How We (The US) Can Still Win The War On Drugs

JLO1988

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Feb 25, 2014
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OPENING--
I've sent this letter out to a number of organizations and individuals concerning the implementation of illicit recreational drugs into society. The biggest problem with illegal recreational drugs isn't the danger they pose but their cost. A greater cost for drugs means a larger economy existing around the drug which puts more burden on the drug user and creates more profits for sellers.

The short essay below does more than reflect on what a conglomerate of international drug policy initiatives have demonstrated and how degrees of legality could function. Here I imagine how a decriminalized drug culture can exist within a capitalist economy. The most important point I make is that the only trade-off to an increased cost of recreational drugs is an increase in funding for treatment and rehabilitation centers. In the unique situation of the war on drugs, the end of it simultaneously offers a rare opportunity to redefine the basis of our systems of incarceration and rehabilitation through the necessary revolution that the decriminalization of illicit substances would initiate. (Through the extreme amount of time, money, and space saved by the invalidation of current and future drug offenses).

This is the only way that I believe that the war on drugs can be 'won,' this is the end to a means. I have sent out this letter as the final act of war sent by yet another youth who was drafted to a war not for country nor even by country but under the principle which is a deep hatred for the paranoia inherent in the very concept of war itself. My reasoning is not that this letter will reach someone's mind and inspire my desired change, no, I have sent this around because this is my evidence of a change, not that I see happening but that which must happen.

The war on drugs is about much more than just war and drugs... It's a shaky sprint towards inspiration on how to deal with the most dangerous natural pleasures from all over the world in a country that has sought citizens from all over... That's why my words are 'Not Just Words' but carry the weight of all the victims of the war on drugs, not just the people, the souls, but also the waste; all of which cannot be measured because intolerance's biggest victim is concealed behind the cloak of ignorance it wears.


Not Just Words
What follows here is a story of what was, what is, and what could be. It should hold more weight than all the crosses carried on all the backs of all the martyrs that came before Jesus. This is about a curse, a plague, a disease that is still being spread by power and good intentions. The greatest empire the world ever knew had a child. That child was borne unto a place that had yet to be claimed because the natives of the new world believed that man cannot possess the earth; the misguided bastards of Great Britain conquered the people and claimed their sacred ground which was rich. This became known as the America.

The children of the United Kingdom tried to be different from the colonial tendencies of their fatherland. Inevitably, they failed to shed the habits of taking dominion, bringing slaves and raising them in their new home. There was hope in the form of civil war that eventually slavery would be abolished. This country would be the most powerful nation on earth and their actions would continue to echo through the rest of the world. War is how our country resolved slavery and it has continued to be a tool for freedom from oppressive rule; war has been a heavy cross for us to bear time and time again.

That story is familiar; it paved the way for a global civil war that continues to crucify the minds of millions every single day and has gone on for nearly a century. The United States of America started the war on drugs and the amount of suffering it has caused could never be measured because the effects of intolerance strikes at the very foundation of society. It’s no less corrupting on the souls of the lawmakers, peacekeepers, and citizens than was their experience with alcohol prohibition. Since the U.S. has declared a war on drugs, every government in the world has adopted similar laws of prohibition. What’s important about this isn't the failure of governments or people but of their motivations. They saw that drugs threatened their way of life which is held sacred and waged a war on it like they would with any enemy. Today, it’s not American policy that’s leading the way in ending the war but it needs to be because the U.S. is still at the throne of influence. With nuclear weapons, war is different and the war on drugs is evidence of how it’s changing.

What fueled the fear that so threatened American lives as to prompt politicians of the most powerful place on the planet to declare war on drugs? Something had to be done to allow for the possibility of progress; war was all that our united states could think of. Anyone who has struggled with any kind of addiction, directly or indirectly, can appreciate the moral human effort that is the war on drugs. The brain activity of a drug user and someone feeling spiritual euphoria are very similar. On the personal level, drugs are like god and the war is within, it’s a war of self-discipline, understanding, and peace. People deal drugs for many reasons but most universally it is because their government cannot, does not, or will not support them.

