$1 Trillion Flushed Down The Toilet With A Buncha Pot
Via reason, the AP reports on the disastrous failure of the 40-year-old drug war, which has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and which, as the headline says, "has met none of its goals":
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked."In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."...
Some of where the money's gone:
_ $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year...._ $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
_ $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses....
Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.
"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."...
"For every drug dealer you put in jail or kill, there's a line up to replace him because the money is just so good," says Walter McCay, who heads the non-profit Center for Professional Police Certification in Mexico City.
Some reality in government for once. And what is sad is that because it came under Barry's watch it will never see the light of day. Well it wouldn't under a Republican president either. :-(
Legalize pot and tax the hell out of it. $20 for a pack of pre-rolled joints. $5 to the manufacturer. $5 to the state government, $5 to the fed, $5 to cover on-demand treatment.
And I will repeat it again and again:
Jim P. at May 15, 2010 4:52 AM
"Prohibition does NOT work!"
And alcohol is a resounding public success, with benefits for all!
One more time: The misbehavior or malfeasance of public agents is not an endorsement for illegal activity. They are two seperate things.
It remains that drug users just want to drug themselves, and screw anyone else.
Radwaste at May 15, 2010 6:17 AM
No, waste. We are saying stop making it illegal and most of the worst problems go away.
Prohibition does NOT work!
irlandes at May 15, 2010 7:37 AM
C'mon Rad, everyone knows that alcohol is not a resounding public success, with benefits for all! But it certainly should be examined if our current policies with respect to alcohol (and drugs) are the most efficacious way in dealing with the problems that emanate from it (from drunk driving to addiction) -- and this should include an analysis with respect to the side effects of such policies (for example, prohibition leads to organized crime - but provides jobs to law enforcement and prisons). As Jim P. has stated, as the article Amy provided states, and as everyone with a brain knows, the prohibition of drugs in this country simply has not worked. Perhaps Jim has a point that it should be taxed heavily - not only will the high price (hopefully) have an effect on people's behavior - but the tax revenues could be used to fund programs that efficiently deal with the problem (such as treatment centers - that's if you believe that treatment centers are effective).
As an aside, a blanket statement that drug users just want to drug themselves and screw anyone else is neither helpful nor accurate. My best friend died from alcoholism and I have yet to meet a more generous soul in my life. He earnestly tried to quit (and I wonder and believe that the 30-day maximum stays in treatment facilities as afforded to him by his insurance were simply not long enough). And, I still wonder if his alcoholism partially stemmed from the fact that he was such a generous and giving person - and the fact that so many people around him (including me to an extent) neither appreciated it nor reciprocated.
factsarefacts at May 15, 2010 7:43 AM
To go even further, if you want to grow your own, you have to have a tax stamp from the local ag bureau. You have to have reasonable control (fenced or camera or other security) over the area to prevent underage access. But I bet that the grow your own would drop off significantly once you can just go to the same place you buy liquor.
It is already in the top five cash crops in the U.S.
You let R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard market it, then the narco drug lords are going to lose, big time.
Jim P. at May 15, 2010 1:03 PM
Yes, the repeal of (alcohol) Prohibition was and continues to be a resounding public success.
Do you propose to ban selfishness? Good luck with that.
As for the cost of the drug war, pshaw. $1 trillion is less than a single year of Obama-era deficits. It won't be long before we look fondly back upon this time and say "Remember when the drug war only cost us $1 trillion and the national debt was less than the GDP?"
Pseudonym at May 15, 2010 1:32 PM
I have never seem a bigger pack of hypocrites than those advocating drug "legalization". That word is in quotes because few people seem to think about explaining what they mean.
Tobacco is regulated, licensed, even subsidized, and is widely recognized as completely unsafe. Yet some insist that consumer protections extend to its users. Ditto with alcohol.
I have heard and read that responsible use will result from "legalization" - from people who do not give a damn about the law, or by the killing going on to supply them. They even admit that for every thug jailed or killed in the trade, another one will pop up. This isn't responsibility by any measure - well, perhaps it is to the habitually befuddled.
But don't miss the point. If you try to use government excess to justify drug legalization, you're sucking big wind with the fallacy.
And then you'll propose even MORE government intervention in the regulation and licensing (and maybe even subsidies) of your drug of choice. That's just plain mental illness.
-----
I want you to say what you'll do to keep newly-legalized drugs out of the control rooms at your airports, nuke plants, plastics plants, steel mills and warships, as well as airliner cockpits, heavy trucks and locomotives. You have to do more than say it's still illegal there. You must establish fitness for duty standards. Go.
