Bill Harris One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility. The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for selling seeds that American farmers use to reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot. Only on the authority of a clause about interstate commerce does the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnate Al Capone, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment. Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries exclude bleeding hearts. The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. John Doe’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with his maker. Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction. Common-law must hold that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.

Steve "make perfectly clear that the founding fathers never intended for the federal government to tell Americans what they could and could not do." Especially when it costs so much money. Not to mention the crime it is causing in the US, but especially south of the border. Recently, a Mexican Marine was killed during a drug raid that killed a prominent drug kingpin. During his funeral members of the cartel came in and massacred his family. All for control of the illegal drug trade to the US and Europe.

Jim Hilsenteger If drug prohibition continues for another 40 years, the Drug Cartels will get stronger, then is it possible the USA could experience the same amount of violence that Mexico currently suffers? Let's use our heads and develop a more effective policy to treat drug abuse....putting citizens in prison is not the solution...

Doomed I agree putting them in prison is not the answer. That is why we are passing health care for the poor. That will be the answer. We can legalize drugs and then pay a trillion a year in healthcare costs for weak minded, poverty stricken people who bury their sorrows in misery by doing drugs and alcohol. Heres a novel Idea. How about we give the weak minded and the poverty stricken hope by offering them jobs. Why dont those 100,000,000 churches in the USA offer daycare for all on a nice sliding scale in which the poor is free and those making 100k per year only have to pay 100 dollars per month. How about those 100,000,000 churches take in the weary, the tired, the helpless and the homeless and offer them shelter in their mammoth buildings that set empty 140 hours a week of nearly every weak. How about we provide the tools to get the poor, the desperate and the incapable out of poverty and into experiencing the dream that is what America is all about. Then when we do that....then lets continue treating drug abuse and the selling of drugs for exactly what it is.....destroyers of lives.

Doomed The poor and the weary are not the friends of the Democrats. The Democratic party only needs poverty, weak, poor and downtrodden in this country to continue to be relevant. Because once the poor are NO longer poor then they are NO longer beholden to the system. Let me repeat that. Once the poor are NO longer poor they are no longer beholden to the system that keeps them perpetually poor. Health care for all...the poor will still be poor. Food Stamps...........The poor are still poor. Housing...............The poor are still poor. Busing................The poor are still poor. Democrats might have other redeeming qualities but their perpetual infatuation with poverty and then doing absolutely NOTHING about it is disconcerting. The GOP has the opportunity to go after poverty while the Democrats use poverty to make themselves relevant by making poverty comfortable. They dont fix it. They make it more comfortable to be poor and therefore have no desire to move up and become reliant upon themselves instead of a system whose very existence is designed to keep them poor so that they are relevant. The GOP has more of a solution then they realize...they just seem to think of poor people as diseased or something...Im not sure why the GOP has allowed themselves to be painted this way but I can tell you this. Health care for poor people is another example of the Democrats MAKING POVERTY MORE COMFORTABLE. And when we move on guess what...YEP...the poor will still be poor and Republicans will have been painted as HATERS OF THE POOR.

Free Marc Emery "Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere!"
- George Washington “Some of my finest hours have been spent on the back of my veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as the eye can see.” - Thomas Jefferson "Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica." -Abraham Lincoln

Michael Merritt

Then when we do that….then lets continue treating drug abuse and the selling of drugs for exactly what it is…..destroyers of lives.

Given your constant rants against the Democrats, I would not have taken you for such a paternalist, Doomed. Look, Michael's not talking about legalizing cocaine, heroin or meth, here (or maybe he is? He can clarify). He's talking about marijuana. I don't think it's the "no harm at all" drug that it's most ardent supporters make it out to be, but it is hardly the worst one in the world. Legalize it, tax it, and regulate its use in the same way as alcohol (e.g. if you're driving after having used it, you get the stiff "you're a danger to people" penalties).

