Let's REALLY (REALLY!) end the War on Drugs.

Let's REALLY (REALLY!)  end the War on Drugs.

Candidates running on both sides have expressed minimal responses on the current wave of legalization of Marijuana across several  States , yes it's legal in Washington DC . It's always puzzled me for a while after hearing Hillary R Clinton , Jeb Bush in two recent interviews on their perceptions of legalization . (1)>>They are both on the same hard line. So here is an analysis of both of them.  First, make no mistake: Jeb is a drug warrior."Some try to make the drug epidemic just a criminal justice issue, and some try to make it just a health care issue. These singular approaches oversimplify this complex challenge," the campaign said in a statement outlining the plan. "Governor Jeb Bush believes we need a multi-faceted strategy that: prevents drug abuse and addiction; strengthens criminal justice; secures the border to stop the flow of illicit drugs; and improves treatment and recovery programs." He said at a Town-hall meeting recently . By some accounts, he was one of the “best drug warriors in town” during his eight year stint as Florida’s governor. While there he took on the cocaine cartels and oversaw a slight reduction in drug-fueled violence. That’s the shiny part of his governorship; the rest was much more bleak. A vast majority of Governor Bush’s policy stances were indicative of and inspired by the larger failed trends in the war on drugs: He successfully lobbied against a ballot initiative that would have treated nonviolent drug offenders instead of jailing them, he cut funding to treatment centers and drug-courts, he increased mandatory minimum jail sentences for drug-related crimes, and, in 2014, stepped out of term limit-imposed retirement to urge Floridians to vote against an ultimately doomed medical marijuana bill that had, at one point, enjoyed nearly 90% support. The Democratic side has always supported the same stance on Drugs . 
The Clinton Crusade outcomes.

(1.2)>>Hillary Clinton wants to run for president as an economic populist, as a humane progressive interested in bolstering the fortunes of poor and middle class Americans. But before liberals enthusiastically sign up for Team Hillary, they should remember this: In the late 1990s, Bill Clinton played in instrumental role in creating the world’s largest prison system — one that has devastated our inner cities, made a mockery of American idealism abroad, and continues to inflict needless suffering on millions of people. And he did it with his wife’s support. The explosion of the prison system under Bill Clinton’s version of the “War on Drugs” is impossible to dispute. The total prison population rose by 673,000 people under Clinton’s tenure — or by 235,000 more than it did under President Ronald Reagan, according to a study by the Justice Policy Institute. “Under President Bill Clinton, the number of prisoners under federal jurisdiction doubled, and grew more than it did under the previous 12-years of Republican rule,combined,” states the JPI report (italics theirs). The federal incarceration rate in 1999, the last year of the Democrat’s term, was 42 per 100,000 — more than double the federal incarceration rate at the end of President Reagan’s term (17 per 100,000), and 61 percent higher than at the end of President George Bush’s term (25 per 100,000), according to JPI. In her speech at Columbia University on last year , Clinton called for an end to mass incarceration and recommended that police departments have officers wear body cameras.“Earlier today, Hillary Clinton proposed various criminal justice reform ideas in an attempt to undo some of Bill Clinton’s work — the same work she cheerfully supported as first lady,” a statement from the Kentucky senator’s campaign reads.The release cites an April 13 Salon article titled “The Clinton dynasty’s horrific legacy: How ‘tough-on-crime’ politics built the world’s largest prison system.”

World Wide implications of American war on Drugs.

AS remarkable as it seems the Clinton era of American politics was also the period where  the United States took part in making and shaping international laws , poring in billions into other nations to set up drug laws that persecuted individuals in the harshest and  most inhumane methods available . The war on drug's policy spread to other nations creating human rights violations . For decades, Washington’s crusade against illegal drugs has destroyed lives, (2)>>destabilized civil society and generally wreaked havoc on Mexico and the countries of Central and South America.Since October, more than 50,000 children and adolescents (mainly from Central America) have successfully made the trek through Mexico to reach the United States. Others have perished at the hands of the drug gangs that control the trafficking routes. Extortion, kidnapping and rape are all-too-common along these routes. Traffickers frequently force refugees passing through Mexico to become drug mules — they’re forced to smuggle small shipments of drugs as they make their way to the United States.The refugees are fleeing not only grinding poverty but widespread carnage, inflicted mostly by powerful Mexican-based drug cartels and other criminal gangs. Honduran President Juan Hernandez blamed U.S. drug policy for sparking violence in Central American countries and driving a surge of migration to the United States, Hernandez, who took office in January after winning on a pledge to be tough on crime, said only a drop in violence would curb the wave of families and unaccompanied minors fleeing Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras who have overwhelmed temporary detention facilities on the U.S. border."Honduras has been living in an emergency for a decade," Hernandez told Mexican daily newspaper Excelsior. "The root cause is that the United States and Colombia carried out big operations in the fight against drugs. Then Mexico did it." The evidence is overwhelming that American drug policies have also created dictatorships . Since the American stance on the drug war started since the 1970's the number of countries applying the death penalty for drugs offenses has increased. In 1979 there were 10 countries that executed drug offenders. By 1985, that number had increased to 22; by 2000, to 36 (although it declined to 33 in 2012). Some years have seen as many as 1,000 drug-related executions, many of them in Iran, Singapore and China, where precise figures are unavailable. Thousands of individuals are on death row in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa for drug offenses. Indonesia offers a particularly gruesome example. In 2015, 14 prisoners there, mostly foreign nationals, were killed by firing squad.Worse off in Indonesia the government is corrupt enough that it's also trying to extort money from innocent  tourists by planting drugs on would be victims  Reports indicate hapless foreigners have paid up to US$45,000 in "bribes" to have the Balinese overlook their alleged / phony narcotics possession. What a nasty island Bali now is. Examples above is how America is seeding money to these countries to fight it's war on drugs , while at the same time corrupting them . The War on Drugs and the corruption it fosters in government, theirs and ours, is the problem, not the solution. Escalating the WOD will increase the profits for the bad guys on both sides, the cartels and their jackboot opponents, but the rest of society will suffer and pay the price as our rights are stripped away and are caught in the crossfire between organized crime syndicates, private and government. The WOD is a for-profit racket for all the cronies involved, replete with lobbyists in Washington DC. There’s the SWAT industry with all their expensive toys, the prison industry that make a profit housing all the mostly non-violent offenders, the trial-lawyer industry, pharmaceutical companies that don’t want cheaper, safer competition, to name a few of the players.

