it's the War on Drugs birthday!!!

Richard "the Watergater" Nixon was a hater.
he hated anyone who got in the way of his mission from god on any given day.

among his handful of accomplishments before
he was removed from office was starting America's 'other war', and it has proven to be the most enduring part of his 'legacy'.

this is the first page of a six page letter that Elvis Presley wrote to Nixon, volunteering to help with the War on Drugs. a few years later, Elvis would
be dead on the floor of his bathroom following years of abusing sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics.

this chart details the growth in staffing and their expenses. the usual  ballpark figure for the US investment in this war is about one trillion dollars.

these figures do not include how much money other countries have spent over those same years. there are no figures on how many people have died around the world, or even in America as a result of this War. there are no figures on how many people's lives have been ruined, or how many families have been destroyed either.

the War on Drugs has been pretty much a total failure. people are still selling drugs and people
are still buying them and taking them, and then going back for more.


never before has so much money been spent to such poor effect. the War on Drugs has been going on for forty years and has changed nothing...
except perhaps creating more jobs for cops and seriously increasing the prison population.

there are a lot more cops,
and a lot more people in prison.

when he was a candidate in 2004, Obama said
the War on Drugs was  "an utter failure".  in 2011, according to the Associated Press, the War accounted for $10 billion of Obama's $15.5 billion budget for drug control, and these warriors want more than $26 billion in 2012 to continue the battle.

other programs in 2011 have been cut and/or trimmed, but the Obama administration
has asked that funding for the war on drugs be increased. how weird is that?

just recently, Global Commission on Drug Policy released a major  report. the members included:

former Brazilian President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso

former Colombian President
Cesar Gaviria

former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman
Paul Volcker

British billionaire
Richard Branson

former president of MexicoErnesto Zedillo
former prime minister of Greece
George Papandreou

former UN secretary generalKofi Annan


former US secretary of state
George Shultz

one can imagine how radical
the report's conclusions were...

read it for yourself!
you can get your own copy right here.

here are the reactions of drug warriors
to the report's recommendations:

Rafael Lemaitre, communications director of White House drug policy said "Making drugs more available — as this report suggests — will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe," Lemaitre said.

the next day, Justice Canada spokeswoman Carole Saindon said “Making drugs more available – as this report suggests – will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe.”


i'm serious. she really did.

White House Drug Tsar Gil Kerlikowske iscounted the panel's recommendations as "misguided".

Russia's Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov said “We have to realise that we are dealing with global propaganda of illicit drugs here”.

The Russian anti-narcotics chief said he had discussed the report with his U.S. counterpart Gil Kerlikowske and they agreed that the Global Commission on Drug Policy had drawn unacceptable conclusions.

Surprise.

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the War on Poverty in America lasted less than 6 years. the War on Drugs is now 40 years old and despite the fact that it is a complete and total FAIL, it's getting more money to do more of the same.

it's all pretty depressing, as birthdays or any other days go... but if you really want to get depressed, remember that the same kinds of people and the same kinds of thinking are now fighting the War on Terrorism.

the War on Drugs - a 2011 update!

SOURCES

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/21/us-drugs-usa-consumption-idUSTRE60K63G20100121


http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/war-on-drugs-a-failure-international-panel-declares/article2045400/?service=mobile


http://www.innovations.harvard.edu/news/1718139.html?p=1

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