Radwaste at May 15, 2010 5:43 PM
I'm not entirely convinced you can say that the war on drugs has been a failure. Law enforcement activity raises the cost of illegal drugs. Economics 101 - higher prices mean reduced consumption of drugs. No crime is ever going to be completely eliminated - the goal of law enforcement is simply to reduce crime, or in this case, to reduce consumption of drugs.
Snoopy at May 15, 2010 7:25 PM
Well, according to the article, the Harvard economist mentioned in the article: "Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."
I would agree with you Rad, I don't necessarily think that responsible use will result from legalization. Prescription drugs are "legal" and there are an enormous amount of cases of people abusing those and being addicted. My point is what is the most efficient way of dealing with the problem? Neither the illegal status of drugs nor the acknowledgment by its users that some people are murdered in the drug trade has seemed to stem the craving.
You can also keep out drugs from airport control rooms, cockpits, nuke plants, etc. by employing the same methods that are employed now - mandatory and periodic drug tests. Just because alcohol is legal doesn't mean you can fly a plane or drive a train with alcohol in your system.
factsarefacts at May 15, 2010 8:44 PM
"In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults."
Absolutely frightening, and mostly due to the war on drugs.
bradley13 at May 16, 2010 2:55 AM
"You can also keep out drugs from airport control rooms, cockpits, nuke plants, etc. by employing the same methods that are employed now - mandatory and periodic drug tests. Just because alcohol is legal doesn't mean you can fly a plane or drive a train with alcohol in your system."
Nope, you're not there yet. I asked for fitness-for-duty standards. Pot, I am told, stays in the system for weeks. Now, give me a measurement I can use in those industries, as I have for alcohol. Also for any other drug.
Have you noticed nobody's talking about cocaine or heroin? Just how much of the market goes away if/when pot is decriminalized? How do you test for "legal" amounts of cocaine or heroin?
And just how soon do you think law-enforcement misbehavior will end, since police will still be looking for crank, heroin and cocaine?
Think!
Radwaste at May 16, 2010 7:33 AM
Rad, thanks. I wasn't aware that all of those professions gave its employees breathalyzer tests - each and every time they showed up for work. Silly me.
factsarefacts at May 16, 2010 11:47 AM
> Absolutely frightening, and mostly
> due to the war on drugs.
I strongly doubt this. A lot of those people got off for pistol-whipping the Korean liquor-store owner, with the Prosecutor stipulating that they were going DOWN for the possession, for which there were more-reliable witnesses.
The war on drugs is a bad thing. But let's not pretend that all the evil in the human heart comes from our polices about drug abuse.
Crid at May 16, 2010 12:15 PM
Here's what I mean by "legalization": no federal penalty for the transport, sale or use of any drug, with or without prescription. The feds should not require me to register with them in order to take my allergy medicine. If I feel like trying some nootropic that hasn't been approved by the FDA, I can, and if I make myself sick in the process it's my own responsibility to pay for the results. (This implies a good deal of health care reform as well, but I'm describing an unrealistic situation anyway so I may as well have my cake and eat it too.)
I have mixed feelings about state-level drug laws, and I'd be willing to let different states experiment.
If federal and state anti-drug laws were abolished, I would expect lots of people to immediately binge then die horribly. It would be a sad time for the friends and families of those people.
It is sometimes sad when people make life choices that I disagree with, but that doesn't make it OK for me to force them to do what I think is right.
Using the money we'd save, I'd hire someone to create those fitness for duty standards. I don't know what those standards would turn out to be, but I imagine they'd be pretty close to zero tolerance.
Some of those drugs, of course, already have rules for use in those environments; for example some are used by military pilots to stay awake and alert for long periods of time.
I am. You have a moral right to ruin your own life with cocaine or heroin; you should have that legal right as well. You already have the legal right to ruin your life with alcohol abuse. I don't endorse your doing so, but neither do I endorse establishing a police state to prevent you.
Pseudonym at May 16, 2010 12:23 PM
"Rad, thanks. I wasn't aware that all of those professions gave its employees breathalyzer tests - each and every time they showed up for work. Silly me."
Don't be an ass. Fitness for duty tests are called for in industry "for cause". That means when the individual's supervisor notices aberrant behavior, or the random test hits. At that point, a standard is measured against the test result.
All you've done is demonstrate that you don't know this. Maybe you don't care, so long as you can get drugs. Keep it up.
Radwaste at May 16, 2010 2:14 PM
"I am. You have a moral right to ruin your own life with cocaine or heroin; you should have that legal right as well. You already have the legal right to ruin your life with alcohol abuse. I don't endorse your doing so, but neither do I endorse establishing a police state to prevent you."
It's already here. Now, show that you know how to measure impairment due to cocaine or heroin - or show that it's totally OK if your bus driver's high on it.