Richard Gicomeng The results of a 2007 poll revealed that when asked for a visual image associated with the “war on drugs” (WOD) the most common answer of U.S. TV viewers over the age of 25 was “a frying pan”, an obvious reference to the popular televised advertising campaign depicting two eggs frying in a skillet sunnyside up or the crazed woman smashing dishes with a frying pan inside a TV studio kitchen to illustrate what psychoactive substances do to the human brain. I think a great parody on that might be the audio of a human voice saying, “This is your brain” along with a visual image of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” that fades into a video clip of Richard Nixon delivering his June 1971 speech to members of the Knights of Columbus in New York City with the audio dub, “this is your brain fighting a war on drugs”. It’s been 35 years since Richard Nixon resigned from public office in disgrace during the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, and I still don’t think the public really understands the magnitude of devastation that this one man brought to our society with the WOD, ripping through generations… tearing families apart by not just incarcerating parents and all others, leaving children in the custody of family members until they were hurled or made their way into the streets… taking the lives of infants, children, adolescents, teenagers, adults, and senior adults – innocent people killed in SWAT raids or dying from drug overdoses and drug impurities… We have the world’s largest prison population, thanks to the WOD. We are known abroad as the “Incarceration Nation”... not to mention the $2.5 trillion spent over the past 38.5 years on what has become the world’s first global civil war… a war that has only exacerbated drug abuse, addiction, dependency… and a war that has created anti-drug disorder during the ongoing Electro-Chemical Age that defines the tools unique to the post-Industrial Evolution era from 1851 until possibly many centuries into the future. What President Richard Nixon initially introduced as “public enemy number 1”, “drug abuse”, evolved into something far different when he turned the target from the behavior to the object of that behavior, which, of course, led to the objective of targeting the subject. After all, someone has to be responsible for the collateral damage. Why not push the blame onto the drug user who is merely the victim? While Nixon’s folly raised the crime rate in the U.S. (and throughout the world), cranking out criminals where none existed, what we are doing today by identifying drug administration as an illness is making our nation the home of the sick. Now how much better can that be? Had we not learned from the 1920 to1933 prohibition on alcohol about the calamity caused by restricting humanity from the fruits of our world? If the organized crime brought about by Al Capone and a parade of gangsters in every American city and town along with the high rate of morbidity and mortality due to impurities in bootleg whiskey hadn’t been enough of a spectacle to show us that prohibition doesn’t work, then you’d think that the landslide victories FDR achieved during his unprecedented four terms in the White House after he ended prohibition would have evoked some intelligence from our political leaders. It just seems too pathetic that there are still people who continue to parrot Richard Nixon. I’m sorry. Maybe we need to start all over AGAIN. Now, pay ATTENTION because this might be our last chance for change. Are psychoactive substances a threat our society…? Let’s try a different question with the same answer: Are automobiles a threat to our society? Of course not! With the mortality rate from automobile accidents many times higher than drug overdose fatalities, President Lyndon Baines Johnson brought driver’s education into the classroom of American high schools along with automotive and road safety requirements and regulations to automobile manufacturers and road / highway engineering contractors in1966. The results have been phenomenal. America quickly became the model of roadway transportation for the rest of the world. Johnson didn’t crank out education which discourages people from driving. He didn’t invent driving-resistance education. He didn’t invent policy that humiliates, frustrates, and incarcerates drivers whose goals are to use vehicles safely. He didn’t invent laws that invited illicit motor vehicle trafficking from other nations. Johnson set the benchmark for safety and allowed foreign nation’s to compete in the free market. There has simply been no need for Mexico to smuggle vehicles across the border into the U.S. We welcome it! Our corporations are there, manufacturing vehicles that people want and need. As a result of Johnson’s common sense directive and those that followed, our fellow citizens enjoy a level of safety on the roads today that never previously existed. Automobiles are not a threat to society. We have people dying in automotive accidents every day. It’s just an unfortunate and fortuitous aspect of life that we -- as a society -- have come to accept but strive to defend ourselves against. Where there is life, mortality is inevitable. With a steady rise in the number of drug users, none of our leaders seems to have figured out yet that the main reason why people die from drug overdoses, is not the fault of the people who use and abuse drugs, it’s the fault of our leaders who have promoted a crime-riddled, and now sick environment. Instead of assuring that Americans are safe. They have brought about carnage and confusion. How can we possibly enjoy the fruits of our world when they come wrapped in little plastic baggies with no instructions? Now I ask you for the first cigarette manufacturer who bothers to print dosage information on a pack of cigarettes along with the mindless warnings about cancer. What do they think people do with these nicotine sticks? Hang them from the ceiling for decoration? And why has it taken so long for this nation to promote electronic cigarettes? Why do we have to wait until the Department of Motor Vehicles in every state to tell us how to use alcohol…safely? Dose… Time… Duration… No drug is safe when used excessively over a long duration, particularly not a psychoactive substance. We educate people how to operate a motor vehicle. Why can’t we teach people how to use drugs responsibly? Are the people in our government that out of touch with the people in our society? Have they charted on a course of personal shame to neglect sight of the American public that drives this nation and not the fearful and ignorant who sit around dreaming up commercials featuring a “frying pan”. Americans need Knowledge, Discipline, and Trust to replace the fear, ignorance, and shame that has been brought about by the WOD. The difference between a hard drug and a soft drug is the difference between driving a truck and a car. Unless these vehicles are safe and properly administered, they are garbage. And I would kindly ask the Obama administration to take the lead step in promoting the course for the next generation of drug users by starting a program of Drug Use Education. (http://www.DrugUseEducation.org)

