This was in response to a perfectly intelligent and dedicated individual who just doesn't get it. It's always frustrating being misunderstood by people you respect.
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You miss such a huge slice of [the Drug War] issue that it doesn't surprise me you think I'm focused on a narrow, selfish cause.
Drugs are definitely dangerous, but drug prohibition does nothing to reduce or alleviate those dangers. They merely heap more dangers on the pile.
We spend billions every year destroying rain forest in South America to eradicate coca production, and coca production consistently goes up. Solution or counterproductive waste of time/money?
Needle exchange is a proven method for reducing the spread of disease and encouraging treatment, but until just last week federal funding for this was banned. Are we literally fighting AGAINST the interests of public health in an attempt to appear hard on drugs?
Cannabis isn't toxic, and is actually a potent medicine with a wide range of pharmacological uses. 80% of the country agrees with this including the American Medical Association, but cannabis is classified as a Schedule I drug, which means it's supposedly incredibly addictive, detrimental to the body, and has no accepted medical uses.
Are we literally fighting against advances in medicine and science?
Drug possession laws are an easy excuse for police to violate your rights, and it only takes a quick YouTube search to see what happens next. Are we literally fighting a war against our own people when our very actions go against the solutions to the recognized problems?
It costs us about $50 Billion a year in federal money alone to wage our drug war and less than a third of that goes towards treatment. Are we literally pissing our money down the drain arresting people as a deterrent when we have decades of evidence that it doesn't act as one?
You can continue to miss the point, but I'm in it to win it and I'm not alone.
Damo
Posts
And so we witness the end.
10 years ago
8 comments:
There are still people who support the war on drugs?
wooooaaaaaaa
@Dennis - It's probably the same folks who think we're crushing Castro with our sanctions on Cuba.
fuckin' Reagan >:(
Great post. A sensible policy towards marijuania is something almost completely void from the American political landscape.
Its funny to see a lot of the same people making this argument: cars kills people more often than guns so if you wanna make the world safer then get rid of cars. Fast forward two days and they'll say this: we need to make the world safe by continuing the war on drugs.
I'm pretty sure car crashes still kill more people than drug over dose or other drug related activities that don't actually stem from their illegality. So if you wanna make America safer, un ban the drugs and ban cars!
I <3 you guys. It feels funny saying this, but I was actually hoping for some opposition.
Isn't it interesting that in the real world there barely is any at all anymore unless you're talking about elected officials and major interests that have something to lose from acceptance of cannabis and/or a wholesale abandonment of the criminal justice drug law model?
...or people who just don't get it, a la this post. obviously.
nah there are plenty of people against drug legalization. Just not the kind of people that middle class, urban, white folks who went to UMD tend to encounter.
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