The end of the illicit drug trade has to be on terms that we can accept. There are two sides to it, enforcement and distribution. Enforcement doesn’t want their kids hooked on drugs and they don’t think that people should profit from selling them since they don’t benefit anyone. Distribution doesn’t want to be criminalized for using them; they believe that people should be allowed to do what they will with their own body as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. The only way to dismantle distribution chains which are a part of capitalism but not the taxable economy is to provide a better product at a more convenient location for a reasonable price. To do this the government has to become the drug dealers (more specifically, the manufacturers). If governments meet the demand for recreational drugs then all of the black market revenue can be invested directly into research to make the drugs safer.

As new drugs are invented by individuals, organizations, or discovered and adopted by populations then government will make those products available as well; regulating the enforcement of future recreational drugs through capitalist endeavor, grant subsidy, and contract responsibility. This solves the issue of profiting off of the drug war as all the money goes to improving the market for drugs by educating consumers, making a more intelligent product, and providing a safer way to acquire it. This is an example of ‘true capitalism’ which is doing what’s best for an entire market including the consumers. Addictive substances aren’t synonymous with ‘true capitalism’ since they’re dangerous to consume they have to exist outside of it through government regulation. However, criminality involving the use or sale of mind altering substances needs to be extinguished.

The biggest concern of this idea is that it may create more users and my response to that is, “Good." Word of mouth is God; it's the root of religious prosperity for thousands of years and has proven to be the most powerful form of marketing in a capitalist system. We can change the economic structure of the war on drugs. If more people are using recreational drugs in a responsible way and no one’s life is destroyed because of them then that would be more successful. It wouldn’t be like tobacco and alcohol with tons of different brands competing with advertisements everywhere from billboards to Hollywood love scenes. There should be no traditional advertisements anywhere for any addictive substance, only for the treatment, education of effects, or publication of uses. Instead, we have an overpopulated prison system that offers hardly any rehabilitation and a policy that is responsible for a global civil war. Necessity is the mother of invention and perhaps that’s what the war on drugs has given our war-torn world during a time when society was not ready for recreational drugs. Our sciences, treatment, and research methods have evolved greatly since we first began experimenting with prohibition; more specifically psychology, the science of the mind.

All war is shameful but none so much as the war on drugs, because, more than anything, it’s a war between every government of the world and their poor people. Drugs are not for poor people but they can heal mental poverty. This is the only way that we, the U.S., can win the war on drugs. Ushering drugs into our social constructs will bring about change and understanding like the ending of any war. But whether or not we heal the moral, social, and political scars left behind from the war’s aftermath will be largely up to how the government uses the profits generated from the sale of these substances. I believe that this may be the best opportunity to simultaneously reform our entire system of incarceration and rehabilitation. The privatization of prisons predicts the end of the American dream; it’s time to wake up.
 
Granny says, "Dat's right - dey tryin' to get us addicted an' kill us off with narcotics...
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US Prosecutors Announce First-ever Indictments Against Chinese Opioid Manufacturers
October 17, 2017 - U.S. law enforcement officials announced Tuesday the indictments of two Chinese nationals and their North American associates charged with manufacturing and distributing fentanyl and other opioids in the United States, highlighting China's role as a global supplier of illicit opiate substances.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the charges against Xiaobing Yan, 40, and Jian Zhang, 38, represent the first-ever indictments brought against designated Chinese manufacturers of fentanyl and other opiate substances. The indictments come amid a brewing scandal in the United States over the role President Donald Trump's nominee to head the Drug Enforcement Agency played in passing legislation that undercut the agency's ability to target manufacturers of opioids. Trump announced on Tuesday that the nominee, Tom Marino, a member of Congress, had withdrawn his name from consideration.

