NH Cop To McCain: Drug War Blows
The following piece was produced by HuffPost's OffTheBus. A related post can be found on Send the Right Message.
John McCain does a lot of town hall meetings, and he's usually quite pleased to get questions from law enforcement officers, firefighters, and military personnel. Sunday evening at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, NH, may have provided an exception.
It would be an understatement to observe that this was not the usual question: "I've served here in my state as a law enforcement officer for going on 9 years now, and after nine years working the street, I've come to the conclusion that the War on Drugs is a terrible failure... I have seen firsthand that the War on Drugs causes crime, it causes children to have access to drugs easier, and it does nothing to curb the problem of drug abuse. Just like Alcohol Prohibition after the the 18th Amendment passed, the country wised up and we passed the 21st Amendment which curbed the violence problem in this country greatly. What is it going to take for powerful politicians such as yourself to realize that the War on Drugs is a failure and we need to... we need to get smart about drugs, not tough. We need to be smart."
McCain responded: "Thank you, sir. It's going to take a lot before I adopt your viewpoint."
This drew some laughs and scattered applause from the crowd. But it was only the beginning of a three minute answer.
McCain rested the first part of his rationale for the War on Drugs on the pharmacological differences between alcohol and drugs. He claimed that most experts agree alcohol is fundamentally different in that only alcohol can be moderately consumed.
The senator did say he would support a small increment of reform. "I will agree with you to this extent, that too often we put first-time drug users in prison," he said, and was quickly interrupted by applause from a smattering of college students.
This drew a smile and a joke from McCain, who then went on to say he supports a program in Arizona that gives first-time offenders a treatment option. McCain said such a program should be implemented nationally.
"We have too many first-time drug offenders in prison," he repeated. "I think we all know that."
But McCain cited policy experiments in Europe which he said were a failure, and he said the U.S. should work with Mexico to do continuing battle with drug cartels.
"I will do whatever I can to help you combat these drug dealers, these terrible people who prey on America," he told the officer.
The New Hampshire police officer questioning McCain was Bradley Jardis, a speaker with the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (L.E.A.P.). Jardis rocked the boat earlier this year when he testified in favor of ending Marijuana Prohibition before New Hampshire legislators. He says he enforces the laws because it's his job to do so, but he feels it is his duty as a citizen to speak out against a policy which he says needlessly destroys lives.
McCain then directed a question at Jardis, continuing the exchange:
McCain: I just want to ask one other thing. Do you think methamphetamine ought to be legal?
Jardis: I think what we need to look at is the drug policy.
McCain: Yeah, but you know, it's one thing to talk about policy. It's another thing to talk about specifics, and with all due respect, do you think methamphetamine ought to be made legal?
Jardis: I don't think that if someone gets caught with methamphetamine, we should be putting them in prison, period. We should be helping them. We should help people who are addicted to drugs, not spend $69 billion a year to put people in jail. If you arrest somebody, it does not solve the problem. You just said that there are drug cartels. There would not be drug cartels if we were to regulate drugs. In Switzerland they have public heroin clinics where people can go and get help with clean needles to come off drugs There's no doubt that drugs are dangerous, but our policy does not do anything to help people who are addicted. If you arrest a 16-year-old for possession of marijuana, and they get a criminal conviction, you can get over an addiction but you can never get over a conviction. They lose their funding to go to college, and no one could ever say that keeping a kid from going to college accomplishes something good. Not at all.
McCain: (interrupts) Thank you very much. I'm sorry you didn't have a position on methamphetamine, but I do agree with you. I do agree with you strongly. As I said, we have this program in Arizona that I'd like to see adopted nationwide that first-time offenders are given an opportunity to rehabilitate themselves and to have a clean record. I thank you for your service, and I appreciate the discussion, and I look forward to continuing this dialogue because I in no way... do I in any way mean to diminish the magnitude of this problem and the terrible tragedies it inflicts on America every single day. Thank you, and thank you for your service.
At the event's conclusion, Jardis approached McCain, shook his hand, and handed him a L.E.A.P. DVD to watch.
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One part of the problem is the attitude that a drug is a drug,comparing grapes to watermelon,trying to lump them all into a simplified bunch.
Another issue is recognising that the WOD is a means of controlling the enormous profits (on ALL sides)of this monster,wo
Heaven forbid things get "out of control",so we'll continue to send SWAT teams to respond to suicide hotlines & jail non-violent drug users longer than rapists.
Thanks LEAP!
The drug war is mindless and cannot be won. The conservatives like it that way as they thrive on conflict and profit from it. They are neither compassionate nor insightful.
