbone to every society. Of course it wouldn't completely eliminate the problem, but it would certainly help.

I did assume you meant the government should provide drugs. So your suggesting independent businesses should provide the drugs? Much like all the alcohol companies? You also suggested forced counseling. Who will pay for the counseling? Tax dollars, the user, or the business that provided the drugs?

What I'm ultimately trying to say is it would result in more competition. In this case added competition would result in more complications. There is way too much outside cash flowing in. If drug production, and funding was isolated within the US then I think your ideas would make more sense.