Drugs

GinAndTaco's, one of my favorite sites, thinks the drug war is about getting the bottom 20% of society out of the way. Now, I agree that the drug laws in this country are stupid and that the bottom 20% are generally the most imprisoned group but the claim that drug laws exist as a way for the elite class to handle the bottom 20% seems pretty far out there to me.

I see our drug laws more as regulation left over from a more, puritan, innocent, less-educated time when people really thought drugs were bad and making them illegal would really benefit society. Sure, there were people who saw the laws as a path to power and money and pushed for them but generally, to the masses, I think drugs laws sounded like something that would work, solve a problem they could see.

Today, we see the effects of those laws. We see that the problems of prohibition, the organized crime, corruption, and violence on a global scale, are worse for society than the individual drug use itself. Yet the drug laws remain, kept in place by greed of the current players and the ineffectiveness of our national government. Law enforcement, state and local governments, the legal profession, the beer, wine, liquor, pharmaceutical industries, and the drug cartels themselves would lose billions if the drug laws were repealed so they all lobby, in their own way, to scare people to keep the laws in place.

I think we'll only change our approach to drug use when the understanding that "anti-drug laws are more dangerous than individual drug-use" comes to main street USA. That may be a while but we are getting closer, the fall of Mexico may be the tipping point.

A few Links:

The [GinAndTacos on Drugs] post. A great site, be sure to look around a little.

How much we're spending in the War-On_drugs [War on Drugs Clock]

States and law enforcement making money on drugs: [Indiana] [Indiana 2]

Mexico, failed state: [Mexico 1] [Mexico 2]

The United States of America has an incarceration rate of 743 per 100,000 of national population (as of 2009), the highest in the world.[3] In comparison, Russia has the second highest 577 per 100,000, Canada has 117 per 100,000, and China has 120 per 100,000.[3] While Americans only represent about 5 percent of the world’s population, one-quarter of the entire worlds inmates are incarcerated in the United States.[4] [Encarceration rate - Wikipedia]

tnb.