Comments on: U.S. Drug Policy Losing Global Support

By: BruceM

BruceM — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:07:25 +0000

Ending drug prohibition will be harder than ending slavery. Nobody ever said ending slavery would be bad for the children, and nobody ever invoked “the slave children” because they were not considered people (that was the whole problem).

As long as people are allowed to invoke fears about “the children” nothing will ever change. “The Children” is the single most powerful rhetorical device ever … but it’s an american thing that started when we gave women the right to vote – suddenly the maternal instinct singularly guided 50% of the voting base.

By: Paul Murray

Paul Murray — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:21:23 +0000

“But that grip is weakening … because …”

The other reason why the grip of the US is weakening internationally is that it is losing wars. If your authority is based on force, losing wars means that you lose your authority.

Someone once had this lunatic idea that the US should lead the world by example.

By: paul

paul — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:34:33 +0000

I know drug laws and the attitudes that support them seem eternal, but so did Communism, Prohibition, the Berlin Wall, and the British Empire. All came down in the end.

America CAN change. We ended slavery and we are pushing racism behind us. Women can vote and are fully equal members of society now. Those are big things that were enormously difficult for our country to overcome.

So don’t lose hope. There are lots of people out there right now fighting for freedom like us, and we’ve seen that historically freedom sometimes wins big victories. I’m hoping we can win without America having to go down, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Empire retreat back to our own shores.

As Milton Friedman said, (I paraphrase) “We know that the cause of freedom is in retreat all the time, but what can we do? We’re not going to just fold up our tents and go home.”

By: jayrollinhippie

jayrollinhippie — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:09:05 +0000

A snowball rolling down A mountain side soon becomes an avalance

By: claygooding

claygooding — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:31:39 +0000

I realize that cartels only exist as long as prohibition exists,but since I believe that our leaders are going to take us over the cliff with the pedal too the metal,there will always be a cartel. There is already a tobacco cartel forming now because they have raised the price so high,and they can provide cigarettes at 1/2 the price. The same will be true of marijuana,they will price the weed too high,and the cartels will just continue,maybe with less profit than now,but still
making money.

By: ezrydn

ezrydn — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:42:48 +0000

The sound of falling dominoes has a distinctive sound. Heard it much lately? Sorta makes ya want to hum a few cords of “blowin’ in the wind,” don’t it?

And you notice, it’s not huge, gigantic steps, either. It’s a little step here and a little step there. 2009 is showing itself to be a “slaughter” year for the prohibs.

What ever each and every one of us is doing…is working! While our own country might not hears us, it would seem the rest of the world does.

By: BruceM

BruceM — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:52:06 +0000

jway: by “we” i hope you don’t mean the US. America doesn’t allow treaties to control itself. Most are not even “self-executing” and all treaties are on the same level as statutes. A statute passed later in time controls and supersedes a treaty adopted earlier.

The Single Convention is just something the US falls back on to have some legitimacy when it threatens other countries to pass/enforce their drug laws and lock up more of their citizens.

By: kaptinemo

kaptinemo — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:31:35 +0000

jway, the problem is that it will require a bloc of the present signatory nations to signal their ‘denunciation’ of the Treaty. Needless to say, the nations that do so must be able to stand up to the US’s (inevitably mindless) blustering regarding the ‘moral hazards’ involved and have the economic wherewithal to withstand any idiotic sanctions that might be imposed…the latter aspect being the most important.

But the way things are going, imposition of sanctions for displeasing Uncle are themselves likely to backfire, given the present wildly imbalanced trade conditions and singularly lousy economy we ‘enjoy’. We need the world’s goods more than the world needs our markets, seeing as we don’t produce very much anymore besides MBA’s.

So…if a number of nations decided they were fed up both with the Treaty and with Uncle’s interference in their affairs under the rubric of ‘drug control’ and they see an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, then international drug control would be doomed. It might take a while to die, but in the process more nations will ditch the Treaty for their own reasons, leaving Uncle with a handful of sycophant nations feeling like a bunch of Flat Earthers at a cartography symposium. As well they should…

By: jway

jway — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:40:53 +0000

We must demand the repeal of the Single Convention! How can we allow ourselves to be controlled by an obsolete piece of paper when support for its prohibition is dying in every country that signed it?

If we are free people then we must be free to decide what laws we want to control us. We must NOT allow our freedoms to be constrained by the mistakes of those who preceded us.

By: kaptinemo

kaptinemo — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:04:57 +0000

Uh, Clay? I think what happens when a government gives up on the (Sisyphean) task of drug prohibition, and decides on more rational policies, is that the illegal drug cartels find themselves out of jobs, as the artificial price supports that prohibition provides disappear.

Cartels thrive in countries which prohibit the items they supply. The cartels wither when those countries decide to stop supporting them indirectly with drug prohibition. That’s why the cartels are amongst the greatest supporters of drug prohibition. And it would be interesting indeed to comb through the private donations of many so-called ‘anti-drug’ organizations; I’d wager that a lot of the money that comes in that way came from people whose livelihood is directly dependent upon the trade….and they don’t want that disrupted.