Rosenstein said he was "very concerned" by the revelation, first reported by CBS's 60 Minutes and The Washington Post, but he said "if you look at the data, what you see is that the increase in drug overdose deaths is actually driven by the Chinese fentanyl rather than the pharmaceutical drugs." "The pharmaceutical drugs are a problem as well, but I think we have to keep it in perspective as well," Rosenstein said. "We have a number of challenges that we need to deal with, all of which fall under the rubric of the opioid overdose crisis."

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Law enforcement officials appear before a drug distribution poster during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Oct. 17, 2017, to announce the indictments of two Chinese fentanyl trackers.​

The opioid overdose crisis is being fueled in large part by the growing prevalence of fentanyl imported from China and other countries. Since 2000, the epidemic has killed over half a million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, more than 64,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, including more than 20,000 who overdosed on fentanyl, preliminary CDC data show. Fentanyl, a painkiller that is 100 times stronger than morphine, is available as a Schedule II prescription drug in the United States. While toxicology tests don't distinguish between prescription and illegal fentanyl, drug seizure data suggest "a substantial portion of the increase in synthetic opioid deaths appears to be related to increased availability of illicit fentanyl," according to a 2016 CDC report.

China is the main source of illicit fentanyl sold in the United States, according to a recent report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In addition to shipping directly to U.S. customers, Chinese manufacturers, which are weakly regulated, deliver shipments of the drug to Mexico and Canada from which it is trafficked into the United States, the report said.

'Ton quantities'
 
There is no war on drugs. You can make war on chemical compounds. It is a war on Americans who choose to use non-government approved recreational substances. It is also being use to invade and manipulate foreign countries and bending them to our will, or the will of the corrupt system. When we prohibited alcohol we didn't insist that other countries stop distilling did we?
 
The Republican Party's ridiculous War on Drugs has been an excuse to jail young black and brown men in unprecedented numbers, while letting young white males off with wrist slaps.

Studies have routinely shown that while young white males use and sell drugs with the same frequency as non-whites, when caught, they are more likely to be let off with a warning than charged or jailed.

Before the war on drugs, there were 30,000 black men in federal prisons. Now, with the war on drugs and minimum sentencing, there are over 300,000.

It isn't Democratic policies that have destroyed black families. It's the War on Drugs.
 
Its a war that has cost billions, its a war that has not reduced drug use, so its a bad war. time to use a different metric when dealing with drug use.
 
The U.S. DoJ is showing more Bushido than Hiro-motherfucking-hito. We're going to have to drop a damn nuke on the DoJ to get them to surrender.

Blame the private prison system. The Government/DoJ/Prison complex has a mutual pecuniary interest in keeping many, many drugs and other things criminal. This is out-of-control government at its finest.
 
Also, blame the Government/Alcohol complex. You can grow pot in your back yard. It's a fucking weed. Who is going to pay for all that expensive hooch and pay all those taxes if your intoxicant is a common ditch weed?
:lol:
 
Marino drops out...
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Trump Announces His Drug-Czar Nominee Is Withdrawing; 'This Country...Has a Drug Problem'
October 17, 2017 | President Trump, speaking at an impromptu news conference on Monday, said he plans to have "a major announcement, probably next week," on the nation's opioid drug crisis.
The president also said he'll take another look at the man he's nominated to be his drug czar, now that questions have surfaced about the nominee's support for the makers and distributors of prescription pain pills. (On Tuesday morning, after this story was published, Trump tweeted: "Rep.Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!) "This country, and frankly the world, has a drug problem. The world has a drug problem," Trump said. "But we have it, and we're going to do something about it. So I'm going to have a major announcement on that problem next week. We're going to be looking into Tom," he added. Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) is Trump's nominee to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. A joint Washington Post-"60 Minutes" investigation looked at legislation sponsored by Marino in 2014 that made it more difficult for the Drug Enforcement Administration to stop the diversion of pain pills to unscrupulous doctors and other distributors.

According to the Washington Post: In the spring of 2016, a handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes.” The DEA had opposed the effort for years. The Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act was the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns.