Doomed

Given your constant rants against the Democrats, I would not have taken you for such a paternalist, Doomed.

I think you misunderstood where Im coming from. My wife is a special needs teacher. She sees the results of our blessed drug use in America every day. My wife and I sponsor many children in our school district of our own volition. These children have drugged up parents who cant afford to buy their 15 year old daughter any new clothes but they can find a way to remain messed up on drugs and booze daily. When I say that drugs are destroyers of life....thats exactly what I mean. Personally I could give a flying flip about the person whose life they personally destroyed but when their actions start ruining the lives of their children and other family members then No one can convince me of the libertarian position that DRUGs ArE a VicTimLess Crime. Evah! They are not and my wife and I have often thought about publishing a book of nothing but photographs of the children we have TRIED to help whose family members are participating in their VICTIMLESS crime. My favorite story is the 13 year old whose mother was a druggie and a prostitute. The 13 year old would come to school on Monday and my wife noticed that she would eat not only her free meal but the meals of a couple friends. After some time she found out that the daughter was left home all weekend as her mom was out pounding guys for dollars to feed her drug habit and there was no food in the house. Later that same girl disappeared only to turn up in Jail for prostitution....When asked why....to eat. The girl called my wife as her only phone call. This is just one of a 1000 stories I could tell you that we have seen over the last 3 decades. We have seen the effects of drugs.....I have lived with it all my adult life because of my wifes work. There are no victimless drugs. There is only spin, pipe dreams and a concerted effort by people whose motives must be questioned to want so desperately to legalize drugs. There is an old saying...Locks only keep honest people honest. Well...the Criminalization of drugs keep a whole lot of people clean and sober... the price of incarceration is NOTHING compared to what would happen if we ever lost our freakin minds and thought legalizing drugs was a good thing in this country.

Jeb

There are no victimless drugs. There is only spin, pipe dreams and a concerted effort by people whose motives must be questioned to want so desperately to legalize drugs.

Which is why we should immediately criminalize alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, benedril, aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofin, etc and make sure the penalties are stiff.

Doomed Ah Jeb. as the beer commercial once was proud of shouting. BRILLIANT!!!!!

