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When Will Obama "Evolve" on the Drug War?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Hightop, May 18, 2012.

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When Will Obama Evolve on the Drug War?

  1. Never

    60.0%
  2. Less than four years

    30.0%
  3. Some time next week

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. When he gets paid enough to do so

    10.0%
  5. On his next appearance on The View

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. Hightop

    Hightop Member

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    When Will Obama Evolve on the Drug War?

    by Sheldon Richman, May 16, 2012

    Much is made of how President Obama’s position on same-sex marriage has “evolved” to an endorsement of legalization. One hopes his position on the atrocity called the “war on drugs” is evolving.

    It’s not really a war on drugs. It’s a war on people, most of whom have committed no violence or other aggression against person or property. Those who do commit violence are encouraged to do so by the very “war on drugs” that Obama and other enlightened leaders so enthusiastically support. Black markets often feature violence — precisely because they are illegal. Decriminalize the activity, and the violence goes away.

    America had a natural experiment in this principle: Prohibition. When the manufacture and sale of alcohol were made illegal by constitutional amendment in 1920, booze didn’t disappear from society. It simply went underground to be dominated by those with a comparative advantage in thuggery. Ending prohibition brought alcohol into the legitimate market (although unfortunately regulated and licensed). The violence related to the manufacture and sale of alcohol went away.

    Thus the violence perpetrated by Latin American drug cartels and gangs in the United States is not an argument against decriminalization. It’s an argument for it.

    It’s well known that an unconscionably high percentage of the American population is in prison. We can thank the government’s persecution of drug commerce for that shameful fact. It is also increasingly understood that militarized police drug raids terrorize people every day, often killing individuals who were not even intended as targets. The American people should demand that this systematic oppression be stopped. The police have become the enemy of Americans, mostly but not exclusively members of minority communities.

    The raids that end in death at least make the headlines and perhaps upset people for a short while. But another part of the war on drug commerce gets less attention. When consenting people buy and sell drugs, there is no victim to complain. So to make arrests, police need to trap people — many of them young — in drug transactions and then threaten them with long jail terms unless they become informants. Many take these deals — against their deepest beliefs — for fear of having their lives destroyed by felony convictions and time in the hell holes we call prisons. They proceed to set up drug deals with friends and family members just so they can produce cases for the cops and leniency for themselves.

    Can there be a worse indictment of the sadistic government crusade against drugs? What possible good is done by police blackmailing the most vulnerable, even helpless, people into informing on others? Cooperation with the police under these circumstances, despite the duress, is morally wrong — but we must first condemn the police — and politicians who back them — for putting people in this situation. What kind of society is this? It does not deserve to be called humane.

    But drugs are dangerous, people say. It’s about time this empty slogan was thrown on the trash heap. Illegal drugs are not illegal because they are dangerous. Other substances that can be used in harmful ways — most obviously alcohol — are legal. Many legal activities that people love to engage in are highly dangerous. Certain drugs have been singled out for prohibition historically not because they are especially dangerous but because they were associated with minority communities. The story of the “drug war” is not of a humane effort to create a healthy, safe society. It’s a story of persecution and control — and of tax-funded largess for law enforcement and the “drug-rehabilitation” industry.

    Politicians in Latin America are beginning to understand that the drug wars tearing their countries apart would end overnight if the drug industry were decriminalized. No one would be more opposed to decriminalization than the drug lords, because they’d lose their de facto monoplies.

    But who patronizingly insists that Latin America stay with its destructive policy? President Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. They would rather see the violence continue and spill over into the United States than admit they are wrong.

    No drug could do even a tiny fraction of the damage that the drug war does. Mr. Obama, when will your position evolve?

    http://www.fff.org/comment/com1205l.asp
     
  2. Depressio

    Depressio Member

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    He won't. Nor will the next president. Or the next. Obama's of a generation that is generally OK with the idea of legalizing gay marriage, but still not OK with the idea of legalizing mar1juana. We need a president of a different generation in order to begin ending the Drug War.
     
  3. Classic

    Classic Member

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    So long as prisons are owned by corps who pay dividends to shareholders, there is no reason for any elected official to decriminalize drugs at the expense of their retirement portfolio.
     
  4. ROXTXIA

    ROXTXIA Member

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    No President will ever legalize drugs. Never. Never. Never.

    One can debate the issue til doomsday, but it just isn't gonna happen.

    Come on, hightop. Waiting for your next anti-Obama thread. Make it a good one! Don't let basso or bigtexx get the drop on you!
     
  5. MoonDogg

    MoonDogg Member

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    QFT....

    Why Is Louisiana The Prison Capital Of The World? Police Profit By Keeping Private Prisons Full

    ""You have people who are so invested in maintaining the present system — not just the sheriffs, but judges, prosecutors, other people who have links to it,” said Burk Foster, a former professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and an expert on Louisiana prisons. “They don’t want to see the prison system get smaller or the number of people in custody reduced, even though the crime rate is down, because the good old boys are all linked together in the punishment network, which is good for them financially and politically.”""

    "" Today, wardens make daily rounds of calls to other sheriffs’ prisons in search of convicts to fill their beds. Urban areas such as New Orleans and Baton Rouge have an excess of sentenced criminals, while prisons in remote parishes must import inmates to survive.

    The more empty beds, the more an operation sinks into the red. With maximum occupancy and a thrifty touch with expenses, a sheriff can divert the profits to his law enforcement arm, outfitting his deputies with new squad cars, guns and laptops.
    ""
     
  6. cml750

    cml750 Member

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    I sincerely hope he "evolves" into returning to community activism in Chicago come January 2013.
     
  7. thadeus

    thadeus Member

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    It is impossible that the glorious 'free market' would ever bring about something as hideous as private prisons that bribe government officials.

    Everyone knows that the 'free market' can only lead to liberty.
     
  8. bnb

    bnb Member

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    I truly think we're 15-20 yrs out to legalizing MJ.

    Could be quicker, but I doubt it. But the times they are a' changing.
     

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