Edward Schumacher-Matos in the Washington Post:
The best thing that can be said about the 23,000 people who have been killed during Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s campaign against drug cartels in the last three years is that it proves that the war on drugs will never work.
President Obama calls Calderon Mexico’s Elliott Ness and is receiving him today in an official state visit. […]
But Elliott Ness never stopped illegal liquor. The lifting of Prohibition did. Similarly, the only solution to the drug trafficking and violence on both sides of the border is to legalize drugs.
That, however, won’t be on the agenda in the talk between the two presidents.
Nice to see this kind of frank talk in the media at least, even though it’s not happening in official meetings.
And the use of the word ‘prohibition’ by the media is directly attributable to readers here and at other blogs who wrote LTE’s to their local media outlets and kept using the word until the media got the hint and began using it on their own. Persistence pays off.
The war on drugs is a government jobs program for sadistic goons, nothing more. We can see that clearly, and now the media seems to be joining the calls to stop wasting money for nothing (about time).
But what other massive government spending programs are worthless? Quite a few, actually.
The War in Iraq is an expensive failure (still haven’t found the WMDs or accomplished any of the original goals, but the killing continues). The whole War on Terror seems to be another jobs program for sadistic goons rather than a protector of Americans. We certainly are not safer after spending 3 trillion for “security”. We have 16 separate spy agencies and nobody knows where Osama is. Sixteen?
No Child Left Behind is an expensive failure (Now all American kids fall farther behind, rather than just a few).
Dept. of Homeland Security/TSA is a laughable failure (couldn’t stop the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber or the Times Square bomber – all three were idiots and yet they were not caught so who is dumber?).
Securities and Exchange Commission (couldn’t detect or stop Bernie Madoff, couldn’t detect or stop the market crash, couldn’t detect or stop naked shorting, etc.).
Dept. of Interior Oil Management Office (corrupt as hell, gave special favors to oil companies and didn’t protect against current BP spill).
ONDCP – the Director admits failure of the 40 year drug war in an AP interview. The former Director says the tens of thousands of killings in Mexico mean that “we are winning”. Enough said.
Bottom Line: Our current Federal Government (and the people who work in it, more importantly) enables and promotes many tragic and expensive failures which only benefit those Federal Employees who support the failed programs. This won’t change until those failed programs are ended and the people sent packing.
We have become two nations – We the People and They the Federal Employees. They no longer serve the public, only themselves.
Here’s a good article on why the latest fantasy, er, I mean plan, to stop the flow of drugs will fail.
Did president Barry the messiah® bow to Senòr Calderon?
no we can’t: I have no idea what that means. Are you making a comment about drug policy? Or anything relevant?
Default FEDERAL Judge to allow Medical Defense In Marijuana Cultivation Case – Landmark Case
Steele’s Case – Steele and Theresa Smith are currently under Federal Indictment for “conspiracy to manufacture at least 1,000 marijuana plants” while operating a legally established Non-Profit Medical Collective. This is a landmark case.For the first time ever, a judge is going to allow a medical marijuana defense to be heard by a jury in a Federal Courtroom. Should Steele and Theresa prevail, the ramifications would be national in scope. A win here could mean legal access to medical marijuana for needy patients across the country. A loss could mean ten (10) years in Federal Prison. There is a lot on the line. This case is worthy of your support and involvement.
How about a link, Clay, so we can be a little better informed?
http://www.steelescase.org/ is all I have found so far.
Talk about judicial nullification. If this is allowed it sets a precedent. And possible appeals for a bunch of convicted people. Plus possible m/m defenses in state courts,since they are so fond of pointing out that federal law overrides state law.
CNN interview w/ Gil Kerlikowske, posted 2 hours ago at FedNews, subscription req’d: CNN INTERVIEW WITH GIL KERLIKOWSKE, NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY DIRECTOR INTERVIEWER: TONY HARRIS
SUBJECT: WAR ON DRUGS
Too bad I don’t have a subscriotion,can you enlighten us on the interview Allan?
Yeah, has it been reposted on mapinc?
Caught the interview today as I was eating lunch. Wasn’t much substance, Tony Harris led off nicely by stating that America is the biggest consumer of Columbian and Mexican cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. Gil confirmed these statistics but Tony didn’t follow up with the right hook which would have been: “then why are we continuing the current policy?” Rather he asked about Gil’s statement in the AP article in which he stated that the war on drugs wasn’t working blah blah blah. Fairly softball interview however CNN all week during Tony Harris’ shift has examined the war on drugs, which has been nice to see at least SOME coverage of our issue. Unfortunately throughout that coverage during this week I’m pretty sure they have not had a single person from Drug Policy Alliance, LEAP, MPP, or NORML so it has not been as in-depth or hard-hitting as I would have hoped. However my expectations for the mainstream media are almost non-existent at this point (bear in mind these are the types of talking heads who make the leap that Rand Paul is a racist because he thinks parts of the Civil Rights Act are an unconstitutional expansion of federal power).
thanks for the rundown on the interview Shap… I didn’t view the vid either, also not a subscriber.
… and just a note on the AP’s big report on the WOD, GoogleNews showed 800+ sources for the story… thud!
I watched Calderon in Congress yesterday and was dumbstruck by one statement. “Reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban!”
Just what we need, another BAN, another PROHIBITION. Why do they have to always jump to the extreme end of the spectrum when all the really have to do is “Control and Regulate” as the laws they wrote tell them to do? A US BAN won’t stop weapons moving into Mexico. Never has and never will.
Prohibition is the simpleton’s way of solving problems. “If it’s bad, we’ll just make it illegal.” It takes zero thought to come up with an idea like prohibition and it does not surprise me that it is the preferred solution by our politicians that definitely cannot be described as deep thinkers.