Whether it's music, activism or daily life, the one ideal to which I have always aspired is constant challenge -- taking risks, stepping out of my comfort zone, exploring new ideas.
I am writing because I believe the United States must do precisely that -- and so, therefore, must all of us -- in the case of what has been the most unsuccessful, unjust yet untouchable issue in politics: the War on Drugs.
The War on Drugs has failed -- but it's worse than that. It is actively harming our society. Violent crime is thriving in the shadows to which the drug trade has been consigned. People who genuinely need help can't get it. Neither can people who need medical marijuana to treat terrible diseases. We are spending billions, filling up our prisons with non-violent offenders and sacrificing our liberties.
For too long, the War on Drugs has been a sacrosanct undertaking that was virtually immune from criticism in the public realm. Politicians dared not disagree for fear of being stigmatized as "soft on crime." Any activist who spoke up was dismissed as a fringe element.
But recently, I discovered just how much that's changing--and that's how I came to speak out on behalf of an extraordinary organization called the Drug Policy Alliance.
I learned of DPA, as they're known, while reading what once might have been the unlikeliest of places for a thoughtful discussion of the Drug War -- the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal.
It featured an op-ed that dared to say in print -- in a thoughtful, meticulous argument -- what everyone who has seriously looked at the issue has known for years: the War on Drugs is an absolute failure whose cost to society is increasingly unbearable and absolutely unjustifiable.
The author of that piece is a former Princeton professor turned activist named Ethan Nadelmann, who runs DPA. I was so impressed by his argument that I began reading up on the group.
Their work spoke directly to my heart as an activist for social justice -- because ending the War on Drugs is about exactly that.
For years, the Drug War has been used as a pretext to lock people in prison for exorbitant lengths of time -- people whose "crimes" never hurt another human being, people who already lived at the margins of society, whose voices were the faintest and whose power was the least.
Civil liberties have been trampled. Law enforcement has been militarized. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars -- dollars denied to urgent problems ranging from poverty to pollution -- have been spent. People who do need help with drugs have been treated as criminals instead. Meanwhile, resources to fight genuine crime -- violent crime -- have been significantly diminished.
And in exchange for all this, the War on Drugs has not stopped people from using drugs or kept drugs from crossing the borders or being sold on the streets.
To me, it all adds up to a clear message of exactly the sort I've always tried to heed in my life: It's time to step out of our comfort zone and try something new.
That's where DPA comes in. Their focus is on reducing the harm drugs cause rather than obsessively and pointlessly attempting to ban them.
I'm partnering with DPA because they champion treatment, advocate effective curricula for educating young people about drugs -- and from local courtrooms to the Supreme Court, they are utterly relentless defenders of the liberties that have been sacrificed to the Drug War.
Now, political conditions in Washington seem finally to be aligning in favor of profound change in drug policy. President Obama has openly said the Drug War is a failure. Legislation to decriminalize marijuana is pending on Capitol Hill.
But success is far from guaranteed. Indeed, the echoes of the old politics of intimidation and demagoguery that have long surrounded the War on Drugs can still be heard. We must all work to ensure this issue becomes a priority and is acted upon in a meaningful and sensible way.
That's why I hope you'll join me in becoming a member of the Drug Policy Alliance today. We need a movement that will put the team at DPA in a position to take maximum advantage of the political changes in Washington while continuing to fight for sanity in drug policy across the nation.
Everyone knows the War on Drugs has failed. It's time to step out of our comfort zones, acknowledge the truth -- and challenge our leaders ... and ourselves ... to change.
Bill Piper: Don't Just Smoke a Joint on 4/20 -- Take Action Against Marijuana Prohibition
War on Drugs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Raising awareness of the consequences of drug prohibition | Stop ...
What's Wrong With the Drug War?
Mexico's Drug War - Stories, Photos, Videos - Mexico Under Siege ...
Killings Take Drug War to Mexico Elite
Why is there a war on drugs? Because the government doesn't like someone competing with it. In order to fight their competition the legislature has criminalized a natural substances and persecutes the culture that surrounds it. There is BILLIONS at stake for these agencies.
