4/20 Update on the War on Drugs

The Literary Brothel is about to get serious on this less-than-serious counterculture holiday. You have been warned. -KV

4/20 Update on the War on Drugs
Klaus Varley

Since its inception in the 1970s, the war on drugs has cost over 1 Trillion dollars [1] and more people are using drugs today than ever before. So what's the solution? Well, how did they solve the last era of Prohibition in our country?

Luckily I don't have to make the argument for legalization, because there are far more articulate people doing it for me.

So sit back, relax [2] and check out the links below for some of the best arguments for drug legalization and the state of the current debate.

...
David Simon of The Wire

"I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat. I would put all the interdiction money, all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, all of the pretrial, all the prep, all of that cash, I would hurl it, as fast as I could, into drug treatment and job training and jobs programs. I would rather turn these neighborhoods inward with jobs programs. Even if it was the equivalent of the urban CCC, if it was New Deal-type logic, it would be doing less damage than creating a war syndrome, where we're basically treating our underclass. The drug war's war on the underclass now. That's all it is. It has no other meaning."

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper

On the Drug War

"The most destructive and damming social policy since slavery."

On Marijuana effects vs. Alcohol

"I ask cops over and over how many people under the influence of marijuana turn violent on you in your career as a cop. The answer is always none." (Summarized)

"The drug that does produce more belligerence, more violence, more health problems, financial problems, family and community problems - than all other drugs combined - is legal."



What has Obama said about the issue? Little, so far. But he did brush off a question about marijuana legalization with a joke. Below, Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks shows the Obama clip then makes spot-on observations.



Alright, no more videos...but here are some links to some great ones, if you have the time:

Bill Maher speaking in front of NORML on Marijuana Legalization

"This isn't like the war on terrorism, we can't just win it by putting a flag on our car."

Glenn Beck gets owned by a Rob Kampia from the Marijuana Policy Project

Either he had a change of heart, or the above debate wasn't a real debate, Beck seems to come out in favor of legalization in this clip.

Dr. Ron Paul debating Stephen Baldwin on CNN (Stephen Baldwin? WTF CNN?)

Harvard Economics Professor Jeffrey Miron on why Legalization makes sense

And here's a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle on how most people FAVOR marijuana legalization.

So why are we still talking about this?

The answer: we're not. In this post, at least.

-KV

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Footnotes

[1] "Trillion" is capitalized when it refers to money such as the following statement from someone who is first introduced to the facts about the senselessness of our current drug policy: "The war on drugs wasted a Trillion dollars of taxpayer money? A Trillion? Damn that's a lot of money!)

[2] This is not our clever way of saying, "smoke weed while you read this post." It is our less-than-clever way of saying it.