Michael Merritt @Doomed Your position is clarified better now, yes. I don't deny that there are drugs that ruin lives. I assure you that I need not look far to find someone whose life nearly was ruined due to drug use. He is currently receiving help. Still, I would expect the parents of the children you and your wife try to help are most likely using drugs significantly worse than marijuana. Most of the users of marijuana do not find themselves in the same situations as the people you write about. There are exceptions, of course, but so are there with alcohol. So while I think there are drugs that need to be banned, I think the drug warriors also need to know how to pick and choose their battles. I've seen little evidence that marijuana is a drug that needs to be fought against. Regulated? Yes. But only so much as we regulate alcohol use. No more than that.

Which is why we should immediately criminalize alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, benedril, aspirin, acetaminophen, ibuprofin, etc and make sure the penalties are stiff.

Excellent. Just because it can be abused, lets ban it for everyone else that it actually helps. This is for the latter examples, of course.

Interested

So while I think there are drugs that need to be banned, I think the drug warriors also need to know how to pick and choose their battles. I’ve seen little evidence that marijuana is a drug that needs to be fought against. Regulated? Yes. But only so much as we regulate alcohol use. No more than that.

Me as someone who's never used anything stronger than alcohol or cigarettes - and staunchly against drugs - totally agree. I've never seen evidence that Weed is a gateway drug. Instead I'd think situations like someone being at a party, drunk and high on weed would lower their common sense to the point of trying harder drugs. But that'd be the extent of it. We already have laws for driving under the influence, there are already cities where the cops can do random sobriety checks, etc, etc. Weed would easily fit within the established parameters. I still wouldn't do it, but I wouldn't be yelling if it passed.

Doomed MM How do your respond to your post. I have heard it so many times in the past. Let me just say that all legislation has unintended consequences. The legalization of Marijuana is intended to get a foot in the door. Once the foot is in the door then it is the full intention of the drug crowd to get other drugs legalized as well. We all know that Shrooms, or ectasy or some forms of speed dont cause problems....or so the claims go. Once the nation is desensitized and become ambivalent to these drugs then its very easy to move on to more serious drugs. The spin of course is I am full of BS. Really. Abortions will be funded as regulations will be written after the bill passes that says it only takes a doctors say so that the mother is in danger to pay for abortions via health care. Its easy to fall into dark holes once legislation is in place. That is precisely what will happen with the legalization of Marijuana. Once a strict bill is passed it will be circumvented, watered down and changed till its unrecognizable by regulators tasked with overseeing the implementation of our drug health. Dont believe me.......see the EPA and their attempts to regulate CO2 and their declaration that it is harmful to our health. They in effect are also going to try and regulate the earths oceans based upon faulty science. Gee I wonder if we can get honest research about drugs once the drug czars start paying huge research grants to the drug scientists to give their products glowing reports.

John Schlesinger Good article. A society that has to choose whether or not to give its citizens some of the most basic rights goes by certain name. I thought we are better than that. Also see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv4sA7v65mk

Michael Merritt @Doomed Oh, come on! You're going with "slippery slope" as your argument? I have never liked that one very much, because it allows you to claim that anything will happen, and without evidence. I try not to use it myself.

Once the foot is in the door then it is the full intention of the drug crowd to get other drugs legalized as well.

I have simply not seen this from the pro-weed crowd. Yes, there are shroomers a ravers that would like nothing more than those drugs to be legalized, but I'm not sure they're a majority.

Dont believe me…….see the EPA and their attempts to regulate CO2 and their declaration that it is harmful to our health. They in effect are also going to try and regulate the earths oceans based upon faulty science.

So your argument that de-regulating marijuana will lead to the legalization of harder and even less healthy drugs - that you say supporters will claim to not be so bad - rests on the case that the government is currently regulating something based on its unhealthiness? I'm not sure that makes much sense. Should the argument not be that because the government is regulating CO2 that they will further regulate drugs?

Jim Hilsenteger One of the main issues of Drug Prohibition is the money. The profit from selling illegal drugs has wrecked havoc on Mexico. To think the corruption of drug money will not have a similar impact on the US is, in my humble opinion, arrogant. Another example of following the money is school children. The illegal profits from drugs encourage dealers to go into our schools to sell their wares. Why would we want to continue with a policy that encourages kids to try harmful drugs? At the bare minimum, we should be debating this drug policy in Congress. As stated by earlier posts, this War has had a huge cost to society, greater than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Surely we can develop a more effective policy to treat drug abuse.

