U.S. war on drugs a colossal failure
July 23rd, 2008 at 07:42am Pat Cunningham
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The World Health Organization is out with a study SHOWING that the United States leads the world by far in the use of marijuana and cocaine, despite comparatively strict laws against such drugs.
For example, 42 percent of Americans admit to having smoked pot, more than twice as many, proportionally, as in the Netherlands, where laws against marijuana are relatively lax.
The WHO study doesn’t address issues concerning the social and fiscal costs of the American war on drugs — crowded jails, strains on law enforcement, burdens on taxpayers, violence among drug gangs, etc.
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7 Comments Add your own
1. Mike Carroll | July 23rd, 2008 at 7:58 am
Add the War on Drugs to the War on Poverty as well intentioned failures.
We lost both wars.
De-criminalize, regulate and tax the hell out of it.
2. Pat Cunningham | July 23rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
Spoken like a true libertarian — except for the tax part, which is a radical departure for a dude like you. Ergo, you will hereafter be known here as a radical.
3. Craig Knauss | July 23rd, 2008 at 8:45 am
Add to that the War on Vice. We have tried to eliminate prostitution for hundreds of years or longer. But it’s been around for at least 5,000 years. So……De-criminalize, regulate and tax the hell out of it.
And I think there should be a tax or fee on campaign signs. The revenue would be used to remove the damn things after the election is over!
4. Mike Carroll | July 23rd, 2008 at 8:49 am
I would have to agree Pat. The older I get the more libertarian I have become but remember when you tax something you get less of it so I think I’m being radically consistent.
5. LD | July 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
We should do what the writers of The Wire have pledged:
If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1719872,00.html
6. Q Jordon | July 23rd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
What, we are all in a agreement? We have to flag this blog issue before it leaves the board.
And for the record, that is why many drugs are illegal - they cannot be taxed when sold by dealers.
The government hates when they cannot get a hand in it.
7. Milton Waddams | July 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Kind of ironic that the original way they banned drugs was through the requirement of a tax stamp that was unattainable isn’t it?
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