Asymmetrical Information

When will our government cease with its ridiculous war on drugs? How many more innocent Americans must be shot dead by DEA agents smashing the doors of the wrong house? Why is our government able to take away its citizens property forcing them to prove that they are not drug dealers? Furthermore, why are we complacent about the police who are corrupted by the lure of easy drug money--and unjust confiscation? Many cops drive the fancy cars obtained from drug busts. A number of small towns love the money generated from drug busts.

Too many agencies with seedling runners in this mess to do much about it, at least not without a major shake-up. Former DEA agent Michael Levine's various commentary in this area is disturbing to say the least.

I think prohibition is a useful model. It didn't end until lots of perfectly average people started getting arrested.

Drug prohibition hasn't gone that far; most of those arrested are still the outliers of society. Give it a few more years, I guess.....

I often wonder just who exactly FAVORS the War on Drugs. It seems like everyone I know, regardless of age, thinks it is basically a stupid idea.

Of course, I live in California. But still.

Time for decriminalisation. It's not a perfect solution but it should drop crime levels significantly and free up some money for drug treatment.

I often wonder just who exactly FAVORS the War on Drugs. It seems like everyone I know, regardless of age, thinks it is basically a stupid idea.

Its budget just keeps growing while its effectiveness at reducing drug prevalence does not. IOW it's favored by the people within, who are pulling down large sums of taxpayer funding for this boondoggle. Again, would suggest tracking down some of Michael Levine's writings on the matter.

These recent anti-drug TV commercials are morally disgusting. People who purchase mind altering drugs are damaging themselves, but it's our crazy laws which put money into the pockets of terrorists. Decriminaliztion would immediate destroy the profit motive.

If you really want to puke your guts out, take a look at the old 1971 film, The French Connection. Based loosely on a true story, it was released during an era when the American people were assured that victory over illegal drugs was merely around the corner. That was 32 years ago in case your first grade math skills are not what they should be! Furthermore, this dishonest movie which shows the two police officers recklessly endangering the safety of ordinary citizens and violate their civil rights---fails to mention that the captured heroin almost certainly made it’s way back onto the streets of New York City. A few months after this highly publicized bust, the drugs disappeared out the police evidence room.

Our insane drug war should remind those who study economics that bureaucrats will do just about anything to protect their privileges and power. It is dumb to grant the public sector any control over our lives unless we have exhausted all the other alternatives. I do not share the extremist Libertarian’s contempt for government, but it’s still wise to be very wary.

I don't think very many judges, lawyers or prosecutors favor the drug war. Even politicians aren't crazy about it, but can't oppose it because enough voters would see it as a weakness. And few politicians can resist the attention to attack another politician who shows himself to be weak on the drug war. In other words, no one wants it, but no one who counts has the guts to oppose it.

I primarily blame Protestant fundamentalists for this mess. These are the same folks who brought about our country's earlier alcohol prohibition disaster. Their ministers will scream from the pulpits that civilization will end if we decriminalize mind altering drugs. It’s so bad that one is often leery to reveal their disgust at these laws for fear of being perceived as some sort of hopped up junkie!

I am an ex-Catholic with plenty of legitimate gripes against my former religious upbringing. Nonetheless, the Roman Church warns that secular authorities are not obligated to prohibit the sinful actions of individual sinners if the costs to the overall society are deemed too high. To be blunt, it’s often merely between you and God, if you so decide to go to hell in a hand basket.

Very interesting. Given these stats, you could make a plausible case that the DEA is causing great harm to the country (even ignoring the prohibition issue.) If locking dealers up isn't effective at cutting down drugs' availibility or price, than all it's doing is greatly increasing the number of young men drawn into crime.

If the dealer on the block is arrested every year, then one kid per year becomes a criminal. If you just let the people there stay for 20 years, then 19 kids who would have become drug dealers, sent to prison, and probably become career criminals, are instead free to live lawful lives and make something of themselves.