Don't forget that the U.S. is presently "allowing" Afghani's to grow poppy for heroin processing. And the CIA was found to be guilty of cocaine trafficking not long ago.
Of course the people that are the lowest on the totem pole and have the smallest voices are the easiest to target...that is why they are targeted.
The corporatocracy of tobacco, alcohol and big pharma are in charge, buying legislation or preventing legislation from passing. Alcohol and tobacco can kill thousands yet marijuana maybe kills a hundred but it is the banned substance. Alcohol and tobacco have the lobbyists; marijuana has advocates.
This issue is much deeper than just allowing marijuana to be used it is the fight for liberty at the core of the Republic which is the U.S.A What people do in their own homes is their business. It is not the government's job, as presented in the Constitution, to legislate morals...I guess unless there is enough money involved.
I am not a cop-hater, but I do realize clearly the Prison Industrial Complex of which you speak. My home of Baton Rouge is putting the finishing touches on a new courthouse; not enough time or space to state my feelings, but our city already has a skyline comprised of 2 types large buildings: governmental buildings, and, the buildings in which the business law firms operate.
Facts:
1- There has never been a case of lung cancer associated with marijuana use.
2- There has never been a single death solely due to marijuana use. ( think how many have died because of alcohol overconsumption )
3- There have been major scientific studies going on in Israel for 30 years that counter the FDA claims and a number of scientists have published articles citing it's benefits in treating pain and nausea.
5- There is no evidence that marijuana is a gateway drug.
Would you rather have successful members contributing to society (Actors, athletes, teachers---don't be naive--inventors pioneers, presidents...etc?
Or would you rather have legions of hardended felons who can't get a real job so they become unproductive leaches, or more likely repeat offenders?
Would you rather pump billions of dollars into GDP, replace our more harmful environmental activities and synthethic drugs with a natural substance that is virtual non-addictive and doesn't have a single recorded death attributed to its use?
Or...
Do you want to live in a country that has 5% of the world's population, yet 25% of the worlds prisoners? A place where the drug war is used to make sure there is an unending stream of inmates to feed into the massive private prison industrial complex; a place where destroying humans is the goal, profits are the result?
As a high school teacher and U.S. taxpayer, I am highly disappointed that they let you near the kids. THINK FOR YOURSELF! What kind of example is " but I will continue to side on the law as it stands now."? Is this what you would have thought during the Civil War? "Well, slavery isn't the greatest...but I will continue to side on the law as it stands now. How about Civil Rights of the 60's? How about the early Sufferage Movement? Is that what you tell them? Just bend over and take it ?!?!?!
We could put them out of business in no time and raise taxes for domestic programs. And putting the pot in taxed containers available only for them over 21 years of age will help keep the stuff out of the hands of our kids. Or at least keep our kids away from the black marketeers which are selling all kinds of other more harmful drugs.
It's really a no-brainer.
But I think that's what youu have to be in order to be a Congressman. a NO-BRAINER.
Well put thoughts.
The sale of drugs would be taxed.
Those who sell drugs would earn a legitmitate and taxable income.
Those who purchase or sell drugs would not be arrested for felony posession and have a much easier time finding legitimate - and taxable - jobs.
An inordinate amount of money would not be spent on the enforcement and adjudication of vice laws.
The import and export of drugs could be taxed.
More jobs would be created for the farming, cultivation and shipment of drugs.
The bottom line is that people are still going to do drugs. Whether they be tobacco, alcohol, prescription, marijuana, cocaine and so on. Do we continue to blindly fight this ever losing war on drugs or do we try to treat people as adults and allow adults to treat their bodies however they please - as long as they aren't harming anyone else?
Enough, already. End it NOW!
Federally DE-Schedule and DE-Criminalize. Research it honestly and openly, without bias. Cannabis is a most efficacious medicine for not just treating illness and disease, but so much promise to Cure many deadly diseases.
Legalize all drugs. Make them available at regulated, clean, Safe facilities in tandem with proven treatment models.
Use a logical, fiscally responsible, cost effective, common sense approach and WE will begin to "Clean Up America"!
All the reasons why have been explained in this most excellent thread and article.
I wonder why in America we get stuck on the freedom of press so much as to still have respect for even papers like NYT. I remember in a docu I saw where a NYT editors was trying to clAim anti war cred.
