Stop Senseless War On DrugsDay after day US citizens are imprisoned by state for “victim-less” crimes, people are denied their most basic natural right: that to private ownership of their own bodies. Law states a woman has the right to her body thus she can have an The war on drugs being in action for several decades, the time has come to realize that this senseless battle to end drug use simply does not work and actually causes more harm than intended good. Our prison system is over loaded with “criminals” convicted of drug use/possession. The supposed criminal caused no harm to anyone other than himself in these “victimless” crimes. This should not even constitute a crime in such a case.
People, both young and old, who have never been in trouble, find themselves locked away because they carried several ounces of one drug or another. Sentences can be as harsh as five years!
Spending for the War on Drugs has in the past decade increased from $1.5 billion a year to more than $40 billion combined state and federal funding,
Our state prisons have become a state-sponsored incubator for HCV as many drug users are infected with the Hepatitis C virus. According to Texas prison health officials, a years worth of treatment costs about $10,000 per inmate. (Other There is the notion that drugs cause crime. In reality, as evidence so clearly proves, it is the drug war, not the drugs, which creates the crime.
The war on drugs is a war on our own people. Your wealth is confiscated through taxes and used against you, to take away your personal freedom. Today’s drug warriors show reckless disregard for nine of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights. They micro-monitor bank transactions, seize assets without due process, impose draconian fines and sentences on non-violent people, routinely kick in doors in “no-knock” raids, and–here is the most damnable aspect of the Drug War–deny medication to suffering and dying people who have exhausted all other avenues of relief. Law enforcement resources are used in this hopeless effort, instead of being used to protect you from violent criminals. And much of the crime is directly caused by the drug war, by users stealing to buy artificially expensive drugs, and by suppliers fighting against law enforcement and each other for turf. Those with a drug problem have a medical problem, but are reluctant to get medical treatment for fear of the law. The legal system takes citizens away from their work and incarcerates them at our expense. All of these problems are caused by the drug war, and it solves nothing. Our drug warriors cannot even keep drugs out of jails, so keeping them away from the general population is hopeless. For young people, drugs are more accessible than alcohol, because alcohol is legal and can be regulated. Sales representatives from the local liquor store are not down at the high school pushing drinks. The War on Drugs supports the prison industry. Since we’ve put 2 million people behind bars, building, supplying, and running prisons has become big business. This alignment of government and business in running the prison system is called the prison-industrial complex. The War on Drugs serves those who maintain political control by disenfranchising minorities. Convicted criminals generally can’t vote; the ACLU estimates that the War on Drugs has permanently disenfranchised 14% of African-American men. We used to use poll taxes and literacy tests to keep people from voting; now we have the War on Drugs. The reason that Hemp is illegal in America today is because the main families in America (Masons), the Harrimans and Rockefellers (Standard Oil), the Whitneys (Eli Whitney-Cotton Gin), Dupont (Chemicals in wood pulp processing and cotton pesticides), and Hearst (Newspapers, Media) find it more profitable to sell us unnecessary chemicals, unneeded dug-up petroleum oil, immune system destroying pharmaceuticals, and axed up trees cut into real thin slices, all at over-inflated prices and at the expense of our health and living environment. For these companies, the real problem is that one cannot patent a natural plant. Almost everything produced in America by large corporations is exported for sale on the world markets. The total value of oil, petrochemicals, and pharmaceutical sales totals hundreds of billions of dollars. However, with the availability of over 50,000 new products and the necessity to manufacture them, America would be a much richer nation if the farmers and the average citizen were allowed to grow this valuable crop. Keeping drugs illegal is one of the mainstays of the economy. The trade in illegal drugs is greater than that of motor vehicles and textiles combined, and this huge flow of capital ($1.5 trillion annually) is laundered through banks and financial institutions, primarily American companies; it does not sit under the mattresses of Colombian gangsters, gaining mildew and no interest. If the profit motives were suddenly removed by mass global decriminalization, and drugs were made available to users via clinics and pharmacies, legally, regulated, taxed (and regarded as a medical issue) then suddenly 15% of the flow of dirty capital through big financial institutions would dry up. A UN study of this some years back indicated that to legalize drugs would cause anything from a huge recession to the complete collapse of the world banking system, (although the system in time would recover its equilibrium after the shake-up). One bank (BCCI) was caught redhanded in one of those unbelievably rare instances of enforcement of the law at the top levels in society. Imagine the shift in burden from being a tax liability, with billions being spent on this insane war-on-drugs which will never be won, to being a potential source of revenue, where the proceeds would go into educational and treatment programs! America is hooked on traditional approaches, even if proven time after time to be uneffective, counter-productive or both, and any sensible/balanced approach to the drug situation will be seen by much of the public, who have been “educated” (brainwashed) in reefer-madness-ology regarding drugs, as “going soft on crime”. Muttering about legalization/decriminalization is seen as a death sentence for any politician. No matter what, as long as the powers-that-be in the world of big business and Wall St continues to reap huge profits from the illegal drug trade and its spin-offs, then nothing will change.