Interested

Jim Hilsenteger : One of the main issues of Drug Prohibition is the money. The profit from selling illegal drugs has wrecked havoc on Mexico. To think the corruption of drug money will not have a similar impact on the US is, in my humble opinion, arrogant.

True that. I recall a quick little diddy in College about a Sheriff in some small-ish Massachusetts city that cracked down hard on the Drug scene. And was quite successful. So successful that local merchants began grumbling that they were loosing revenue due to the drop in extra customers and the less money in the local area.

Doomed Yes I have been on many slippery slopes in my life time. Many people have died on slippery slopes. Slippery slopes are dangerous. But rest assured MM this American government is going to legalize Marijuana in the coming years ahead for two very important reasons. 1. Once the mind boggling costs of health care become realized they will look for new and inventive ways to find income. 2. The democrats/left want desperately to control your lives. Legalizing drugs will force low income people to spend an even greater share of their incomes on highly taxed drugs forcing them to be even further beholden to a system that puts them in poverty and passes laws to keep them there. Go study the sentencing of CRACK vs COCAINE users if you doubt this. Laws were passed to hand out stiff sentencing for CRACK users and milder, sometimes simply probation for cocaine users...Why? Crack is predominately the drug of choice of poor people and Cocaine is the drug of choice for the more affluent. Poor are drags on our society. In jail? Out of jail? We still have to pay for them....but the wealthy...we dont want them going to jail and loosing their incomes now do we....nope...probation for the cocaine user. We want his tax dollars and his productive income. With the help of the "selfish, ego centric" Libertarian crowd you will get your drugs legalized MM. Its the next, natural and progressive step towards the government taxing more and more of your income until this great nation is crushed under a mind boggling mountain of taxation. Look at the perhaps millions of people Alcohol has killed in the last 80 years. Why is it not banned? Because it represents and inordinate amount of tax dollars into local, state and National coffers. Why do we let people get multiple DWI's and not have them incarcerated....easy....drivers most likely WORK...workers most likely pay taxes....cant mess with revenue flow can we??? Why are cigarettes not banned? Same reasonings. Taxation and if you can afford to pay for them you are most likely WORKING. Making them more expensive makes you more beholden to the system the closer you are to that cut off dollar income amount. Why are drugs not legal? Because we have simply not come to the point yet where we can justify the tax haul outweighting the healthcare and social burden it will create. That is soon to change. It has always been in the Saul Alinsky playbook to legalize drugs and to further repress the repressable in this nation. CREATE A CRISIS. This government is now creating a crisis of DEFICITS and have the cover of blaming it on Bush and somehow part of this nation is buying that bunk. Control over your lives is the aim of this Multiheaded, Unconstitutional government driven by years of radicals going undercover to gain control of its halls in a massive conspiracy to take over and restore America to its rightful place. Marxist Nirvana.

nicrivera Thanks, Michael, for drawing attention to Mary Grabar's pro-Drug War article--an article riddled with so many logical fallacies (Mary: libertarians should oppose legalization because it "is supported by the same forces that promote Kevin Jennings, one-world government, Gaia worship, and legalized prostitution") that I lost count in reading. Mary Grabar calls herself a conservative. But apparently, her definition of conservativism does not include support for limited government or free market capitalism. Mary Grabar and other conservatives like her need to learn that the basic laws of economics don't suddenly suspend themselves whenever it comes to those issues in which they support government intervention. Prohibition--which is exactly what Mary Grabar is advocating--is a misguided policy that is based upon the flawed notion that the basic laws of supply and demand can be suspended if the government simply tries hard enough to bring Mary's utopian moral order on the rest of society.

