Ending the war on drugs.

I agree 100%...powerman, you'll be my drug czar when I assume power.  (easiest job in the world...it's all good!)  

I was going to say that I agreed with Powerman,,,,, now seeing what you said CD I'm second guessing myself.

That's funny right there.

I'll work with you CD.

Just to be clear, I have no illusions that there is any such thing as "recreational" cocaine use. Meth is not a "casual" drug. Heroin is not a big "weekend" thing. I know first hand the damage they do and the lives they destroy. But you can't stop it, and criminalizing the user is not the answer.

Heck... using drugs is not illegal incase anyone never thought about it. It is NOT illegal to be under the influence of drugs anywhere in this country. It is illegal to POSSES a controlled substance. And it is that way because the government can't tell you what you can and can't put in your body. The FDA was the way to get around that problem.

just by legalizing the marijuana would make all the difference in the world,you can control it better,you can raise taxes,you don't have prisons and court systems jammed by it so they can focus on the real crimes, you can get the cocaine farmers in south America to grow weed instead of coke which will bring the availability from that drug down, you can have legal transport companies bringing it in which of course gives jobs and money to the people instead of criminals.

If you can't win the fight at least try to control it!

just my 2 cents.

...except for the government!  All Hail Emperor CD!  

I was watching an interesting special on PBS about how drug laws came to be...(I figured I needed to watch a lot of PBS in case Romney got elected and shut it down )  Anywhoo, it was fascinating!  We all kinda think of our grandparents, great grandparents, great great etc., etc. as being more virtuous than this current generation of liberal, godless heathens.  In fact, part of the reason there was a big move to make narcotics illegal was the rampant abuse of them in the 1800's and into the 20th century.  I never pictured men and women of that generation as being junkies...but there were lots!  You could legally buy heroin, syringes, whatever paraphernalia you desired...in a Sears catalog!  I didn't get to see the entire episode as I happened upon it midway through one night.  Check it out if ya get a chance.

Did you happen to read any of them... most involved driving.

However, I did learn something new... In California it is a misdemeanor to simply be high on any controlled substance... yet in most cases it is a felony for possesion. And you can not ingest it, if you did not posses it. So do you think people get charged with a misdemeanor "influence" high charge for cocaine, of a felony possession charge?

Never the less, I did not know states charge. The info I had always gone on was Federal law of how prohibition came to be in the first place and the Federal war on drugs. Learn something new every day.

You could buy needles, cocaine and morphine from Sears. Back then, the most that were addicted were white war vets from the Civil War and house wives that were fed opitates for anything and everything. Cocaine was given to opiate users as a cure.

If you ever get a chance, watch the History Channel's show on the subject. It is on from time to time. The number one driver for prohibition from their take was immigrants. Weed was to get rid of Mexicans, and opium was to get rid of Chinese. Blacks were actually given cocaine in the South to increase production, but then of course a black man raped a white woman and cocaine had to go too. Or so the story goes... Originally only smoking opinum was illegal and not morphine to get rid of smoking dens, but that was changed not long after.

In that show, they mentioned a drug law that was overtuned by a court on the grounds of it being Unconstitutional to deny someone the ability to put what ever they wanted in themselves.... but I have never been able to find that anywhere since then. But it does go back to an interesting question.... If we needed a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit alcohol use, then why do we not have a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit drug use?

The big fear our government has of ending prohibition is that consumption and acceptance will rise dramatically.  But we have to throw a lot of resources at the war on drugs to prevent corruption from progressing.  There's an interesting paper on Mexico's fight against drugs which describes types of organized crime detailed by Peter Lupsha.  Paraphrasing from the article: it's described as three stages:

1. Predatory - where organized crime is mostly street gangs and does not threaten the state. This is where we are in the U.S. today.

2. Parasitic - organized crime has penetrated the government and can control parts of it to help themselves operate freely.

3. Symbiotic - organized crime becomes so intertwined with the state that they are effectively the same thing.

Mexico has been in #2, fighting not to become #3.  It then goes over pros and cons of different ways to address the problem.  It's a worthwhile read:

http://cide.edu/publicaciones/status/dts/DTEI%20205.pdf

The war on drugs, and the criminal enterpirises it supports,  ends the day you take the money out of it.  You take the money out of it by legalizing, regulating, and letting free-market in on production. 

The fact that drugs are illegal is not what keeps you from using Meth, or Cocaine, or Heroin.....and it doesn't stop anyone else either.

We have had a huge run on heroin overdose deaths.....that's because the purity is all over the chart and sometimes we get a spike in purity that causes an upturn on accidental deaths from overdose....that kind of thing would stop with regulation....that's just one example of how ending the war on drugs would be a good thing.  Oh yeah......property crimes (thefts) would drop exponentially since now most of them are tied to junkies trying to afford their habit.  Take th emoney out and it becomes cheap enough that they only have to steal every 3 days instead of 3 times per day.

What I don't understand is why is this still going? Usually when the subject comes up, everyone pretty much agrees the "War on Draugs" is not working. I have not heard too many political figures peg the reason that not enough money and effort is being applied. Most seem to agree mandatory minimums have not worked.... yet we keep doing the same thing.

I could accept there is a silent majority does nto want to change, but it seems most agree we should change what we are doing. What am I missing?

Ya, that would be relapse rate... what is the recidivisim rate of inmates and how much does it cost to incarcerate them time and time again... especialy when a drug chrge gives them a third strike? I'm certainly not excusing their actions, but  Iam the one that pays for them either way.