From the VOMITORIUM
Fifty years ago today…..Pres. Richard Nixon made the War on Drugs official…….
No this is not a post on WW1 or WW2, wars that cost a lot, especially in human lives…..but rather the endless War on Drugs….anyone that has been a avid reader of Info Ink knows that I think that this country has pissed away billions upon billions of dollars fighting a war they cannot win….the War on Drugs. I have said that the country should legalize them and then tax them…..this would do away with the massive profits of the cartels…in essence cut out the middle man and in doing so lessen the violence against civilians….back on 29 Dec 2009 I wrote a piece on the War and just how stupid it is (if you want read it go to archives)….but now I feel a bit vindicated from the criticism I took……
The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes several former heads of state and UN officials, has released a report calling the global war on drugs a failure.
“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” the report reads. “Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”
Among the members of the commission are former presidents of Columbia, Mexico and Brazil, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former Fed Chair Paul Volcker, among others.
The report calls for an end to the “criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others,” and for governments to experiment with ways to regulate drugs so as to undercut organized crime and improve public health.
“Begin the transformation of the global drug prohibition regime,” the report says. “Replace drug policies and strategies driven by ideology and political convenience with fiscally responsible policies and strategies grounded in science, health, security and human rights – and adopt appropriate criteria for their evaluation.”
Read the full report here.
It would seem that more thoughtful people will see just how useless this War on Drugs is……makes criminals rich and pisses away billions on something that cannot be stopped…no matter how much cash or how many useless laws that are passed….then why waste the time and effort…..face reality!
Hmmm… you mean, take a pragmatic approach, I assume… 😈
However, the signs don’t look good, do they? I quite agree that trying to ban something that is basically “unbannable” (sorry about the made up word) is utterly pointless – UNLESS you are the boss of a crime syndicate, or a control freak… I’m sure you have both those types in abundance in Washington – so my advice to you for what it’s worth is: don’t hold your breath waiting for THAT to happen!
Good post!
Thanx Quin, appreciate the props….my thing is legalize all of it…..you cut out the middle man and that would end about 90% of the violence that they keep going on a bout….use the revenue from drug taxes to pay for Medicare….we could eliminate the DEA, the lawyers on staff and use the military for more important things…it in the long run we are talking about savings and revenue…..that would help the deficit and shut these pee brains up…..
On the whole, I agree entirely.