It's official. We can now talk openly about what the great majority of us have known for a long time: drug prohibition isn't working, and never will. It's time to try something different. News organizations are awash in stories about the failure of the "drug war." Latest issues of three of the most influential progressive magazines have feature stories on the topic.
Mother Jones puts drug policy on its cover -- under the headline "Totally Wasted" (as in, money and lives) -- as part of a package including at least 10 separate pieces on topic. The American Prospect also fronts the issue, proclaiming "The End of the War on Drugs." The Nation has a feature (quoting yours truly and other drug policy reformers, including my Law Enforcement Against Prohibition colleagues) confirming that the topic has finally ripened to maturity, its earnest discourse inescapable.
It's not only newsprint publications calling out the futility and harmfulness of our decades-old prohibition policy. The progressive blogosphere, including Daily Kos, TalkLeft, Crooks and Liars, and, of course, Huffington Post has been devoting more and more bits and bytes to bashing our insane, inhumane drug laws.
So, why does the President of the United States insist on making a joke of the issue? Why, indeed, do most Democrats in Washington scramble to avoid the conversation altogether?
Three out of four Americans believe the "war on drugs" is a failure and can never be won. Serious people like Sen. Jim Webb, former Mexican president Vicente Fox, Congressmen Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, Steve Cohen and others, even a growing body of right-of-center analysts and politicians have been saying it's time to fundamentally reshape our approach to drug control.
So, why this divide between massive public opposition to current policies and the positions taken by our leaders? Fear, of course. They're afraid of being punished for touching what has been perceived, mistakenly, as a third rail issue.
And the cause of this "drug war dementia"? I'm guessing it has something to do with a brilliant 2004 poll on the topic of medical marijuana. The poll asked two questions, the first confirming what had already been shown over and over again: that about 70 percent of people support the idea of legalizing marijuana, at least for medical purposes.
But then, pollsters asked something interesting:
"Regardless of your own opinion, do you think the majority of people support making marijuana medically available, or do you think the majority opposes making marijuana medically available?"
The result? In Rhode Island, where the poll was conducted, only 26.5 percent thought that most people support medical marijuana.
The lesson here? While many of our elected representatives privately support serious changes to our failed drug laws, they believe they are alone. They think if they stick their necks out they'll be handed their heads come election time.
Which is why we must rise up and let our elected officials know they are safe to support drug law reform. And in considerable political danger if they do not.
Follow Norm Stamper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CopsSayLegalize
Go ahead and make your arguements that medical marijuana should be legal. One of the largest product lines the cartels deal in is meth. They move cocaine too. Whats meth's medical use? How about cocaine? Going after the supply is a failure for sure but when will we start putting suburban kids, actors, singers, politicos and athletes in jail, REAL JAIL, when caught with drugs? Arrest the people buying the drugs and confiscate their car. Stop coddling drug users as victims of a "disease" . Americans are killing Mexicans through their self-indulgent need for drugs to escape their "difficult" lives.
I do not believe legalizing all drugs will stop the violence and killing in Mexico because I think we all know there are certain drugs that will always be dangerous and need to be banned. Cartels will deal those drugs. While I agree that certain drugs like marijuana have medicinal benefits, I do not believe just legalizing it completely is appropriate. The narcotic affect of marijuana is the allure, the medicinal benefit the arguement. Stop killing Mexicans for the sake of argument. Por Favor.
It would mean admitting failure. Americans don't admit failure well. And the immense effort and expense would be wasted.
Treating drugs as a law enforcement issue is treating it as a problem that must be controlled. That's what we do with problems - we control them. Adopting a public health stance would mean abandoning control, dealing with a problem rather than controlling it, and the self-image-wrecking admission that this is something we can't control.
Simply asking "What will work?" as so often happens, doesn't get top priority. (Eg, SPHC)
"[President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to." H.R. Haldeman's diary according to former Wall Street Journal reporter Dan Baum in his book "Smoke and Mirrors".
The war on drugs was then and still is today that "system" and it is working perfectly.
In 1970 Richard Nixon, in collusion with the Dixie-crats who are today's blue dog Democrats, created the war on drugs to subvert and neutralize the electoral empowerment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and re-invigorate Jim Crow's criminal disenfranchisement. SUCCESS!
And Barack Obama is a proud lawn ornament for this authoritarian atrocity against the constitution and democracy of pluralistic America.
It amazes me how dim witted we are about this "war" on drugs - it is just making many very rich and costing others hugely. It must stop.
I surely hope we can make the change that Portugal did and do it soon.
And one thing all congress people know for certain: to be against god is to lose the election