Todd "The democrats/left want desperately to control your lives" And the republicans/right are *all* homophobes who love NASCAR and have living rooms full of decorative Jesus procelain! Haw haw! This isn't a Palin rally, Doomed. Someone is going to call you out when you try to glibly smear millions of your countrymen.

Doomed Todd. Your proclamation about the right is pretty much exactly what the left says about them in toto. Is it not? At another site we are debating racism and how the GOP is FULLY loaded for bear with racists. Tea-baggers are fully representative of the GOP. AS far as being called out. Go for it Todd. Prove to me that the Democrats policy is not to keep the poor in perpetual poverty. Show me one piece of legislation which lifts people out of poverty and puts them on the fast track to no longer being beholden to a system that is designed to perpetual racial division, ethnic division, neighborhood purity and class warfare? You can call me out all you want but how about some substance to your verbage.

Todd "Your proclamation about the right is pretty much exactly what the left says about them in toto. Is it not?" The rhetoric across the aisle has certainly stepped up lately, and good faith is hard to come by. I'm not ready to say who started the escalation or which side is more prone to escalate and less prone to show good faith (and neither are you, so let's drop that point). What I can say is that my proclamation about right-wingers would not be endorsed or repeated by major left-wing bloggers or pundits (in the same sense that many right-wing pundits with good faith would not resort to your childish generalizations). "Tea-baggers are fully representative of the GOP." Far from "fully". But they wield too much clout and infuence. "Prove to me that the Democrats policy is not to keep the poor in perpetual poverty." Prove to me that you are not a rapist. Chop chop.

Jim Hilsenteger The sad part of drug reform is the subject is never really debated. As shown by some of the posts above, the conversation quickly drifts to Right vs Left, Poor vs Rich, Healthcare, Abortions, etc. Yes, there are many issues we need to deal with as a society. In my opinion, a more constructive process is take one of these issues, research it, analyze it, debate it, then come up with a new policy and see what happens. If need be, continue to modify the policy until it comes closer to meeting the stated objectives. If we choose to call each other names, have a tantrum, go off topic or throw sand in someone's face, we do not have a hope of dealing with our problems.

nicrivera With the help of the “selfish, ego centric” Libertarian crowd you will get your drugs legalized MM. Libertarians believe that individuals should be able to make decisions for themselves when it comes to drug use. In contrast, Doomed believes he should be able to make these decisions for you. Yet, according to Doomed, it's Libertarians who are being selfish.

Doomed nicrivera I did not decide it was illegal to take or possess drugs. I have no say in legislation. There is nothing I can say or do that will affect the drug policy of this nation. How is it nic that its become my decision rather to legalize or not legalize drugs? As one well known libertarian blogger once proudly proclaimed at his website......It should be my right to drive 100 mph thru a school zone, snorting cocaine and drinking whiskey as long as no one gets hurt. Libertarians believe drugs are victimless crime. I have been making the case that they are not victimless drugs therefore the libertarian point of view is moot even though in the end they will over rule sensibilities of a nation who is knee deep in debt to find more ways to garner tax dollars. But sorry to disappoint Nic....I have ZERO to do with the drug policy of this nation.....only an opinion.

Jim Hilsenteger So Doomed, what is your opinion of the drug policy? What works, what does not?

Doomed

Prove to me that you are not a rapist. Chop chop.