Just like freedom was the solution to the corruption and crime caused by alcohol prohibition, so to freedom is the solution to the WOD.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

(1)>>They are both on the same hard line. Democrats & Republicans have in the most part in the last 40 years contributed to the strict mentality of the law on the drug war , it contributed to a disastrous course. Simply saying The American war on Drugs like it's war on Terror is costly . It's has also contributed to the national debt .   The Republican shift on weed comes as more and more Americans are starting to embrace the idea of legalization. Colorado and Washington residents can already get high whenever they want, and Alaska and Oregon will vote on similar measures to legalize recreational use this year. Recent surveys show that about half of Americans—including 58 percent in this January Gallup poll—now support legalization, up from about 30 percent in 2000. Those numbers are even greater among young people: According to a new Pew Research Center study on millennials, 68 percent of people ages 18 to 33 support legalizing weed, up from 34 percent just eight years ago.The issue has all of the makings of a culture-war blowout, pitting old-guard conservatives against a new cadre of young, more socially liberal conservatives. On one hand, the GOP is desperate to attract a younger crowd, a task the Pew report suggests is becoming increasingly difficult, as younger voters are overwhelmingly in favor of same-sex marriage, tend to support abortion rights, and think the government should provide more services. That leaves marijuana legalization as one of the few issues where Republicans actually have a shot at appealing to voters under 30. On the other hand, the dwindling opposition to weed remains concentrated among older Republicans, the party’s most reliable voter base. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Democrats other lawmakers enacted a wave of tough-on-crime measures, driven by record spikes in violent crime and a crack epidemic that was ravaging major cities and poor and minority communities across the nation. Those laws, backed by both Democrats and Republicans, would lead to millions of people behind bars or dead, give rise to increasingly militarized police forces, and funnel billions of dollars into a global war on drugs. In 1988, Biden helped usher in harsher penalties for drug possession and create the Office of National Drug Control Policy, run by the "drug czar." The rhetoric of the first chief, William Bennett, recalled that of Harry Anslinger, the much-criticized first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a precursor to the modern-day Drug Enforcement Administration.Anslinger was the father of the war on marijuana and often used racial fears to gin up support for drug prohibition. For his part, Bennett once said he didn't have a problem with beheading drug dealers and was disappointed that those dealers, when arrested, could not be imprisoned indefinitely without trial. Bennett's hard line would define the drug czar's office for many years.Even today, the office is legally barred from supporting the legalization of any Schedule I substance. But the current drug czar, Michael Botticelli, has moved away from its tough-on-crime roots toward a more health-focused approach, favoring treatment over incarceration. (1.2)>>Hillary Clinton. In August 2015, an uncomfortable encounter between Black Lives Matter (BLM) protestors and Hillary Clinton finally broke the silence of many mainstream press outlets on the Clintons’ shared responsibility for the disastrous policies of mass incarceration, and its catalyst, the War on Drugs. Although a number of prominent academics have written on the subject, little popular discussion of the racial impact of the Clintons’ crime and punishment policies emerged until the opening volleys of the 2016 presidential race. A true paradox lies at the heart of the Clinton legacy. Both Hillary and Bill continue to enjoy enormous popularity among African Americans despite the devastating legacy of a presidency that resulted in the impoverishment and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of poor and working-class black people. Most shockingly, the total numbers of state and federal inmates grew more rapidly under Bill Clinton than under any other president, including the notorious Republican drug warriors Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. (2)>>destabilized civil society. U.S. federal, state, and local governments now spend $50 billion per year trying to make America "drug free." State prison budgets top spending on public colleges and universities. The prison industrial complex is ever more powerful. Nevertheless, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer, and easier to get than ever before.The same destruction has occurred in America. Millions of lives have been ruined through crime, murder, extortion, addiction, incarceration, etc. All because we didn't learn THE lesson of alcohol prohibition -- government cannot force people to avoid addictive substances through laws. We may as well try to outlaw smoking or sex. It doesn't work. Having said that, if there were no drug users, there wouldn't be a drug trade, so users massively contribute to the problem through demand for these products.