My plan is to trade violence and criminality for education and treatment. There will remain yet some traditional legal issues.
First is the educational component; classes for each mood-altering chemical the person wishes to use and that includes one of most harmful yet now legal ones alcohol. Upon successful completion of the course a license will be issued for that person to obtain the drug at a properly licensed pharmacy or store. Second, certain amounts considered reasonable recreational amounts would be allowed. If the licensee exceeds that amount a psychologist or other trained professional will contact him for consultation. Most often drug abuse is a symptom of a person self-medicating. for unexplored issues. Third; we substitute counseling for imprisonment. This will ease greatly our prison population and diminish greatly much property crime committed to obtain money for expensive black market drugs. It will reduce family violence because many people in need of counseling will now get counseling rather than prison. Very little needed rehabilitation or counseling is available in prison. Most convicts just get worse. And fourth; and by no means least it will lesson police criminal behavior and aid to restore respect for the law.
Today our computer power and linking make all this easy to track.
I've been to Amsterdam and did more drugs than I ever wanted to do. I also felt safer walking their streets (blitzed out of my mind) than I ever have walking the streets sober of my hometown, Philadelphia.
McCain's response disgusts me. Once again, he shows his ivory tower membership card. Like when he walked around Baghdad with a small army and said "Look, it's safe!" here he is again disregarding the reporting of the man on the street day-in day-out.
It was a deft move of public debate to pull out the "Should meth be legal?" question. One could argue that the government should not be interfering with our lives, period. Besides, meth is only one drug. What offends me greatly is living in the supposed land of the free and I can't even grow a pot plant in my home for private use without breaking a law.
As I've said before, they need the war on drugs. All that surveillence equipment needs to be subsidized somehow.
Larry Nocella
http://www
should meth be legal? hell no. should weed be legal? hell yes. listen i spent (or mispent) my youth as a drunk. went to rehab and havent had a drink in almost 20 years. i also did 20 years in the army. after i retired, without missing a beat i started smoking my weed again. guess what? i have no urge to drink or do other drugs, but in between having to work 2 jobs, i enjoy my late night fattie while i watch scrubs and corner gas before bed, and i somehow manage to pull myself together and work etc. at least legalize weed, hell tax it and use the proceeds for rehab for people on meth, heroin etc. shit give me something, the rest of my life i will be paying for bushs crimes, at leats decriminalize mine.
Responding to the problem of drugs with enforcement and interdiction is like applying a topical ointment or solution to a skin rash that's actually caused by a blood disorder. It seems to provide temporary relief, it makes you feel like you're doing something, but of course the rash just keeps coming back until you attack it at its roots. Such is the drug problem.
People take drugs because the reality they experience with the drug (however horrific it may seem to the casual observer) is at least in the beginning, preferable to their reality without the drug.
In dealing with thousands of alcoholics and addicts over the years, and being a recovering alcoholic myself, I can tell you that I have never met even one that didn't have huge issues underlying their abuse of alcohol or drugs. Drug addiction and alcoholism aren't the problem, they're the symptom of a much larger, more complex problem, albeit a treatable one.
We also tend to look at "treatment" and "rehab" as if they were some product you pull out of a box. Saying that someone went to treatment or rehab is about as informative as saying someone went to school. What school did they attend? How was the school rated? How successful was the school in educating the student? How up-to-date were the school's methodoligies, etc. etc.
Substance abuse still carries the stigma of just being about weak morals, poor life choices, and irresponsibility. Until we see it for what it really is, until we begin treating the problem instead of the symptom, we will continue to squander billions each year trying to make a rash go away that just keeps coming back because we're using a topical "solution.
The problem of course is, that huge industries have been built up around the sale of useless ointments and other topical solutions.
The War on Drugs has been a disaster and utter failure. It has created a wealthy criminal class which not only undermines society, but also threatens governments of producing countries notably Afghanistan and Colombia producing instability in their regions. It has not stopped cocaine coming into the country by the truckload and is a drain on the economy.
There are three million people in jail in America and probably one million may have some association with illegal drug use - possession, peddling, smuggling and violent crime. These people could be leading more productive lives. Their families also suffer from the loss of income and children grow up motherless or fatherless in a dysfunctional environment.
I imagine that most right wingers are for the war on drugs just as paradoxically they are against gun control. The opposite might be true of many Democrats.
The laws on our books are meant to benefit society and clearly the current drug laws are counter productive. The Prohibition on alcohol use 1920- 1933 was sensibly repealed and the time has now come to reverse this goverment intrusion into citizens lives.
Real quick, I need to get out the door and get some work done.
