WSJ: "Drug War" has cost taxpayers $1 trillion

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/article/SB10001424052748704254604574614230731506644.html

Really solid read. This is an issue I've followed closely for years, just because of how absurd it really is and how most Americans are either clueless, don't care, or a mixture of both. When you consider the gladiator-like killings in Mexico going on right now, as well as the rise of medicinal marijuana in our own country, I really think the entire system needs to be analyzed more closely.

But, of course, members of Congress have better things to do (like send their genital pictures on social networking sites).

 

Pretty piss-poor ROI, I'd say.

 

The problem is that the strategy for the war on drugs doesn't eliminate what is driving the consumption of drugs - the demand, and the deeper societal problems causing that demand.

Toughening drug laws and throwing more people in prison alone doesn't solve those problems. Someone with an addiction to crack cocaine and/or in need of money and having no skills is still going to be tempted to get into that stuff because the rewards might outweigh the risks.

Solve the problems that drive people to drug use, you eliminate the demand for it. Eliminate the demand, and the drugs will disappear, because it will no longer be worth the risk for the drug traffickers to do business here.

 

So, basically, create Utopia. Got it.

 

Took the words right out of mouth. You will never eliminate the demand. Rich and poor a like buy it. Thinking you can eliminate the demand is living in La-La Land.

 

Yeah, this world is not an Aldous Huxley novel. And, I do think the type of drugs being demanded matters just as much. Marijuana should be decriminalized first off, then go down the list and evaluate each one by issue of safety and addiction.

 

I was at an "accepted students" reception with one of my sons at a southern university this spring when the speaker started rattling on about their "zero tolerance" drug policy, and how any kid caught with marijuana would lose his scholarship aid, and blah blah blah.
I guess I was supposed to be reassured that I wouldn't be sending my dear boy to Sodom or Gomorrah. Instead, I was, like, "seriously? In 2011? Do we get to vote on this?"

I am not any sort of druggie. I never liked marijuana when I was young enough to go to parties where it was passed around. But dayum. I would rather these people used their time and energy more constructively.

And my kid,who isn't big into weed either, eventually decided not to attend that school.

 

The Drug War is an oxymoron. We're fighting the supply but as the Mexican president says, tell your people to stop buying it.

 

Well, hell, why didn't anyone else think of that?

You just damn near defined the phrase "easier said than done." Demand for drugs is never going away.

 

But it's hypocritical policy to condemn a country for its cash crop when you're rolling out the most cash. It's like "Please, save me from myself."

 

You mean like the awareness that we're all going to die?

OK. But you're going to cut into the religion business, too.