Drug Czar's Office Corrects Mistaken Reporting
The Office of National Drug Policy responded appropriately to a recent AP article lambasting the 'drug war' as a failure. Trotting out the same tired rhetoric that's been used since the 70s, the AP writer neglected to include many important developments in our nation's approach to the drug problem such as reducing the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine, increased spending and emphasis on drug courts, and especially health care reform which mandates insurance coverage for drug treatment.
Of course, the successes of prevention and treatment were also ignored as well as the subsequent reductions in drug use by adults and youth. No mention was made of the international support for US goals for drug policy on the international level as is evidenced by the recent UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna, neither were the incredible advances in knowledge about drugs that NIDA researchers give us constantly.
A little (skimming the surface) learning is indeed a dangerous thing.
Comments
So let’s get this straight.
So let’s get this straight. You say the drug war hasn’t failed. Well it’s been going on for 4 decades now. If it hasn’t failed that means it has succeeded. The drug war has succeeded because: A) We no longer have cocaine laws that specifically target low income and minority drug users for extended jail terms. (which literally just took effect and up until Obama took office was something vehemently opposed by drug worriers across the board. A mistake it only took you guys a little over 20 years to realize.) B) An increase in drug treatment and lip service (And increasing law enforcement and interdiction even more. Drug treatment has 1/3 the budget size of law enforcement. The same it has been going all the way back to the Reagan administration. The recent violent SWAT raid in Missouri shows the willingness of those in power to continue to escalate and militarize the front lines of the drug war, needlessly putting both innocent Americans and front line police officers in harms way. C) There has been a reduction is drug use by adults and children. (in some demographics, with some substances, when compared to a date you get to arbitrarily pick. Illegal drugs are still popular and plentiful. Use numbers constantly fluctuate, and use rates have been dropping globally, even in nations that have more liberalized drug laws. Despite these fluctuating numbers, 47% of Americans used illegal drugs at some point in their lives in 2008. I don’t see that in any way as achieving any of its stated goals. D) The UN supports American drug policy. (As they have for the past 40 years. Just like the out-of-touch public officials in the US, Canada, Great Britain and countries all over the world. It’s hardly surprising there are prohibitionist puppets in the UN. It just speaks more to the failure of the drug war. A militarized global war on drugs that has been escalating since its inception more than 40 years ago and the problem has only gotten worse all across the globe. And the prohibitionists have an ever growing choirs of dissension in the global community. The DEA was kicked out of Peru. The Czech Republic legalized both possession and cultivation of small amounts of marijuana. Portugal, Argentina and Mexico legalized small time possession of all drugs, with Mexican president Felipe Calderón calling for legalization in America, as it is the continuing American appetite for drugs that is fueling the drug war that’s spilling over our southern border.) E) NIDA gives us information about drugs. (It’s no wonder the AP didn’t talk about this, as it has nothing to with maintaining the drug war. It’s not like NIDA couldn’t still do research on drugs without violently interacting with other Americans over their bad habits. In fact it would be much easier once the DEA stops obstructing research on “illegal drugs”) Drugs in America are just as popular as ever. And they’re just as easy to get. Where in all of this do you see a victory?
You don't wish to take this
You don't wish to take this opportunity to address any of the things brought up in the AP article? You have these trivial little things that you are leaning on to justify the war on drugs, yet in this AP piece you have drug czar Gil Kerlikowske saying "In the grand scheme, it has not been successful. Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified." The AP lays out in precise detail where the drug war has gone wrong. And in response you propose more of the same. Not addressing these aspects you point out does nothing to alter the big picture. 40 years, $1 trillion, the largest per capita incarceration rate on the planet and the largest appetite for illegal drugs on the planet.