Marino's bill, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch in the Senate, eventually passed and was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2016. At Monday's news conference, a reporter asked President Trump if he'd seen the Oct. 15 "60 Minutes" segment, which said the nation's opioid crisis was fueled by the drug industry and Congress. "I did see the report," Trump said. "We're going to look into the report. We're going to take it very seriously." Trump noted that Tom Marino was a "very early supporter of mine." "He's a great guy," Trump said. "I have not spoken to him, but I will speak to him, and I'll make that determination. And if I think it's -- I think -- if I think it's one-percent negative to doing what we want to do, I will make a change, yes."

Trump Announces His Drug-Czar Nominee Is Withdrawing; 'This Country...Has a Drug Problem'
 
There is no war on drugs. You can make war on chemical compounds. It is a war on Americans who choose to use non-government approved recreational substances. It is also being use to invade and manipulate foreign countries and bending them to our will, or the will of the corrupt system. When we prohibited alcohol we didn't insist that other countries stop distilling did we?

Gee how many far left narratives can you shove into one post?

Although you will notice that the far left did not care to subsidize big pharma (corporate welfare) via Obamacare.

Another far left drone post fail!
 
Its a war that has cost billions, its a war that has not reduced drug use, so its a bad war. time to use a different metric when dealing with drug use.

No the problem is the far left allowed legal drug use to go through the roof, via Obamacare.

And the war on poverty is complete loser and wasted trillions of dollars, so we should just give that up too, based on the far left logic being displayed.

Notice how the far left wants to regulate everything to death except for Drugs and voting!
 
The road to victory ... lies in surrender.

Well, yes in some instances. The prohibition era. The United States by Constitutional Amendment banned alcohol. This led to a rise in criminal empires that were funded by people who wanted to drink, and were willing to pay for the privilege. These criminal empires were able to bribe police with ease, the cops wanted to drink too, and operate with little hinderance in reality.

In the northern states, it was Mobs who brought in Canadian Whiskey, Scotch, and other booze in desire. In the Southern States, Rum Runners flourished. Big pay days for some risk. Moonshine stills were fired up in every nook and cranny up in the mountains.

There was no victory possible for those in favor of Prohibition. The people were not going to stop drinking. They brewed Gin in bathtubs, and made wine out of fruit juice with some yeast and sugar added. It was too profitable for criminals not to step up to meet demand.

Fast Forward a century, and we have a similar situation. There is a demand for drugs. Marijuana is of course the most widespread, and others are following as well. We’ve fought the war on drugs for decades. We have not made one bit of progress at all. Not one bit. We’ve spent literally trillions of dollars in the effort, and we have not slowed the distribution one damned bit.

We moved Psudofed behind he counter at the pharmacy. We make people show ID and limit them as to how much they can buy. We did all this to limit the accessibility to the ingredients for Crystal Meth. The result of this restriction is quantifiable, we know what we’ve accomplished. Crystal Meth availability has increased more than 1000%.

Arizona meth confiscations skyrocket due to booming drug market in Mexico

We send dealers to prison for years, or decades. We lock up the mules who carry it. We bust up the occasional drug cartel like El Chapo. The drugs keep flowing.

We put drones and surveillance aircraft over the border. We watch carefully. We’ve even deployed the military to observe and report the people as they smuggle the drugs. We haven’t done diddly squat to stop them.

What we did by moving the Psudofed behind the counter, was give rise to factory type production facilities. No more kitchen cooking, it’s now ala Breaking Bad able to be produced in much greater amounts.

Every category of drug remains the same. Cocaine has continued to flow into the nation despite tons of money for interdiction efforts.

Why? The drug cartels exist for the same reason that Al Capone’s empire did. Money. It is possible to make a lot of money doing it. Crystal Meth is selling for tens of thousands a dollar a pound. DEA - Publications - Methamphetamine Situation - A Growing Domestic Threat

For every pound of drugs the cops seize, and theoretically don’t turn around and sell, fifty or a hundred make it to the streets. For every dollar seized under the Civil Forfeiture laws, fifty or a hundred go to the cartels.