3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

Doomed Jim Our drug policy is a farce. It unduly penalizes the poor and it unduly makes it easy on the not so poor. This can be seen in the drugs of choice for the poor.....Crack....and the drugs of choice for the rich....Cocaine. I advocate strongly for the end of poverty. The renewal of hope. The end of suffering and the end of policies that inflict perpetual poverty on the poor. Until we lift people out of the desperation that normally puts them in positions to spend rent money on drugs and booze. Until we give them hope and a future by offering them a meaningful existence....NO I do not mean more AIDE.... Until we do these things then we will simply keep putting more people in Jail and we will not do anything to solve the root causes of why they are there in the first place. Until you find a vaccine....incarcerating druggies is nothing more then treating cancer with a bandaide and aspirin. True not everyone will take that vaccine but so many will that the drugies who end up in prison would most likely be there for good reasons. The wealthy. The rich. The working stiff that can make ends meet and chooses to take drugs out of boredom or personal reasons, chooses to do so out of his own personal choices. Those that are poor and in slums, ghettos and projects they are the ones that have my sympathies and they are the ones that need the help and the hope to lift them from poverty to empowerment. Once they are empowered then let them choose drugs as a choice and not out of desperation. Then the drug policies of this nation will take on a fairer and more balanced approach. If a rich man wants to ruin his life with drugs....let him. If a poor man ruins his life because he has not hope, no way out then I say, take my hand...lets help you get a life so that you have something to loose. As it stands now the poor and desperate on drugs have nothing to loose and a whole lot of misery to shed by taking drugs. The war on drugs is a war on the poor. Period.

Jim Hilsenteger Doomed I agree there is a need to develop policies that offer hope to those that believe there is no hope. I have been told that one reason people take drugs is to numb the pain. If life was an adventure and full of possibilities then there would likely be less interest in abusing drugs (prescription or illicit). Following this line of thinking, the money that is spent to enforce drug prohibition could be spent on strategies to educate and empower the less fortunate, resulting in more opportunities to find meaningful work. We need a mind shift from prisons to schools. The benefit to the poor is enjoying a more meaningful life; the benefit to the rich is less violence and a more productive society.

Doomed Amen Jim. I am a conservative. I am a Christian. I am deeply moved by the poor, suffering and heart broken. The people that have no hope. I say as a nation we give them hope. We empower them to move from the slums to the suburbs. When we do this. When we empower them they will be a PART of the system and not beholden to the system. As it stands now. They have no hope and drugs offer a break from the reality of hopelessness. I say boldly and dare anyone to prove me wrong that the Democrats only perpetuate their poverty to make themselves relevant. When we embolden them to move on the it will force the Democrats to change and it will make America a much better place in which as you say their is less violence and way less poverty and way more hope and aspirations to greatness. Poverty is our Cancer. If we dont cure it soon we will die as a nation. Drugs are only a symptom of the disease.

Jim Hilsenteger Doomed I used to be a Catholic, now I am (hopefully) a spiritual person. I used to be a far right conservative, now I believe in some sort of balance between the free market economy and helping the less fortunate. I hope we will be able to throw away the handles of Democrats, Republicans, and just focus on solving the problems. I have a hunch there are a number of Dems and Reps that support your view. The solutions to the drug problem resides in both camps, lets encourage them to talk. I agree with your statement, "Drugs are only a symptom of the disease".

nicrivera Doomed wrote:

I did not decide it was illegal to take or possess drugs. I have no say in legislation. There is nothing I can say or do that will affect the drug policy of this nation. How is it nic that its become my decision rather to legalize or not legalize drugs?

I'm sorry. Did I mistate your position on drug legalization? It was my impression that you supported drug prohibition based upon the following comments you made:

Well…the Criminalization of drugs keep a whole lot of people clean and sober

the price of incarceration is NOTHING compared to what would happen if we ever lost our freakin minds and thought legalizing drugs was a good thing in this country.

With the help of the “selfish, ego centric” Libertarian crowd you will get your drugs legalized MM.

Based upon your comments, I don't see how anyone could arrive at any conclusion other than that you wish to continue drug prohibition. Your argument that you weren't one of the politicians who actually voted in favor of our drug laws seems like a bit of a cop-op to me. You don't want others to use drugs, and by supporting drug prohibition, you are supporting the government's actions to force your views on others. That you support Drug Prohibition for altruistic or economic reasons is irrelevant. Drug Prohibition is nothing more than using state-sanctioned violence against people using drugs that you don't personally approve of. You called youself a conservative earlier. But apparently, your version of conservatism does not include a very strong respect for limited goverment or free market capitalism. Drug prohibition runs contrary to both.