Mayors of SF, Newark and Salt Lake City "Just Say No" to War on Drugs

What do San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson share in common? They are three mayors who are speaking out forcefully against the failed, racist drug war.

Last week Mayor Newsom gave a passionate interview about the need to end the war on drugs (link to #1 below). Newsom proclaimed the nation's war on drugs a total failure and insisted the crime rate would go down if the government spent money on treatment as opposed to jailing people with drug problems. The mayor maintained that local jails are overcrowded with people incarcerated on drug charges. He also criticized elected officials, including Democrats who know the drug war is a joke, but are too cowardly to say so because of their fear of being "soft on crime".

Booker showed courage and wisdom when he slammed the failed drug war in an op-ed in the Newark Star Ledger in July.

Anderson has shown leadership in Salt Lake City on this issue for years. In June, Mayor Anderson introduced a resolution at the U.S. Conference of Mayors calling for a "new bottom line" in drug policy that concentrates more fully on reducing the negative consequences associated with drug abuse, while ensuring that our policies do not exacerbate these problems or create new social problems of their own. The resolution, which was passed, states that the drug war costs $40 billion annually but has not cut drug use or demand. It slams the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) drug-prevention programs -- specifically, the agency's national anti-drug media campaign -- as "costly and ineffective," but called drug treatment cost-effective and a major contributor to public safety because it prevents criminal behavior.

Voters are craving elected officials who are courageous and principled enough to speak out against a failing war, whether it is in Iraq or here at home.

Comments

[WorkingClass]

I like to think of Nixon's War on Drugs as training wheels for Bush's War on Terrorism. Taken together these wars have created a police state from what was once a democratic republic. This is not an unintended consequence. Both Nixon and Cheney thought our country should be ruled rather than governed. Bush would not be Dictator today if Nixon had not provided the foundation - the War on Drugs.

Were the republic to be restored, all of the legislation and legal precedent underpinning the War on Drugs would need to be undone. It is my hope that the next American revolution will restore the rule of law and the bill of rights.

[Iownpeterbilt]

The drug war is a roaring sucess, it makes the CIA bookoo bucks, and employs hundreds of social parasites. There is no way to end the war on drugs, as long as so many jobs depend on it.......

[TheQuestion]

As the war in Iraq benefits bomb makers the war on drugs benefits prison buiders & private corporations that run prisons.

[oldpotsmuggler]

Who knew that urine could be such a gateway into the mind and body? Is she pregnant? How are the old kidneys working? No routine physical exam is ever complete without pissing into a cup.

I imagine that no one ever tried to cheat on a pregnancy test, and that's why pregnant women are allowed to pee without being intimately observed by an agent of the government. Now we've got home drug tests and it must be awful for parents to wrestle with the concept that the test may very well be worthless unless they observe the urine stream leaving their child"s body. Next we'll have companies offering to send a hired pee watcher to the home? There are currently thousand and thousand of prison guards, parole officers, lab techs, etc. out there getting a pay check for intruding into an activity that was once thought to be private. Add what they get paid to the cost of running the actual tests and we could probably give free drugs to every addict for less than we spend just on this little side pocket of the drug war.

The question that everyone should ask, though, is how much would you have to be paid to look at an endless stream of cocks and pussies, and do it closely enough to know that the pee that ends up in the cup is the real deal? If your answer is "I might do it if this was the only way to keep my family from starving to death", you are normal. But what does that say about the ones who accept only a middle class pay check for helping degrade our society to the point where we now consider the government to have a legitimate interest in our bodily wastes? If THEY own your pee, how much longer before THEY own the rest of you as well? And how would you like to live next door to some motherfucker weird enough to administer piss tests for a living? If you knew who they were, would you allow them to be alone with children?

[Kansas Evans]

I'm a big fan of Cory Booker, since I watched the 2004 Newark mayoral election on PBS.

War on drugs, not so much.

I knew it was racist in it implementation, though mainstream America needs a reason that touches them personally before they support ending the program. Hopefully, the fact that it's a big fat waste of money is that fact.

Also, I'm tired of all this 'tough on crime' posturing that people have to do for elected office. What don't they just say they'll be tough of all the scary blacks, latinos, arabs, and persians, and anyone else who might taint Lil Johnny and Lil Suzy's innocence. That's really what they mean. It's time for people to stop being elected on the backs of the disadvantaged.

[sorenmeetsdylan]

The drug war is a dismal failure.

[KnoxBlues1]

No, the War on Drugs is a shining example of how successful the War on Terror will be. Darn well worth every billion we can spend on it!