It doesn’t take a genius, a criminal justice scholar or an activist to realize that something is wrong with the fact that the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. This is true despite not having the highest crime rates in the world and labeling itself as a “leader” in individual rights. This mass incarceration is due, at least in part, to the War on Drugs, a war being fought within our borders and against our fellow citizens. This drug war, like others, takes family members away for long periods of time and ultimately results in some casualties. Additionally, like other wars the United States is currently fighting, this one has questionable intentions.
A Questionable Drug War
In 2009, Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, made a speech at the America’s Future Now conference. Though it’s three years old, this speech hits on nearly everything that needs to be said about the Drug War and this incarceration nation.
The Drug War may have officially started within the last three decades, when we decided to start doling out lengthy prison sentences for nonviolent drug crimes, but this fear of drugs began much longer ago. Like it does today, the original drug war was started by fear—mostly fear of other races. For example, why is marijuana illegal? From anti-marijuana laws that were written in the southwest in the 1910’s and directed at Mexican migrants to the glaringly disparate crack-cocaine laws of recent times—the drug war has always been tied to race.
“In every case, good white people feared what those dark-skinned people would do to our women and our children,” said Nadelmann.
So, now what? Now that we’ve made our mark on the world as being the strictest on drug crimes and the last place on earth you’d want to get caught violating a law (particularly if you aren’t white or wealthy), now that we’ve served to incarcerate almost 25% of the world’s prisoners—where does it end?
The fact is our need to incarcerate is not serving our country well. We aren’t any safer and we spend more than ever. The prison-industrial system costs state governments alone more than $50 billion per year. And for those who think incarcerating people will “teach them a lesson,” that it will make good, upstanding citizens out of common drug users– know that incarceration does nothing of the sort.
In Nadelmann’s speech, he says this is an issue that everyone in the United States needs to be concerned about—from the most ‘liberal Democrat’, to the most ‘conservative Republican’, the ‘progressive’s and the ‘libertarians’—everyone needs to take heed.
Because these drug laws don’t only affect the average American who likes to smoke a joint now and then, they affect anyone who is concerned about civil liberties, the expenses of government, and those who have seen family members suffer through the throes of addiction. Changes in the drug war could ultimately have positive effects on all of these concerns.
Hold people accountable. Punish those who hurt others or put others at risk by driving under the influence of drugs, but don’t subject someone to the criminal law simply because they opt to ingest one substance rather than another.
It’s on this basis that we can build a movement for freedom and justice that ends America’s exceptional reliance on incarceration and the criminal justice system and that embraces a drug-control policy grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
You can read Nadelmann’s speech in its entirety here on AlterNet.
The US has a degraded, corrupt fragmemted society. Legalizing drugs will just be another major disaster. We are leaving a pile of crap for our kids to clean up, if they survive the coming collapse. I have feelings of disgust and contempt for most of my fellow Americans, too many dirtbags, warmongers, moneywhores and mental retards.
The Drug War is a price support system for the black market.
Large US banks launder hundreds of billions of dollars a year in illegal drug money and the Wall Street Journal has reported that the western banking system is addicted to drug money, for the purpose of liquidity.
Our government works for the banks.
They use our community as dumping grounds for artificially valuable, black market drugs, while the banks swim in a sea of illegal drug money.
The Drug War is a scam.
Legalize marijuana. Twenty million Americans arrested is enough.
Give the control of hard drugs to doctors and manufacture them, for that purpose, by licensed companies operating on a non-profit basis.
No hard drug profits, no black market in drugs in our communities.
Never mind legalization.
Cannabis is a plant and should be treated as one. One should be allowed to grow it as one does corn, flowers, your lawn.
You're a terraist
http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Informati…
http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Informati…
Can't legalize marijuana. Then when people smoke it, they will wake up from the massive brainwashing they have been subjected to. The Illuminati has spent trillions of dollars brainwashing and turning Americans into perfect little slaves. If they start smoking marijuana, it will open their mind and wake them up, and free them from that brainwashing. Can't have that, now can we.
I gather from the comments that many of you cannot seem to enjoy a normal life using the senses you were born with. You choose to distort reality with unknown poisonous compouns made by some dirtbag in a filthy bathtub. If I was wealthy I would give drugs away free so all of you subhumans could overdose and rid decent society of your presence. Actually I find it humerous to see idiots torture and kill themselves with drugs. It is difficult for me to describe my hatred and disgust for subhuman nonmedical drug users.
In addition to my negative opinions on drug users, I also feel negative about all the overweight Americans who, like the drug users, have no self respect or self control. Why do so many people find it difficult to make and enjoy a civilized life? Why do they choose to be slobs with no self discipline, and then expect others to pay for their self imposed medical problems? I can go but it is a waste of time because drug use and obesity fits in too well with the degraded disgusting American failed culture. Enjoy!
The biggest problem of illegal drugs is the associated crime and violence. People with drug habits are a nusiance. Vicious Violent, Evil People willing to kill to do business are a problem.
I agree, but I also think that American culture is in a state of decay and legalizing drugs will just create other problems, especially with young people and just shift the financial and social costs. The basic problem is the overall corruption of life in the US. Americans in general lack the intelligence, courage and morality to solve these problems.
Why would the US government who knew for sure in 1974 not want you to know
about cannabis oil curing cancer? In the state of Oklahoma you can be locked up for LIFE for cannabis oil.
When I was told that my cancer was moving in to stage 4.With my min wage job no sick leave or insurance
I knew that I had to try to heal myself holistically or die…I am still here, healthy and cancer free
The cost for 6 syringes, the full dose I needed to ingest to kill the cancer, which totaled 60 grams of oil,= $2500 US Dollars.I did not have time to grow it myself.I was lucky to even find any at all. One dose is a drop on your finger about the size of “half a grain of rice”. The syringe is the easiest way to store and produce one drop of oil at a time. Most people take it all in about 90 days. It is safe to use ,
no one has ever died from eating cannabis.There are loads of sites about cannabis oil, one of the best is Phoenix Tears, if you are looking for more information on the subject. http://phoenixtears.ca/make-the-medicine The testimonials of people who have been cured are incredible.
RUN FROM THE CURE: The Rick Simpson Story , http://www.youtube.com/user/chrychek?feature=resu…