This is such a painful subject, it seems some folk use humor to offset the pain. But what a travesty the so-called drug wars are! I used to appreciate what I thought was the straight-talking McCain, but I am long over that.
Ron Paul, who has my vote, is frightening to probably lots of people, I think, because his vision seems to cut away lots of safety nets. It likes a throw-back to a time out of mind, when people left the snug security of the Atlantic seaboard {"I can almost see Mother Europe in the distance, dear"}, and ventured into the inland-unknown. In other words, his vision of true unfettered freedom means you have to be brave again, and risk being free, and some {most?} of us have never had to do that. Even posting comments is pretty safe. Imagine being snug in your cocoon, posting comments, your college-going days just a dim memory. And then imagine your decent, hard-working neighbor being arrested, and possibly ruined, because he had the nerve to light up at 10 pm after the kids were tucked in. Shameful.
Drug cartels/gangs? Created and sustained by the desire of people to take a break now & then.
I can remember being about 18 yrs young, and saying I would be sitting in my rocker, an old man, smoking my stash. HA!
What really happens is: You move on, have 3 kids, then 6 grandkids, and life has ups & downs and you count your blessings, because every so often, someone's partner passes away at age 47 from cancer, and the farthest thing from your mind is getting high, because you're over 50, and you can't imagine wasting any more time.
And then you realize there are no safety nets anyway, no snug harbor, no going back to the womb. There's just family & friends and being decent to your fellow travellers.
And we run out the door to get some work done, and nothing changes.
We all know that George Bush did drugs in his mispent youth so why didn't he go to jail? Very simple, his father had pull. If he was from a regular middle class family he might have a felony conviction and therefore not have been able to run for office.
Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have admitted to illegal drug use when they were young, but suffered no legal penalty. Should this disqualify them from holding government office?
It seems to me that either it is a question of luck that many young people do not get caught or they have influential parents.
At least McCain listened to other peoples' point of view ang gave them respectful answers even though he disagrees with them.
Of course we all know that the powerful pharmaceutical industry will be most upset when recreational drugs are legalised, because it will cut into their highly profitable sales of valium, xanax, prosac, zoloft, etcetera. Lets not forget shaking leg syndrome. The media will also scream blue murder, because they would lose a lot of advertising revenue.(p
It is also a question of goverment control over our lives. The Constitution is supposed to provide the right to privacy and personally I do not think it is the government's business to tell anyone what they should to ingest. Driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol is another matter.
We're never going to end - or at least bring some sanity to - the so-called "war on drugs" until we figure out a way to plan it so that some serious money goes directly into the pockets of the so-called "conservatives".
Then the flood gates will open so fast that we'll subsequently have to take another corrective action because too much will have been legalized too quickly before rational educational programs could be implemented and society could adapt.
And then the so-called "conservatives" will be fighting on the other side...
McCain has a problem of his own without tackling other people's problems. Maybe he needs prescription drugs to calm him. "I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues,” said former Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees. “He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
McCain’s outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican nomination for president. A former Senate staffer recalled what happened when McCain asked for support from a fellow Republican senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
“The senator explained that he had already committed to support George Bush,” the former Senate staffer said. “McCain said ‘f**k you’ and never spoke to him again.”
Bradley Jardis for President!
Had your tea or coffee? A smoke or two? All DRUGS. The policeman is right. Time to legalize ALL drugs. Tax it. And have drug education from the time the children are 4. Holland, has legalized drugs. Only two percent use drugs. Anyone in Holland can go to college FREE, at any age. Courtesy of the drug tax. Also, Holland has FREE medical and dental for everyone. Again, thanks to the drug tax. The war on drugs will NEVER be a winner. Since the CIA does smuggle heroin from Afghanistan. And coke from South America. Don't believe me? Google it. Or watch the MENA connection on Google Video. By the way...Isn'
I'm sorry, can we have some more wars on things?
Wars on things is what America is all about.
The plain truth is that anybody, from your 80 year old grandmother to your 8 year old kid, can buy absolutely any drug they want in absolutely any city, town or hamlet in this country.
The only difference that legalization of EVERYTHING would make is that the prices would come down, gangs would go back to being semi-violent social clubs and politicians would tax the crap out of everything like they do with cigarettes, thereby raising all kinds of money for that "treatment" they're always nattering about.
You have to understand the war on drugs isn't about social policy. It's about the right wing getting revenge on the sixties.
Most of modern conservatism is essentially getting revenge on the sixties. Why do you think conservatives continue to support the Iraq disaster? Because it will prove that if we faught to the last 18 year old we could have won in Vietnam and that will prove the dirty smelly hippies wrong.
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