Drug War
 

I find that personal freedoms really are curtailed in America. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this:

Link

What's a great little gem is this little number:

So basically, we don't have a drug problem...

We have a governmental interference problem. Why can't we just get some Raid and spray down those annoying pests in Congress every few years?

The word of incentive. It's the most powerful thing we have in the English language. You want to kill the drug war? Kill the reason that people fund it.

But then you'll have the massive rhetoric of "dey took er jebs" coming for you.

If the US citizens want their country back, perhaps it's time to look at the reasons it is existing in such a sad state.

So uh they're taking stuff from drug dealers and selling it? That should be good business. I'm sure drug dealers often are in possession of some kind of thing that has a high market value, though I can't remember the name right now. What is it that drug dealers do trade in that makes so much money. . .help me out here?

Some background might be in order...

For the last 40 years, our drug policy has failed. Look, I'm not going to have you sit there for an hour and listen to the drug policy. Here's the main points.

1) There's a main difference in decriminalization and legalization of drugs.
2) The US has had a 235% increase in incarceration in arrests re: drugs than any other nation.
3) The banning of drugs has lead to more dangerous situations than treatment and legalization
4) ALL drug policy goes to fuel itself at the detriment of society.
5) LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Ex police officers that have dealt with narcotics, want to legalize drugs for not only economic reasons but for societal benefits of research and treatment.

That's not all but you can see the vid and see where I'm coming from. Regardless, I'd like to agree that perhaps we need to take a look at the laws and get rid of the unintended consequences of these bad incentives.

Yeah, the fact that the people fighting the drug war derive an enormous amount of funding directly from the people they're conducting the drug war against, in the form of seized assets, is one more factor that ensures that the war on drugs will be prosecuted at a level just great enough that it will be sustained forever.

Same thing as with speeding really, just with a lot more money involved and the destruction of many, many people's lives.

While the drug war is ridiculously stupid I think couching it in terms of personal freedoms is the wrong way to do it when you can couch it in the terms of ruined lives and people forced into desperate/ridiculous situations, the associated crime. It's much bigger than just a rights issue.

True, but Obama says it's a Public Health issue, essentially avoiding it. The problem is that there are a lot of interests in keeping the status quo, and they have a lot of power. Think about if drugs were legalized. The DEA and the FBI would actually have to do work again!

The claim that calling something a rights issue is exclusive with calling attention to that thing ruining people's lives and trapping them in desparate situations is a fairly strange one.

If drugs were legal the big drug companies would buy up all the patents, take over the south american plantations with their mercaneries, control distribution through their ownership of the courts and smoke big marijuana filled cigars.
Don't get me wrong, this is a better situation than what we have now but surely the DEA and FBI ain't going to do shit once Johnson and Johnson is the mainstream heroin producer.
Well except enforce the rights of the big suppliers.

I'm saying their is a limited capaity of public attention/outrage over issues and you should couch the argument in the worst, most direct human cost.
They aren't exclusive, just where the thrust of your argument is.

Well, if it puts the Coke back in Coca-Cola, I'm all for that!

(YES I AM JOKING!)

They could probably cut back on enforcing marijuana (and stuff like it like Salvai, and uh, K2 or whatever, since it just keeps adding more and more substances onto the list of drugs despite them all having a minor drug effect on the scale of narcotics). I'm sure they could then funnel that money into fighting the harder drugs such as cocaine and heroine.

And the things they are seizing are houses, and cars and so on. They are not reselling the drugs...unless they are. CONSPIRACY TIME

But yeah there is the possibility that they will make certain drugs illegal just so they can make money off of seized assets. Entirely possible. The same thing has happened in Arizona with the new law to arrest anyone who looks like an illegal alien, a law that was sponsored by private prison companies. So if there is any kind of profit in it for a private drug enforcement agency or even a public one, it is not outside probability that they would encourage new drug laws so they continue having a job and making a profit.