If this doesn’t scare you, you are stupid. [Drug War]
I can’t exactly figure out what people see in a war that simultaneously:
1. is costly and ineffective [Washington Post via ToThePeople].
2. corrupts government up and down the chain [Radley Balko], not only putting innocent people in prison (intentionally, in some instances, to cover up ineptitude or police state wrongdoing), but keeping them in prison when law enforcement officials know they’re innocent.
Really, if you are pro-Drug War, or on the fence, would it kill you to take a couple of minutes and read these articles? These are not isolated incidents or minor policy issues, this is a government initiative that is systemically rotten to its very core, both in policy and execution.
Let me re-iterate, because this should not ever, ever happen in a free country–the FBI, in order to protect informants and continuing investigations, leaves wrongly convicted people in jail–and the FBI intentionally sits on the information that could free them. Want it better? They won’t say that they won’t continue this practice!!
If I get asked–is the answer that we just give up? YES!!! YES!!! Billions of dollars flushed down the toilet in enforcement, incarceration, foreign “programs” that turn the world against us, a war that funds terrorism (and wouldn’t if pulled into legal enterprise) . . . where is the upside? What am I missing? All this money, all the freedoms encroached, all the injustices, and have we cut consumption by a significant margin? No, what we’ve done is given drug dealers incentives to make newer and more dangerous drugs (see, e.g., methamphetamine, created during periods of crackdown on amphetamine . . . good going, Drug Warriors!).
Is it too much to ask people to speak out? Contact your local, regional and national politicians and show your support for ending this insanity.
on August 20, 2007 on 7:27 pm
We need move our failing government policy away from a war footing. We need solutions that lead to positive effects for all, not endless fights the just cost us. Thanks for this post, fine job!
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
on August 20, 2007 on 7:36 pm
Just because there are tactical problems in prosecuting a war doesn’t make the war wrong. But I’m guessing you’re pro-drug and don’t want to hear that.
In Afghanistan we can easily remove the Opium. Predator drones and Hellfire missiles or A-10s with “snake & nape” will do the job just fine. The farmers will turn to other crops when we make opinum unprofitable – completely unprofitable!
Opium funds most of the terrorist ogranizations. Stop the opium and you cripple the terrorists. Ruthless prosecution of a direct war on opium production is all it takes.
On the domestic front, things are a lot different. Police stupidly – normally followed up by illegal behavior – is all too common. That doesn’t make the fight against drugs wrong; it makes the fight against police corruption and incompetance vital.
on August 20, 2007 on 7:51 pm
Tactical problems . . . tactical problems . . . so the problem is that we’re not spending enough on the right things. So the amount of money (billions upon billions) and time (decades) spent on the Drug War for the results we’ve seen so far (negligible at best and most charitable to outright damaging to national security), and your response is that these are merely “tactical problems”?
I think what you don’t want to hear is that the Drug War is a failure, and worse, every day it continues it is actively harming us more than it is helping us.
But what I love even more is your “solution” to the opium problem, because it demonstrates conclusively that you didn’t even read the fucking linked articles at all. You want to “snake and nape” opium fields . . . the rare ground in Afghanistan that is suitable for crops, and you expect that to have what effect? Even assuming for the sake of argument it works (debatable given the lack of success at our current crop destruction programs), you have now turned the people of Afghanistan against us for all time. All our efforts are creating a sustainable government in Afghanistan (or anywhere else in the Middle East, much less a democracy) are immediately doomed, and the Taliban (or worse) won’t even have to fire a shot . . . they’ll just walk into the capital city and will be given the keys to the country back. No one in the region will ever trust Americans again, and what will that do to your precious War on Terror?
Your post is a joke, and you are an ignoramus. I want everyone to take note of it as to see the stupidity of the pro Drug War argument.