War on Drugs

"Can any policy, however high-minded, be moral if it leads to widespread corruption, imprisons so many, has so racist an effect, destroys our inner cities, wreaks havoc on misguided and vulnerable individuals, and brings death and destruction to foreign countries ? " Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Winner, Economics

A sensible person ... might wonder why we criminalize the use of cocaine and heroin, not to mention marijuana, while we tolerate and even celebrate alcohol consumption. Of course, we learned long ago that prohibition of alcohol was bound to fail. So a sensible person might propose that we consider ending prohibition of drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, which pose much less threat to the public safety than alcohol, or at least reduce harsh penalties for their use. But sensible people have had little influence over the nation’s drug policies.

Listening to bureaucrats and politicians boast about the drug war, you have to wonder what they’re smoking. The war on drugs has been one of the biggest public policy disasters of the last twenty-five years. It has not reduced drug use; it has instead increased violent crime attendant on illegal drug trafficking, and police corruption, just as the prohibition of alcohol increased criminal activity and graft in the 1920s. It has eroded civil liberties, particularly constitutional protections against unwarranted searches and seizures. The war on drugs has greatly exacerbated the terrible problem of gun violence. The illegal drug trade not only creates violence; it pays for bigger and better guns. It has helped finance the arms race in the streets.

The war on drugs has also created a crisis in prison over crowding. People are sent to state and federal prison for long terms, five, ten, or twenty years, for nonviolent, low-level drug offenses." Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials: Wendy Kaminer

Why the 'War on Drugs' is wrong.

$15B narcoterrorism war to be outsourced 14 Sep 2007 The U.S. Defense Department has invited five contractors to bid on elements of a new, multibillion dollar effort to combat [expand] the global flow of illegal drugs allegedly used to finance terrorism. Awarded by the Pentagon’s Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office in Dahlgren, Va., the contract vehicle has a potential value of $15 billion over five years. One participant is ARINC, a Maryland-based provider of airline communications systems

When evaluating the 'War on Drugs' consider the Prohibition that led to the 18th Amendment.

Gary Webb in his own words. (video about 8 minutes.)

Gary Webb—San Jose Mercury News, Pulitzer Prize winner. In 1996, I wrote a series of stories that began this way: For the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods gangs of LA and funneled millions in drug profits to a guerilla army run by the CIA. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America….The story was developing a momentum all of its own, despite a virtual news blackout from the major media. Ultimately, it was public pressure that forced the national newspapers into the fray. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times published stories, but spent little time exploring the CIA’s activities. Instead, my reporting and I became the focus of their scrutiny. It was remarkable [Mercury News editor] Ceppos wrote, that the four Washington Post reporters assigned to debunk the series “could not find a single significant factual error.” A few months later, the Mercury News [due to intense CIA pressure] backed away from the story, publishing a long column by Ceppos apologizing for “shortcomings.” The New York Times hailed Ceppos for “setting a brave new standard,” and splashed his apology on their front page, the first time the series had ever been mentioned there. I quit the Mercury News not long after that….Do we have a free press today? Sure. It’s free to report all the sex scandals, all the stock market news, [and] every new health fad that comes down the pike. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff—such stories are not even open for discussion. (click for more)

CIA complicity in drug running.

Hitz Report

Contra/Crack series

Arguments to show US Government involvement in the Drug Trade, similar to the Iran-Contra affair: CIA-ISI Drug connection and Guns-Oil-Drugs (G.O.D.).

The war on drugs is a war on the American people.

Marijuana is the largest US cash crop. (video)

American Drug War (on-line movie) 

Senator Gravel on the War on Drugs

Iowa Independent: The Progressive magazine reports that you think
marijuana should be legal and available next to beer in liquor stores.
Is that true? What about cocaine and methamphetamine?

Sen. Gravel-Alaska: It sure is true. When are we are going to learn. We went
through the Depression and we realized how we created all the gangsters
and the violence. When FDR came in he wiped out Prohibition. We need to
wipe out this whole war on drugs. We spend $50 billion to $70 billion a
year. We create criminals that aren’t criminals. We destabilize foreign
countries. With respect, to marijuana, Doug, I’ll tell you what: Go get
yourself a fifth of scotch or a fifth of gin and chug-a-lug it down and
you’ll find you lose your senses a lot faster than you would smoking
some marijuana.

Independent Iowa: Yeah, I’m 37, I think most people in my generation
agree with that point on marijuana. What about cocaine and meth?

Sen. Gravel: We need to legalize the regulation of drugs. The drug
problem is a public health problem. It’s not a criminal problem. We make
  it a criminal problem because we treat people like criminals. You take
a drug addict, you throw him in jail, you leave him there, and he learns
the criminal trade so that when he gets out you have recidivism. 

Full interview here:
http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=131

Bibliography

Under the Influence: Preston Peet

The big white lie : the CIA and the cocaine/crack epidemic : an undercover odyssey / Michael Levine with Laura Kavanau-Levine. 1993

Dark Alliance: Gary Webb

Smoke and Mirrors: Dan Baum

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