Cory Booker Slams Drug War

Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker took to Reddit Sunday to criticize the war on drugs, saying it was ineffective and "represents big overgrown government at its worst."

"The so called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or violence," the Democrat wrote during the Reddit "ask me anything" chat. "We are pouring huge amounts of our public resources into this current effort that are bleeding our public treasury and unnecessarily undermining human potential."

Booker then called drug arrests a "game."

"My police in Newark are involved in an almost ridiculous game of arresting the same people over and over again and when you talk to these men they have little belief that there is help or hope for them to break out of this cycle," he wrote.

Booker has said he supports medical marijuana, tweeting in May that "NJ should do more to make it real for those who need it."

Booker also used the Reddit discussion to outline programs he has implemented to lower drug arrests: reentry, court reform, jobs, treatment and legal aid.

Also on HuffPost:

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• Alaska

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanasise/6847095796/" target="_hplink">Flickr: alana sise</a>

• Arizona

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/billward/110338154/" target="_hplink">Flickr: Bill Ward's Brickpile</a>

• California

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerbache/2260207829/" target="_hplink">Flickr: gerbache</a>

• Colorado

  Also legalized possession by non-medical users. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dok1/520845832/" target="_hplink">Flickr: dok1</a>

• Connecticut

  Legalized for medical use.

• District Of Columbia

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigberto/2770838680/" target="_hplink">Flickr: ~MVI~ (off to coron)</a>

• Delaware

  Legalized for medical use. Flickr: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougtone/7749689644/">Doug Kerr</a>

• Hawaii

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricardo_mangual/6006230817/" target="_hplink">Flickr: Ricymar Fine Art Photography</a>

• Maine

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="www.flickr.com/photos/indywriter/2683524563/" target="_hplink">Flickr: indywriter</a>

• Massachusetts

  Passed ballot initiative for legalized medical marijuana in 2012.

• Michigan

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayoticblue/213316452/" target="_hplink">Flickr: ckay</a>

• Montana

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/csbarnhill/2633187564/" target="_hplink">Flickr: csbarnhill</a>

• Nevada

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/http2007/4699361533/" target="_hplink">Flickr: http2007</a>

• New Jersey

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulflannery/4021996652/" target="_hplink">Flickr: psflannery</a>

• New Mexico

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/everyskyline/3134662783/" target="_hplink">Flickr: michaelwhitney</a>

• Oregon

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/d-powell/2099638403/" target="_hplink">Flickr: digging90650</a>

• Rhode Island

  Legalized for medical use. Also decriminalized possession of less than one ounce.

• Vermont

  Legalized for medical use. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanalexander/6129117/" target="_hplink">Flickr: BryanAlexander</a>

• Washington

  Legalized for medical use. Also legalized possession by non-medical users. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rose_braverman/6924724331/sizes/l/in/photostream/" target="_hplink">Flickr: Rose Braverman</a>

Comments

[stillstandingkickingbutt]

09:47 AM on 08/19/2012

Does anyone know how thre drugs get into any community from the trailer parks to the Condos Is there anyone here who is sick and tired of lies blame and denial

[stillstandingkickingbutt]

09:30 AM on 08/19/2012

Iran contra Gary Webb and Dark Alliance:

Anyone who has not seen the DVD or read the book should, along with Blue grass Conspircay by Sarah Denton which i read first.
As had been said If it were not for Americas constant interference in other countries business (stop them darn communists snatch and grab the dope etc ) since World War 2,.maybe we could have done better? NAW!
And it seems the wealthy have much more involvement than the average Joe or poor. Of course we knew that anyway.

[stillstandingkickingbutt]

09:18 AM on 08/19/2012

Corey Booker and the NON war on drugs
Enter VP Joe Biden pre Shackles in crack form

Then Senator Joe Biden's 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill included a provision allowing for the federal execution of drug kingpins, it indicated that the War on Drugs had ultimately reached such a level that drug-related offenses were regarded by the federal government as equivalent to, or worse than, murder and treason.

The line between legal and illegal drugs is as narrow as the wording of drug policy legislation. Narcotics are illegal--except when they're not, as when they're processed into prescription drugs. Prescription narcotics can also be illegal if the person in possession of them hasn't been given a prescription. This is precarious, but not necessarily confusing.

What is confusing is the issue of what happens when a state declares that a drug can be made legal with a prescription, and the federal government bullheadedly insists on targeting it as an illegal drug anyway. This happened in 1996 when California legalized marijuana for medical use. The Bush and Obama administrations have arrested California medical marijuana distributors anyway.

Last Nicaragua and crack Cocaine

[stillstandingkickingbutt]

09:14 AM on 08/19/2012

Corey Booker and the NON war on drugs

Enter the Black and white and other issue
White Cocaine Black Cocaine,

Powdered cocaine was the champagne of drugs. It was associated more often with white yuppies than other drugs were in the public imagination--heroin associated more often with African Americans, marijuana with Latinos.

Then along came crack, cocaine processed into little rocks at a price non-yuppies could afford. Newspapers printed breathless accounts of black urban "crack fiends" and the drug of rock stars suddenly grew more sinister to white middle America.

