40 YEARS OF WAR ON DRUGS HAS FAILED

Tony Newman,. Director of Media Relations at the Drug Policy Alliance Network, wrote a commentary on what he called an AP Bombshell.   The AP accused the US war on drugs as not having met any of its goals in the 40 years it has been fighting.  Nixon's first drug-fighting budget was $100 million. Now it's $15.5 billion, in Obama's 2011 budget, 31 times Nixon's amount even when adjusted for inflation.  For anyone who wants to know where the money goes, click here for the whole AP article.

The AP article wrote:  "Religious movements led the crusades against drugs: In 1904, an Episcopal bishop returning from a mission in the Far East argued for banning opium after observing "the natives' moral degeneration." In 1914, The New York Times reported that cocaine caused blacks to commit "violent crimes," and that it made them resistant to police bullets. In the decades that followed, Mena said, drugs became synonymous with evil."

Many programs have been started and failed.  Rather than do away with ineffective programs, the government has just been pouring more and more dollars into them.  AP further writes: "$450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses. At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" — cost the United States $215 billion a year."  

Folks, 'cost the United States' is a euphemism for 'cost the taxpayers', most of whom are we, the middle class..Many organizations have been fighting drug prohibition, as yet unsuccessful because there is too much money involved and many moralists believe it to be sinful, just as people thought alcohol was going to turn us into a land of alcoholics. Here is one organization trying to fight the prohibition.

The United States should stop wasting this money, look at the data available as to the lack of success, stop pandering to the few righteous-without-facts people, and legalize drugs.  As a non drug user, I see no point in wasting so much money on a losing proposition.  If 40 years of the 'War' hasn't proven it is not the way to go...then what does it take for reality to set in when it stares you in the face?