DRUG WAR HAS FAILED
Drug war enforcement leads to far higher rates of drug use, death, disease, crime, and addiction than would result if we treated drug abuse as a medical and public health problem.
- Children report they can find illegal drugs faster than beer or cigarettes.
- Hard drugs are far cheaper and more pure than ever before.
- Millions of families have been destroyed when parents or children are arrested.
- We have built the largest prison system ever seen on earth, in the “land of the free”.
- Most of our civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights have been shattered by “Drug War” court decisions.
- Police have been corrupted in small towns and large, from coast to coast.
- We have found a way to institutionalize racism, and ignore the real needs of poor people.
- Legal drugs (tobacco, alcohol, pills) kill 100 times more people than illegal drugs.
- Americans may outgrow an addiction, but can never outgrow a conviction.
Nixon began the modern American drug war in 1971, as a political ploy to create fear, establish “authority”, and win elections. Nixon said (from the diary of HR Haldeman, 1969): “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to”. They succeeded. Blacks use drugs at the same rate as whites, but end up as the majority of drug war prisoners. Then they can be denied equal opportunity, decent jobs and the right to vote.
All drugs, including heroin and coca, were legal until 1914 - and caused much less damage than they do now. Each drug was demonized and made illegal on the basis of racist fear. Cannabis (Marijuana) is nearly harmless, yet we arrest 750,000 Americans (one each 42 seconds) for pot. We arrest 1.6 million Americans every year for putting something in their body the government doesn’t like. Jesus would advise that (Matt: 15:11) “What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him unclean, but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him unclean.” Cannabis must be available for medical use and be taxed and regulated like alcohol for recreational use. When cannabis was suppressed, as part of a “culture war”, the addiction to white powders dramatically increased. Cannabis cannot kill people.
The “forbidden fruit factor” is a major reason Americans are so attracted to illegal drugs. Drugs should be stripped of all the “taboo” allure, taxed and regulated, checked for purity, and sold in plain boxes with government warning labels. Politicians could climb down off their opportunistic, self righteous drug war soapboxes and start solving major problems – rather than scapegoating and blaming the victim.
DRUG WAR IS A CRIME AGAINST AMERICANS AND A STAIN ON OUR HISTORY. IT PROVIDES BOUNTIFUL FUNDING FOR ORGANIZED CRIMINALS AND TERRORISTS.
WE MUST STOP IT NOW! More
E-mail me at chuckreamforcongress@yahoo.com
