Article on drug legalization

[swordpath]

Legalize Marijuana, tax it. Keep ban and strict penalties on "hard" drugs.

[fabiola7386]

Thanx for sharing,,,,,
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Drug Rehab

[pure_mercury]

Legalize and don't tax.

[Magic Poriferan]

I've fully swung into the legalize camp. However, I want this to be a governmentally regulated as possible. Not only would I favor immensely taxing its use, I'd be more than happy than to put it entirely in the hands of the govenmernt, thus, no need for taxing it of course.

What to do with the money, though? On one hand the revenue could go into dealing with the drug issue itself (in a more intelligent way than the war on drugs). On the other hand, I often feel like leaving druggies by the curb, like how I almost don't want them to be convered in a UHC system. But if that's the case, then I guess one might as well use the budget revenue to fund that very same health care system.

[Blank]

Looking back, I'm surprised that no one mentioned how the government would be able to regulate the levels of strength in various drugs.

[INTP]

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME

[Lateralus]

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME

I think there should be more studies on Portugal's policy done to verify that drug abuse declined. But even if it didn't, it's still not the primary reason for legalization.

[pure_mercury]

I think there should be more studies on Portugal's policy done to verify that drug abuse declined. But even if it didn't, it's still not the primary reason for legalization.

To the best of my knowledge, drug use remained steady, drug tourism has not become a major industry, and the amount of sick or dead drug users has fallen. And the drugs are cheaper and better (positives, not negatives). All in all, an EXCELLENT public policy move.

[Lateralus]

It looks like the days of marijuana legalization (or at least decriminalization) are near.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/reaga...na-is-illegal/

Federal Judge Richard Posner, one of the most-recognized legal appointees of President Ronald Reagan said during a recent lecture that he believes it is absurd for marijuana to be illegal. He also expressed skepticism that harsh laws are necessary for other drugs, and doubted the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in solving narcotics abuse issues.

“Personally, I don’t think we should have a fraction of the drug laws that we have,” Posner told the audience at Elmhurst College in Illinois. “I think it really absurd to be criminalizing possession or use or distribution of marijuana,” he said and was met with applause. “I can’t see any difference between that and cigarettes.”

Posner, who currently serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, went on to question the need for harsh penalties for other drugs besides marijuana: “I’m skeptical about the other drug laws,” he said. “I don’t know how much we know, for example, about whether cocaine is really a disabling drug or whether it’s something people can take and lead more or less normal lives.”

“Clearly there are dangerous drugs,” he continued, citing LSD, but he then explained that the fears about harder drugs may actually be overblown. “There are problems,” he conceded, but added that “the notion of using criminal law as the primary means of dealing with a problem of addiction, of misuse, of ingesting dangerous drugs… I don’t think that’s sensible at all.”

“And that is responsible for a high percentage of our prisoners and these punishments are often very, very severe,” he concluded.

Take note, President Obama, Mitt Romney, a majority of Democrats, and pretty much the entire Republican Party: when a noted conservative judge like Posner calls your failed war on drugs “absurd,” perhaps it’s time to stop laughing off the conversation whenever it comes up.

[Lateralus]

There's a documentary coming out that criticizes Obama's handling of the drug war. Here's an article about it:

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/was...ure-to-stop-it

Two years after he was elected president in 1969, Richard Nixon first used the phrase "war on drugs," in a tough speech on drug policy.

Four decades and more than 40 million drug-related crimes later, the war on drugs is still simmering.

And now, just months before the presidential election, a new documentary "The House I Live In" explores the ways in which that war could be rethought.

The film also implicates President Barack Obama, who promised a compassionate drug policy while running for president but requested $25.6 billion for drug enforcement in 2013—the highest yearly total ever.

"It's still a war, but by another name, packaged with friendlier language," says Eugene Jarecki, who made "The House I Live In." Obama's director of drug control policy, Gil Kerlikowske, has asked not to be called a "drug czar" because of its war-like language, but Jarecki says he needs to do more to give peace a chance.

"Until you stop prosecuting, and until the war on communities is over, I'd rather you call it a war," he says.

Jarecki says Obama has been "frustrating" to those who believed in 2008 that he could "change the world" and the war on drugs.

One scene portrays a woman affected by drugs watching Obama winning the 2008 election in her living room. The insinuation: that Obama could be the president to make a change.

"But a question mark still hovers over Barack Obama," says Jarecki.

GQ's Marc Ambinder recently reported that Obama could make the drug war a focus of his second term, possibly tackling the problem of young children of drug abusers—often minority children—growing up without a home.

Jarecki believes that Obama's opponent, Mitt Romney, would do the opposite. Romney has voiced a commitment to continuing the drug war throughout most of his political career.

Though the film is very much Jarecki's, the biggest voice may be that of David Simon, creator of the TV show "The Wire." "What drugs haven't done [to people] the war against them has," Simon says in the film, noting that the U.S. has incentivized drug enforcement by promoting officers who make more arrests.

Jarecki says the film, out in theaters Oct. 5, was very much intended for election time.

"We only have the war because of election politics," he said. "There is no better time to talk about this."