Congress and the Reagan administration responded with the Antidrug Act of 1986, which established a 100:1 ratio for mandatory minimums associated with cocaine. It would take 5,000 grams of powdered "yuppie" cocaine to land you in prison for a minimum 10 years--but only 50 grams of crack. Clinton Also signed the same bill

[stillstandingkickingbutt]

09:11 AM on 08/19/2012

The truth about the drug wars that never was?
Before the 1970s, drug abuse was seen primarily as a social disease that could be addressed with treatment. After the 1970s, drug abuse was seen primarily as a law enforcement problem that could be addressed with aggressive criminal justice policies.
HOLD IT!
In the 80's it was just say no!
This isn't to say that law enforcement was the only component of the federal War on Drugs. As drug use among children became more of a national issue, And when one fourth-grader at Longfellow Elementary School in Oakland, California asked Mrs. Reagan what she should do if approached by someone offering drugs, Reagan responded: "Just say no." The slogan, and Nancy Reagan's activism on the issue, became central to the administration's antidrug message. Why was that?

[Addiction Myth]

02:38 AM on 08/12/2012

Most people will not use more drugs simply because they are legal, though I would expect a temporary increase due to experimenters.

As for addiction, from my experience, it is completely fake and all addicts are fakers. I know this seems harsh. But I've been to many AA meetings and listened carefully to what people say. They are not drug addicts. They are scoundrels who use drugs and alcohol as a cover for their mischief! http://AddictionMyth.com

[missouriwatcher]

04:34 PM on 08/26/2012

I don't know as there would actually be an increase in use; more likely, those who already use in the shadows would simply come out of the closet making it seem like an increase, when really there wasn't one.

[dave evans1]

05:55 PM on 07/19/2012

I agree

[Scott Gensemer]

07:42 PM on 07/17/2012

The "War on Drugs" has been a stupendous, horrendously expensive failure. It's a nice public relations catchphrase but that's all it is. The strange thing is that virtually everyone agrees that it's failed but we continue to pour billions down the same rathole. Prohibition vividly illustrated that the State simply can't legislate such public behavior out of existence. There is drug use for the same reason there is alcohol use: demand. And alcohol is the number one abused drug in the country. It is long past time for a new more workable solution. Just think of the money saved if our prisons weren't filled with people convicted on "three strikes and your out" for possession of marijuna. Let's admit the failure of the policy and move ahead.

[stillstandingkickingbutt]

09:31 AM on 08/19/2012

Yes and Gary Webb told the truth and was murdered for it

[Calvin Townsell]

07:19 PM on 07/17/2012

What's he doing to eradicate the Drug War in all largely black neighborhood ghettos.

[John in Exile]

02:18 PM on 07/17/2012

Forty years ago (1972) Consumers Reports issued the most remarkable, useful, and ignored book on drugs in the last hundred years. "Licit and Illicit Drugs" explored the history and the social and physical ramifications of drug use. The author, Edward Brecher, analyzed each drug then available and looked without flinching at the results of criminalizing drug use. Even today this book could be the basis for a new and intelligent policy on drug regulation. Frankly the policies that would result would be pretty consistent with Mayor Booker's recommendation. The entire text of the book can be found at the following site:
http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm

[voteRush08]

02:05 PM on 07/17/2012

I guess the mayor is beginning his "penance" for his "mortal" sin of telling the truth about private equity firms, and for expressing disgust at the class warfare ad tactics of his econonomically illiterate party "boss."

Booker was said to be "dead" to "boss's" lieutenants, and was sentenced to 4 months of community service, and to prove that he was a good soldier. Booker appears to be geniunely contrite for being an honest liberal!

From now on the only "burning building" into which he will rush is the "boss" campaign!

[Moni222]

01:56 PM on 07/17/2012

George Carlin proposed a creative alternative way to win the drug war:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI

[glers]

01:42 PM on 07/17/2012

Peruvians have been using cocaine for thousands of years with no problems, Americans have been abusing it for 100, we are the problem not the drugs

[Marcus01]

03:10 PM on 07/17/2012

Yes, Peruvians and Bolivians have been using the coca leaf with no problems. It's when cocaine hydrochloride - a concentration of one of sixteen alkaloids present in the leaf - was extracted that problems began.

[sjcastlema]

01:38 PM on 07/17/2012

The war on drugs is doomed and always has been because it ignores the science of substance use and abuse. All psychoactive drugs, including alcohol and legal or illegal drugs, manipulate the same brain system (the mesolimbic dopamine reward system). Most of the problems that result from drug use result from addiction. Some people can take or leave drugs, while others become addicted to them because of genetic and environmental predispositions. Thus, what we need isn't a war on drugs, it's comprehensive treatment for addiction.

Addiction is a chronic, progressive brain disease. Treatment works. Maybe not as well or as quickly as one might like, but on a par with other chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Addicts are sick people who need treatment, not incarceration.

Education is key. For a not-for-profit website that discusses the science of substance use and abuse in accessible English (how alcohol and drugs work in the brain; how addiction develops; why addiction is a chronic, progressive brain disease; what parts of the brain malfunction as a result of substance abuse; how that malfunction skews decision-making and motivation, resulting in addict behaviors; why some get addicted while others don't; how treatment works; how well treatment works; why relapse is common; what family and friends can do; etc.) please click on www.AddictScience.com.

Steve Castleman
AddictScience.com

[Addiction Myth]

02:41 AM on 08/12/2012

From my experience, most addicts are fakers who prefer malingering. There are also some addicts who were so deeply humiliated by a parent or spouse that it drove them to drugs.

AddictionMyth.com

[glers]

01:38 PM on 07/17/2012

We have a for profit prison system and the prison guard union is one of the biggest unions in America, so nothing will change anytime soon