Then there is an (exhaustively documented) issue of U.S. agencies (C.I.A. et al) deliberately importing and distributing cocaine, thereby creating a large user base which in turn furnishes huge returns to the banks through which the proceeds go. And another current issue…..during the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan, opium production fell to nearly zero…now the Northern Alliance and its allies have “taken over” and a record harvest of opium is forecast as farmers go back to growing poppies. Expect huge amounts of cheap heroin to be flooding into the USA in due course….to get that drug-money rolling again and prop up those Wall St. profits. The truth is if people want to use drugs, or want to experiment with altering their consciousness, then no amount of draconian laws will stop them. People have been taking recreational drugs for thousands of years, and they aren’t going to stop now because a roomful of suits have arbitrarily decided that they must. The problems all started when laws were made to supposedly frighten people out of indulging, but in reality were designed to protect the interests of certain powerful corporations. DuPont (re. marijuana) is a classic case. Drug dealers prosper because they satisfy demands. Millions of Americans are so morally and spiritually bankrupt that they will do anything for a cheap thrill and there is not one thing that government can do about this. If someone’s going to get hooked, then they are going to get hooked: it’s to do with the character of the person and not the nature of the drug itself. Some will go for whisky, some for cigarettes, some for speed and a tiny percentage will go for heroin. If drugs are decriminalized, do you honestly think that suddenly, everyone will get up and suddenly say lets go get smashed now because Uncle Sam says I can”? One hundred years ago, it was perfectly legal for a ten-year old to walk into the local drug store and buy heroin, and we had nowhere near the problems we have today. Why? Because raising kids was the duty of parents and churches. If you are really serious about keeping your kids off drugs, you have got to look somewhere–anywhere–besides the government. The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is and If totalitarianism is the price you are willing to pay for a drug-free society, then move to such a country such as China..They cracked down hard and solved the drug problem.
It is universally known that cigarettes will probably kill you, and heroin will turn you into a junkie. Then there is that grossest of double standards regarding the relative status of tobacco, the biggest killer of them all. Tobacco behemoth R.J. Reynolds (and others) manufacture and market a product that kills nearly a half million Americans each year, (in terms of fatalities, that’s a World Trade Center scale disaster every 2.5 DAYS) and everybody sits back and says…oh, thats OK, they are a big corporation, so it must be just fine. And whats more they and others contribute megabucks to the Republican-Democrat ‘axis of medieval-outlook’. Strange and baffling; how sick we are. If tobacco were illegal, the industry would be overtaken by a different set of gangsters who have even less ethical standards than the current batch of scumbags (if that was possible), and would put tobacco addicts in contact with dealers who most likely would trade in other illegal drugs, in the same way many folk who are looking for some pot may well be offered harder drugs, by constantly having to use those who operate on the black market. If only America and the rest of the world would simultaneously turn to a sensible approach, such as that operating in the Netherlands. It’s not perfect but it is an order of magnitude better than the corrupt and destructive system in place in the U.S. The problem is all to do with too many people in positions of power in the areas of financial services, law-enforcement, military, and organized crime suddenly finding themselves taking a big financial hit. The Drug War has become a veritable addiction for many of those who support it. While it may make its proponents feel good temporarily, it provides no solution to what is ultimately a moral and spiritual problem. We do not need a national drug control policy nearly as much as we need individual self-control. This is a virtue that no “policy” can instill. The problem of drug use is a personal one and can only be resolved by those whom it affects! Government is a fearful master when it gets as large and corrupt as it is today. We need to return responsibility back to the individual, and bring the government back under the very limited roles it is supposed to play as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes.” Watch Videos
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