on november 2nd californians will be voting to, basically, legalize the cultivation and possession of small amounts of marijuana. and, not surprisingly, many in law enforcement (including the attorney general) are opposed.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-marijuana-holder-20101016,0,5547626.story
the opposition from law enforcement is patently absurd, as it’s predicated on the idea that any aspect of the war on drugs is actually working. the war on drugs, simply, and based on all studies and evidence, doesn’t work. the united states and local law enforcement spends, on average, between $20billion and $40billion a year waging the war on drugs. and our prisons are filled with people who’ve been arrested for use and possession and small-scale distribution. and people continue to do drugs. in fact, there’s not a single epidemiological study indicating that the war on drugs has led to a decrease in drug use. if anything, drug use in the last 30 years has remained steady or actually increased.
if looked at objectively, the war on drugs:
- has cost us roughly $500,000,000,000.00 dollars (500 billion dollars)
- has filled our jails and courts and prisons with petty drug offenders
- has clogged our courts
- hasn’t decreased drug usage in the united states
we have spent 500 billion dollars on the war on drugs, and what has been accomplished? well, we have a thriving prison industry, but apart from that it seems as if it’s basically been money flushed down the toilet.
again, simply, the war on drugs isn’t working.
i’m not advocating for/against legalization or decriminalization, i’m just saying that any reasonably bright and objective person can see that the war on drugs isn’t working and it’s obscenely expensive and clogging our courts and prisons.
the idea of continuing to wage the war on drugs as it’s been waged for the last 30 years (at a price tag of between 500 billion and 1 trillion dollars) is ludicrous. at some point someone in politics has to courageously stand up and say ‘we need a new approach to drug policy, as the war on drugs isn’t working’. as einstein said: ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’. the war on drugs isn’t working. we need courageous leaders and politicians to stand up and change federal and local drug policy.
here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs
http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/factsheets/economiccons/fact_economic.cfm
-moby