Will Rogers
We have already arrived with reality shows, "The Cop Series" of weekly programing, Mini-Documentaries featuring Prisoners as the "stars", No News that reflects "just the true facts" without the injection of Corporate Policies/Desires to sway the viewer and "Medical Shows" ad nauseam.
How much do you pay your cable service each moth to "get stupider"?
It Glams up jobs in the justice system, programs featuring the Health Care Industry and Prison's, and more. Lets don't even get started on the Video Games and School Curriculum, boy oh boy has it Ever changed in the last 60 years!!!!!!
The "Dumbing Down of America". We bought it and now we own it.
I will try to clarify. Prohibition, instead of reducing drug use, increases it.
If we had a prohibition of education, and it worked as well as the governments efforts to prohibit drugs, more people would end up being educated.
Get it?
However, we now possess an understanding of our own brain chemistry unique in history, and a similarly unprecedented ability to design molecules to affect it from the atoms up. A significant portion of the world economy is invested in tailoring designer pharmaceuticals, including those intended to alter brain chemistry. Like most technical fields, it's advancing so quickly that only experts can keep abreast of it.
Over the last few years, corporations in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular have demonstrated their ability to control governments. They've written American health care legislation and extorted concessions worth billions of dollars. In addition to their enormous power, they've also demonstrated that they are amoral short-term profit factories with little regard for welfare of individuals.
Our current doomed, moralistic approach to this issue is bad, but we must take care to improve it in a way that won't permit the pharmaceutical industry to make it much worse. We have the ability to design altered states never before encountered in our environment, to make them addictive to a degree that makes heroin seem like mother's milk, and to put them in the checkout line of every grocery store.
We're in frying pan, which means the fire is never far away.
Relieving the stresses of life is part of the human condition. Why don't you go out and shoot all the sky divers and mountain bikers? They certainly harm people if their hobby goes wrong. They cost the health system lots of cash with the broken bones and all. If you jump down a mountain it's fine but if you take a syringe for the same effect it's a mortal sin and you should be strung up? I don't see your point.
Should we start sending smokers and drinkers to prison? "Stamping out"? Just look at Iran, it's bullshit. They have death penalties for way less serious crimes and also a ridiculous Heroin problem. The fact that people are executed for drug trafficking doesn't mean there is no more drug trafficking, just that it gets more expensive and dangerous.
You need to treat the problem not the symptoms. Punishing/Killing people for drug use is easy and the dumbest possible way. Providing an environment in which they don't need/want to take any illicit drugs is much much harder and involves loads of money and a fair bit of compassion for other human beings.
and alcohlics don't find a cure in opiates?
some alcoholics take valium and/or grass too, but alcohol remains their nemesis
and people with obesity disease don't find a cure in heroin, cocaine, or methylphenidate as appetite supressants? (prominent exceptions being the entertainment industry)
perhaps shifting the debate from the simplistic term "legalization" to "regulation of medical and/or personal use" could be an end-run around the beaurocracy and political cowardess
Otherwise, there will be ads on television for "Panama red" and "Acapulco gold".
If it is decrim that just means you don't go to jail. It's still illegal, and the gov't can't tax to gain profits. In fact it just makes it less costly for cartels.
No. The only way to fix the real issues is legalization. This way it is regulated, taxed, and restricted from minors. As it stands, the law makes it easier for a kid to score black tar heroin than an alcoholic drink.
It's transferred billions of tax dollars into the coffers of assorted corporations, created an untaxable shadow economy for large investments, justified US interference in other governments, and allowed a great deal of recreational moralizing, free of the burden of facts, the effort of reason, or the responsibility to draw supportable conclusions and implement them as beneficial public policy.
And like the religious values it's ultimately based upon, the War on Drugs has managed to conceal a hypocrisy epic in scope and stunning in its Byzantine complexity, all in plain sight.
The effects of the illegality of drugs are far reaching and too numerous to enumerate.
How about deciding how best to make drugs legal, taking away the criminal and corrupt effects on our society. Educate while making them legally available without promoting or advertising them. It isn't pretty but it is much prettier than the status quo.