One telling thing is this. It used to be that police could claim that the fact that money had drug residue on it proved the money had been made selling drugs. In time, we found that pretty much all the money except the newest bills from the printers had some drug residue on it.

So all the money is either cycled through drug dealers, or interacts with money that has cycled through drug dealers.

Cocaine on Money

The Philippines are essentially executing any suspected drug dealers in the streets, and yet the drug problem exists. Soviets sentenced drug dealers to death, and the only reason that it did not take off was money. The average people could not afford the drugs, and even turning to theft or other crimes, could not get enough money to make it affordable. The falling of the wall allowed drug dealers to move in. Not because of a more open society, but because there was now enough money moving around to make the drug trade profitable.

So how goes the war on drugs? We’re losing. We’re losing by any measure you care to use. We’re losing by any rational standard, or even most irrational standards. The same way prohibition lost.

We can double down again, for the 99th time. We can imitate second or third world nations and start executing the dealers in the street. We can make possession a death penalty offense. We can double the numbers of prisons and just lock up everyone who comes up hot on a UA for life. We still would not end drug use, or win the war.

We won the war on Alcohol by legalizing it. We ended the violence of the various Mobs, we cut the deaths of police dramatically. We amended the constitution again, and we ended the insanity. We eliminated the profits of the mobs, by legalizing the product that the people wanted. We ended the turf wars, and the bystanders mowed down in street violence by taking the prize away.

If we had been half as stubborn then, we would still be fighting prohibition today. People would be brewing beer in their garages, making wine in the back yards, and buying bootleg booze.

We can’t win any other way. If the goal is to eliminate the cartels, then taking the profit from them by legalizing the product is the only way. If the goal is to protect the people, then subjecting the product to product safety standards and lawsuits for the dangerous manner in which they are produced, is the only way. If the goal is to protect the children, we would do better with age limits like Alcohol, than with outright bans. If the goal is to enrich the police with seizing “drug money” from people, then we should continue on the same stupid path the generations before trod upon. It worked so well for them.
 
Its a war that has cost billions, its a war that has not reduced drug use, so its a bad war. time to use a different metric when dealing with drug use.

No the problem is the far left allowed legal drug use to go through the roof, via Obamacare.

And the war on poverty is complete loser and wasted trillions of dollars, so we should just give that up too, based on the far left logic being displayed.

Notice how the far left wants to regulate everything to death except for Drugs and voting!

I would agree with you on the war on poverty. I liked the Clinton era Welfare reform. Where we would provide jobs training to help move people from Welfare to employment. It was occasionally called Workfare by some.

If something is not working, the smart thing is to figure out what to try next. Stubbornly staying the course when it is obvious the course is not taking you anywhere near the destination is not just wasteful, it is flat assed stupid.

Legal drugs are prescription drugs. Proscribed by a medical professional to treat a problem. Most prescriptions are not mind altering drugs, but are used to either cure, or manage the symptoms of a problem. Every patient seen by a Doctor is not there to get pain pills. With the possible exception of pain management doctors. But those are constantly watched by the DEA to insure they are following guidelines for treatment of chronic pain. The patients have to provide urine samples to prove they are taking the drugs themselves and are not taking any illegal drugs.

I believe that the Doctors should have the freedom to treat their patients however they see best. I would not want anyone telling my Doctor how to treat me, especially some “expert” in Washington DC who has never seen me. I wouldn’t want you to endure that either.
 
I can tell you how to win the war on drugs. Read here first: 10 busts in massive California-New York pot ring

If the State of New York could prove that California is over-producing pot, demonstrating an intent to export, it might have legal action against CA in the USSC. Pot is federally illegal for a reason. Just like heroin is. And as I recall they're both on the same schedule. Let's assume that say Oklahoma wanted to make heroin legal in order to boost their economy since "hey everyone is doing it anyway, legalization is inevitable" (same rationale in CA used to defy federal statutes). So would we be OK with Oklahoma overproducing heroin for presumed export to other states so their state could get rich on the blood and demise of children (and adults) in other states?

