Great news, patriots! The Obama administration's new drugs czar says he wants to banish the War on Drugs! Pack your bong! Hug a crackhead! Tell Central America to come out of hiding!
Well, maybe not just yet. The War on Drugs is still with us, but it's probably going to have a fancy new name, sort of like how the War on Terror is now the Overseas Contingency Operation. Maybe we can call it the Columbia Reconfiguration Hug Squad, or US-Central American Care Package.
Gil Kerlikowske wants to rebrand the idea that the United States is fighting a war on drugs because fighting a war against drugs would be idiotic and a total waste of time, money, and lives. The US would probably lose a war against a irrepressible, intangible idea like terror, or freedom in the case of drugs -- freedom for individuals to escape their fucked-up existences. In fact, the US has lost these wars, just as it will lose any war where its strategy is to swing wildly in the dark, while throwing handfuls of cash at nothing.
When Kerlikowske and brand Obama rename the War on Drugs, their goal should be to pick a new name that will take our minds off the fact that the government has spent $18 billion on the War on Drugs Columbia Reconfiguration Hug Squad this year alone, and counting. And that doesn't include money spent at the state and local levels. No one seems to have a clear idea of how much the entire program has cost US taxpayers, except a lone conference of mayors that once estimated the price tag at around $40 billion a year. Now, multiply that figure by about 30 years. Yikes.
This year, arrests for drug violations are expected to well exceed the 1,841,182 arrests in 2007, of which 872,720 individuals were arrested for possessing cannabis. These kinds of minor drug offenses lead to overcrowded prisons and the creation of a prison state where now 1 in 31 adults are in the prison corrections system, and the number of those who are nonviolent offenders exceeds the populations of Wyoming and Alaska, combined.
Kerlikowske's promises that the administration will focus more on treatment than incarceration, disband the unfair and racist distinctions between crack and cocaine, and cease raids on marijuana clinics would all be welcome changes, and help relieve dangerously crowded prisons particularly in California. Kerlikowske stopped short of saying drugs should be legalized, but legalizing drugs would save the US billions in taxpayer money, not to mention spare the lives of innocent indigenous people.
"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on the... We're not at war with people in this country," says Kerlikowske. But it's easy to see why both Americans and Central Americans assume just that. The US government has incarcerated millions of of its own citizens for making a personal choice about consuming drugs, while funding paramilitary forces in Central America that have killed so many innocent civilians.
At a time when the government claims there just isn't enough money for every citizen to have healthcare, getting rid of the failed War on Drugs could fund numerous national programs, and spare the lives of innocent civilians.
Cross-posted from Allison Kilkenny's blog. Also available on Facebook and Twitter.
Why is this idea not applied to the current U.S. Cannabis laws? They are crimes against truth, crimes against freedom, I guess we really should call them War Crimes.
When a government endorses laws which seek to limit the number one competitor of many industries, then pass those laws based on fraudulent information, then enforce those laws with deadly force, police tactics, discrimination, denial of rights, entrapment, and the victim respond with peaceful protests and live in a state of paraniod fear of their own government. Then it is not a war on drugs, it is terrorism, or at least a war on freedom.
The real crime is labeling Cannabis anything other then Cannabis. It is not a drug, it is a plant.
The real crime is labeling the Cannabis plant as anything other then a major benefit to humans
The real crime is wasting billions controlling nothing, but giving job securtity to the justice department
Right now any student ages 10-21 can find and buy pot. They have a very hard time buying Alcohol.
I do like the intense buzz from really good weed, but mostly only smoke the leaves. These have the same THC levels as buds, but no one seems to appreciate the less intense buzz, except maybe me. I have smoked Cannabis for over 25 years. All the while served in the Armed Forces, continued other employment, graduated from College in the top of my class and now hold two degrees. I am never sick, never have to see a doctor, never take their poison in pill form.
Do I commit crimes, no. I guess I have the right to though, since I am labeled a criminal who should recieve harsher sentences then murders or rapists. All any Cannabis smoker wants is the right to grow one plant per year vs the Billions of wasted dollars trying to "control" it. I can buy Hemp at Wal-mart, but I am not allowed to build a legal business growing Hemp, is that freedom, is that equality, no, that is the current unjust laws.
Do all Americans really understand the incentives the DEA has made available to your local narcs?
Drug "task forces" all over the nation are confiscating the property of citizens and criminalizing citizens to fund their "interdiction efforts" In Spokane this looked like a bank teller smelling weed on a cash deposit and calling the narcs to get her share of confiscated property.
The Spokane task force got nine 9 beautiful houses and their contents in the best neighborhood South Hill and many automobiles in addition to the cash.
The police, the Dea, your neighbor is NOT inintegrity in trying to stamp out drugs in schools or that crap, they want your property!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sometimes drugs make my tail wag at a million miles a hour. And the only downside I've ever experienced is that I sometimes knock over lamps and stuff.
I like drugs.
It would be nice if we could get past all this rebranding crud, and break through to actual changes. It seems that as long as we have people like Luntz commanding the dialog of policy, we will be stuck on changing image, perception and semantics.
great column, thx
In a "war" changing policy is tantamount to surrender, which is the only reason this farce has been allowed to continue for so many decades.