Show how police will stand down in the Drug War if only pot was legalized.
Show how responsible all those people who don't give a damn about the law, they just want drugs, will be.
Come on!
If you don't know what tests there are for impairment, you cannot advise your legislators properly. If you remain ignorant and are not involved, just what cause do you have to expect just laws - from the people who set up the status quo?
Radwaste at May 16, 2010 2:25 PM
"Yes, the repeal of (alcohol) Prohibition was and continues to be a resounding public success." - Pseudonym
Nearly twelve thousand deaths in 2008 are fine by you.
We clearly need more of that.
Radwaste at May 16, 2010 2:32 PM
Rad, you stated: "Maybe you don't care, so long as you can get drugs." Thank you for inferring that I take or want drugs without knowing me in the slightest. I can guarantee that I would never make that assumption about you or anyone else about whom I really know nothing. So this will be my last response.
Sorry, but I fail to notice how a "fitness for duty" test (as you have described) would be altered whether pot, cocaine, heroin or any other drug is legalized. Just because a drug is legal does not mean that an employer can't require employees to submit to testing for those drugs (especially if it can be established that an employee's usage of such drugs could endanger others in the workplace - and clearly these drugs can and do pose such dangers). If, at the present moment, a test cannot immediately determine if the employee is high on drugs, then the logical and prudent course of action (for an employee whose behavior is aberrant) is to place the employee on temporary leave until the test results come back.
If your concern is that drug addiction will be treated as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), you shouldn't worry. The courts have already decided that alcoholism is not a protected "disease" under the ADA. See George Bailey vs. Georgia-Pacific Corp. http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2002/11/18/smallb3.html?page=1. The same logic would easily apply to narcotics.
factsarefacts at May 16, 2010 10:52 PM
"I want you to say what you'll do to keep newly-legalized drugs out of the control rooms at your airports, nuke plants, plastics plants, steel mills and warships, as well as airliner cockpits, heavy trucks and locomotives."
Rad, to the extent that drugs might enter those places, don't you think it's probably already happening? After all, some airline pilots live in places where either it's legal (e.g., Holland) or uncontrollable (Africa, South America). You're right about establishing fitness-for-duty standards, but all such things ultimately rely on the professionalism of those involved. Thus we have the old pilot saying, "24 hours from bottle to throttle". I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
You do raise a good question about what the standards are, or should be. My wife works in the medical lab industry, and their drug tests are only set up to report out "positive" or "negative"; AFAIK they don't disclose the actual thresholds. That's obviously an issue in a professional context where the threshold may have to be lower than what would be acceptable for the general public. On the other hand, in an age where we have tests that can detect down to the parts-per-quadrillion level, "zero" isn't practical; if you gave such a test for, say, cocaine to 100 randomly selected people, they'd nearly all come up with nonzero levels. Some research would be needed to determine impairment levels for a wide variety of drugs -- but I'd argue that that research needs to be done whether we legalize them or not. Because the stuff is already out there.
Now, as for the larger scope: I am under no delusion that legalization will transform junkies into responsible users. I just think that if they want to be junkies, beyond a certain point it's no longer my problem. And since legalization would almost certainly lower the cost of the drugs greatly, that would at least have the side benefit of eliminating the secondary crimes that junkies commit in order to fund their habits. Yes, there are social problems caused by junkies. But we've already got junkies. It's not clear to me that legalization would cause their numbers to change much -- in fact, based on what little data we have from Prohibition, it probably would change hardly at all. My observation has been that people who are born to be junkies always seem to be able to find their drug, legal or not.
Cousin Dave at May 17, 2010 9:02 AM
Facts, the hit dog will holler. For somebody, that statement is true. It's true that drug users joke about breaking laws, even when, over and above the law, their actions subsidize murder and mayhem.
Wow, that's responsible.
It's also true that only one other person has said anything about establishing impairment thresholds. Thank you, Dave.
This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a "do one thing, solve the problem" issue.
To make this happen, you have to demonstrate that you know each stage of the operation and can show its benefits outweigh the evils. I'm not some religious nut; I just want the case presented such that I can tell you know what the dangers are, and that you are prepared with a compensatory measure.
By the way - "costs" don't stop with the purchase price. Don't forget that we paid nearly 12 thousand lives for alcohol last year. People like you and your loved ones.
Radwaste at May 17, 2010 4:01 PM
Oh, yes - here's somebody who wants to use the "two wrongs" fallacy to excuse all sorts of misbehavior. Whatever could be the harm in that?
Just say, Yes! -- to everything but acting responsibly and/or thinking things through. Do whatever you want, and screw those other people, because everybody sucks.
Radwaste at May 19, 2010 2:43 PM
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