So we'd be better off not fighting the drug war, even if you think drugs are evil and ought to be kept illegal. The DEA's job amounts to spending huge amounts of money to increase the number of criminals.

While I do not think complete legalization good idea, I do think even more of a distinction should be made between user and dealer.

But the Federal law which was used in California should be altered, it specifically states that there is no medical use for marijuana: this is debatable, at the very least. And given the Justice Department claiming this gives them a guide that they must crack down on medical growers and distributors, I would love to see them raid the government's own medicinal marijuana operation and prosecute those involved, including the whole of Congress. Now, that would put the cat among the pigeons!

To start with, I would love to see Ashcroft applying the same states' rights reasoning he uses in other situations to the marijuana laws. If a constitutional amendment was required for prohibition, how can the drug laws be constitutional?

I regretfully cannot provide the exact figures, but it’s my understanding that the price of illegal drugs has dropped dramatically in the last twenty years. In other words, the “war on drugs” has been a resounding failure. To hide this fact, however, the DEA and the police departments throughout the United States have opted senselessly to emphasize their high arrest rates.

Also, please do not conclude that I’m indulging in anti-Protestant bigotry regarding my earlier comments. I am merely a straight shooter who tells it like it is. The Catholic Thomas Aquinas was right on target to teach: "Human law cannot, therefore, prohibit whatever is contrary to virtue; it is enough for it to whatever destroys social intercourse, allowing everything else to be permissible, not in the sense of approving it, but of not attaching a penalty to it." Unfortunately, Protestant theology sometimes fails to make this most important distinction. The results can be catastrophic.

You might be interested in what the nation's largest group of addiction councilors has to say about addiction: there ain't no such animal. Here is an article I wrote on the subject.

What was once truth is about to become lies. (Kind of like bleeding as a standard medical treatment).

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The Politics of Pain

There is no such thing as addiction. What we call addiction is just self medication for undiagnosed pain. PTSD etc. I have written extensively on this subject. You can find a lot of it here:

http://surrealist.org/prayforpeace/msimon.html

The above goes into the science of my statements on the nature of addiction. What I would like to discuss are some of the policy implications.

I have been corresponding with John Avery, the Director of Government Relations for NAADAC, National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counsellors, the nation's largest organization of drug abuse and alcohol addiction counselors in America. In addition this organization is recommended by the UK government for those in need of addiction counseling as shown here:

http://www.drugs.gov.uk/Links/National/K-Q/NAADAC

This organization is looking at addiction in a whole new way. It sees the problem the same way I do. Addiction is a response to pain. Mr. Avery decries the fact that the general population and the government have yet to understand the change in understanding that is sweeping the addiction counseling industry.

What does this mean for politics? I think it means that the first political party to champion this new understanding is going to reap vast amounts of political credit because the American people are a compassionate people and will not tolerate the persecution of the sick and pain wracked. We know this from the fact that 80% of all Americans support medical marijuana despite the fact that the government is dead set against it. The fact that medical marijuana is promoted for pain relief and not cures underscores my position.

So I would say to all you political activists out there who understand and wish to champion this new idea: take it to your party and push it hard before your opposition clobbers you with it.

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I take the extreme position that individual rights predate the Costitution, that the Constitution guarantees, not grants, those rights, and that any Constitutional amendment that violates those rights is itself unconstitional, invalid, and void. By this reason, the eighteenth amendment was itself an unconstitutional crime for which we paid a great price.

The legal basis of my point of view is the unenforced ninth amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Thirty-five years ago, marijuana aficionados often argued that if marijuana use should be persecuted, so should the use of tobacco, which was much more popular at that time than it is today. I hated this argument as opening the door to yet another vice war. Subsequent history has proved my point.

For the same reason, I dislike the argument against the drug war that posits a constitutional amendment as a prerequisite to drug prohibition. If we keep up that argument, the drug warriors will oblige us.

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