I'd think we'd have a problem with Oklahoma doing that. So California would have to canvass its population to demonstrate the need for internal consumption for pot vs the production within its borders. If the production far exceeds its own consumption, a legal assumption can be made that it intends to export; which is a violation of several severe federal statutes.

NY suing CA would force an end to CA's overweening influence on the rest of the nation. A thing she readily takes for granted and even celebrates. The CA debauchery lifestyle has bled over into assumption-by-force into other states via other USSC cases induced by clever legal posturing and appeals within the CA borders on up. So how about it? You want to stop massive drugs coming across the border with Mexico. Meanwhile the DEA sits idly while CA exports massive drugs across the nation to its collective demise.

Do other states have to be forced to assume or bear the impact of CA's values by virtue of her own (illegal) internal policies and statutes? By the way, the "legal weed" laws in CA were not even allowed to be on the ballot there because in order to get things on the ballot there, they can't be proposals that violate federal laws. There's another point of contention at the USSC level. The state legislators had a mandate to disallow those proposals on their ballot. So I think you can find defendants if forced to pick individuals to sue for CA illegal controlled substance/drug export program.

CA Constitution Article II, Section 8: Codes Display Text
(a) The initiative is the power of the electors to propose statutes and amendments to the Constitution and to adopt or reject them.

(b) An initiative measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the text of the proposed statute or amendment to the Constitution and is certified to have been signed by electors equal in number to 5 percent in the case of a statute, and 8 percent in the case of an amendment to the Constitution, of the votes for all candidates for Governor at the last gubernatorial election.

(c) The Secretary of State shall then submit the measure at the next general election held at least 131 days after it qualifies or at any special statewide election held prior to that general election. The Governor may call a special statewide election for the measure.

And Section 10:

(a) An initiative statute or referendum approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election unless the measure provides otherwise. If a referendum petition is filed against a part of a statute the remainder shall not be delayed from going into effect.

(b) If provisions of 2 or more measures approved at the same election conflict, those of the measure receiving the highest affirmative vote shall prevail.

(c) The Legislature may amend or repeal referendum statutes. It may amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that becomes effective only when approved by the electors unless the initiative statute permits amendment or repeal without their approval.

I'd say on the whole, defiance of federal law would render a statute revokable without voters' permission in CA. Is this the United States of America? Or the unilateral Republik of Kalifornia? Sue them New York. Clip the wings of that social dragon for once.
 
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We've gone beyond the point where even legalization could help. The drugs aren't bathtub gin and drunks vomiting in an alley. These drugs are killers. Legalizing pot only means that the addict will relax while they snort fentanyl laced heroin.

This is a war. Not on drugs. This war is against whoever it is that is spreading anthrax and sarin across the country.

Oops, it's not anthrax and sarin. Too bad. People would immediately understand exactly what they were up against.
 
We've gone beyond the point where even legalization could help. The drugs aren't bathtub gin and drunks vomiting in an alley. These drugs are killers. Legalizing pot only means that the addict will relax while they snort fentanyl laced heroin.

This is a war. Not on drugs. This war is against whoever it is that is spreading anthrax and sarin across the country.

Oops, it's not anthrax and sarin. Too bad. People would immediately understand exactly what they were up against.
Well it's a war that can be won at the USSC level if a state sued California or Colorado etc. for overproduction with obvious intent to export a federally illegal substance beyond its borders. We either punish the bad states like we do Mexico, or we eradicate every dollar spent on eradication methods in Mexico and legalize pot nationwide. With that in place, other recreational drugs will follow by precedent. Heroin included.

You have to understand how precedent in law works to understand why New York has a solid case against California. I'd cite the efforts in Mexico as part of the arguments.
 

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