Drug War FAILED!!

[Magón]

No surprised really that it's been failing, but here's some surprising turn.


The global war on drugs has "failed" according to a new report by group of politicians and former world leaders.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy report calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users.

The panel includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

The White House rejected the findings, saying the report was misguided.

The 19-member commission includes the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, the former President of Colombia Cesar Gaviria, and the current Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou.

The panel also features prominent Latin American writers Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, the EU's former foreign policy chief Javier Solana, and George Schultz, the former US Secretary of State.

Continued at BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303

[Os Cangaceiros]

The White House rejected the findings

Shocker.

[Ocean Seal]

Of course the drug war failed, it was never instituted in the first place. Strange people to be saying that though. Their next report will probably be about how we should adjust our tactics to succeed.

[RedSunRising]

It never tried to win....Think how much cash the CIA would lose out on if it did! ;)

[xub3rn00dlex]

And here I was all excited and ready to bring my bong along with me on my morning commute. =[

[Princess Luna]

The U.S. spends 40 billion dollars a year trying to stop the traffic of something 75% of American high-schoolers have easy access to. That is not just failure, that is failure on a epic scale.

[GPDP]

Saying the War on Drugs has failed is taking the US government's stated policy goals at face value a bit too much, I think.

[Tablo]

I hope in the near future that drugs will be decriminalized and proper rehabilitation facilities will be well funded. I also hope attendance to rehab will be more widely treated with respect. It takes fucking dedication to get off a lot of the shit out there and I don't want any negativity directed towards those that want to be clean(more common among younger people in my age group).

I can hope, but it doesn't seem like it is even close to reality at this point. At least with members of the bourgeoisie pointing out it is a failure we can hope for some of these reforms... I fucking hate the bourgeoisie. :(

[tracher999]

nice:D

[Psy]

Saying the War on Drugs has failed is taking the US government's stated policy goals at face value a bit too much, I think.
True but the fact remains the war on drugs has not hampered the illegal drug industry one bit, the drug industry has grown by leaps in bounds in the decades of the drug industry to the point Colombian illegal drug industry now has crude ship yards building transport submarines to ship cocaine to the US. Yes the bourgeoisie media paints this as desperation but it is Colombian organized crime investing more capital into their means of production.

[human strike]

>Implying it was ever meant to succeed.

[graymouser]

The drug war hasn't failed. Millions of young black men are in jail, in prison, on probation or on parole. Millions more are branded as felons and will face a lifetime of completely legal discrimination. The entire edifice of racial discrimination has been rebuilt based on something as straightforward as law enforcement. And this has also created heavily militarized police departments, which is just gravy from the perspective of a police state.

[Rafiq]

The U.S. spends 40 billion dollars a year trying to stop the traffic of something 75% of American high-schoolers have easy access to. That is not just failure, that is failure on a epic scale.

Bullshit, 75% is too low.

Those are just the kids who admit.

I can promise you every high schooler has access to drugs....

[~Spectre]

The drug war hasn't failed. Millions of young black men are in jail, in prison, on probation or on parole. Millions more are branded as felons and will face a lifetime of completely legal discrimination. The entire edifice of racial discrimination has been rebuilt based on something as straightforward as law enforcement. And this has also created heavily militarized police departments, which is just gravy from the perspective of a police state.


Not to mention the massive transfer of wealth to increasingly privatized prisons. Or the fat contracts handed out to contractors to go and "fumigate" the fields. Or the fact that destroying peasant agriculture in places like Colombia makes it easier for corporations to scoop up land.

[a rebel]

Bullshit, 75% is too low.

Those are just the kids who admit.

I can promise you every high schooler has access to drugs....


As a high school student, I can confidently say that we are all on drugs. Even the kids who you think wouldn't do anything like that do. They actually arrested the class valedictorian with a bottle of pills in his locker last year.

[Sasha]

The War On Drugs

Posted by Dan Savage (http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/dan-savage/Author?oid=259) on Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 8:17 AM

The Global Commission on Drug Policy released its report (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/02/us-drugs-commission-idUSTRE7513XW20110602) this week. Dirty hippies like George Schultz and Kofi Annan declared our five-decade War On Drugs a failure that has had "devastating consequences" for societies, governments, and individuals. The commission called on governments to stop treating drugs users like criminals, to legalize some drugs, to provide more addiction services, and to go after criminal networks, not small producers. The Obama administration's reaction (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/02/panel_drug_war_has_failed/index.html):

"Making drugs more available, as this report suggests, will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe."
Billions of dollars spent, millions of lives ruined, skyrocketing incarceration rates—and illegal drugs are available for purchase in every high school and prison in America. The only way to make drugs "more available" would be to install drug-gushing taps in our bathrooms. It's much harder for minors to get their hands on booze. Why? Because booze—a much more harmful drug than pot—is legal and people who make and sell booze don't want to lose their liquor licenses. People could sell booze illegally, of course, and some people might be willing to buy black-market booze. But almost no one does. People prefer to get their booze from legitimate suppliers and self-interest prompts those suppliers to keep their products out the hands of minors.
And for what it's worth: there wouldn't be an Obama administration to react to this report if the president, back when he was using illegal drugs "frequently (http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Barack+Obama%27s+Drug+Use)," had been swept up by the same criminal justice system he's defending today.


source: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/02/the-war-on-drugs

[Os Cangaceiros]

hmmm....drug gushing taps....

[Psy]

Not to mention the massive transfer of wealth to increasingly privatized prisons. Or the fat contracts handed out to contractors to go and "fumigate" the fields. Or the fact that destroying peasant agriculture in places like Colombia makes it easier for corporations to scoop up land.

Yet on the side the drug war has made organized crime far more powerful as their rates of profit is now much higher then legitimate capitalists. It raises the question that if the FBI wants to have a shooting war with organized drug dealers like they did in Miami in the 1980's, if they could win now that organized crime has far more resources then the FBI.