We need to end the drug war!
Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on May 22nd, 2008 by Dr. Mary Ruwart
Recently I was asked about my stance concerning the War on Drugs. I support an end to all drug prohibition. Here are some answers to questions I’ve given in the past:
We need to outlaw drugs to protect our children.
To save our children, we need to get drugs out of our schools. The only way to do that is to take the profit out through re-legalization. You don’t see pushers selling tobacco and alcohol in the schools because there isn’t the profit margin that prohibition brings. If we’re serious about saving our kids, we have to stop the pushers by slashing their profits.
The War on Drugs can’t even keep drugs out of our well-guarded prisons–how can we be so naive as to think it can keep them out of our schools?
If we legalize drugs, won’t more people turn to crime to fund their drug addiction?
Making drugs illegal drives up their prices a hundred-fold, so addicts must steal to support their habit. People rarely steal to buy alcohol or cigarettes, even though these substances are addictive too. Decriminalizing drugs will end the stealing and make our streets safer.
If we legalize drugs, won’t more people die?
The War on Drugs is killing more people than the drugs themselves. Contaminated needles are the number one cause of AIDS transmission in the US. Almost 80% of drug related deaths wouldn’t occur if users had access to standardized doses and purity.
We have to keep drugs illegal or else we will have a society of deadbeats!
It hasn’t happened in the Netherlands, why would you expect it to happen here? Before hard drugs were outlawed earlier in this century, U.S. pharmacies sold opiates openly and addiction was not a problem. Real-life experience should reassure you on this point.
Wouldn’t drug usage go up after legalization, especially among our young people?
Hard drug usage goes down when “softer” ones such as marijuana are available. In the Netherlands, addicts are mostly from the older generation, probably because re-legalizing drugs keeps the pushers out of schools.
The Drug War kills more people than the drugs themselves. Drug usage would have to go up 8 times under re-legalization to even approach the current death toll. Since 15 to 20% of our population indulges regularly in illegal recreational substances, everyone would have to do drugs for re-legalization to be as harmful as prohibition.
We have to ban drugs because they are so harmful.
Alcohol and tobacco are both more addictive and more dangerous than marijuana or other street drugs. While only 7,000 people a year die from drug overdoses, over 100,000 per year die from alcohol-related causes and over 300,000 per year die from tobacco.
In addition to the Drug War, we should ban tobacco and alcohol as well.
We tried to ban alcohol and it didn’t work (Prohibition). Outlawing something that people want doesn’t stop them from getting it. The only way to protect people from themselves is to show them a better way. Every dollar we spend on the Drug War is a dollar that enriches the dealers instead of educating the drug users.
Overeating kills more people with cardiovascular disease than alcohol, drugs, or tobacco. Should we pass a law to monitor the caloric intake of each person or should we spread the word about the dangers of weight gain?
We don’t need medical marijuana because the active ingredient, THC, is already available by prescription.
THC is available in oral form in discrete doses. While smoking allows the dose to be adjusted exactly as the individual needs it, pills can result in overdose or underdose. In addition, large amounts of THC must be taken for the drug to be effective orally. These large doses can irritate the stomach. In patients taking THC for nausea, such a side effect can be self-defeating.
Many physicians will not prescribe THC because of the extra paperwork involved and the fear of professional censure. Patients who persuade their doctor to prescribe THC will spend an average of six hundred dollars per month for the drug instead of the pennies it would cost them to grow their own marijuana.
Marijuana should not be legalized for medical use because it will lead to harder drugs.
We offer our terminally ill patients all the addictive narcotics they want, so why forbid them the use of marijuana to fight the pain that narcotics can’t soothe? Should we throw little old ladies in jail because they dare to use marijuana to prevent the blindness of glaucoma? Should we let our cancer patients quit chemotherapy because the nausea and vomiting are unbearable without marijuana? Where is our compassion and our sense of perspective? How can we be so cruel?
Dr. Ruwart is seeking the Libertarian nomination for President of the United States. Visit her website at http://www.votemary2008.com.
Patriot said,
August 7, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
The Drug War will never end with the drug cartels in charge of our governments. Read this article for example:
US and NATO protecting Afghan drug trade
Published on 05-08-2008
Source: Pakistan Post - Naveed Miraj
ISLAMABAD: After the fall of Taliban government, Afghanistan has again become a hub of narcotics cultivation and smuggling. Thanks to protection, being provided by the US troops, western forces and the Afghan government which are fully involved in the business in the name of war on terror.
The poppy cultivation that came to an end during Taliban period has risen to its highest level as the farmers have cultivated opium in a vast area of 477,000 acres of land in 2007, a 14 per cent increase over the previous year and total production, spurred by unusually high rainfall. Last year it was cultivated on 165,000 hectres, which is 60 per cent more than that of the previous year while Drug Enforcement Agency has the capacity to eliminate only one per cent of the production in the country. Afghanistan supplies 93 per cent of the world’s opium, the main ingredient of heroin and cultivation of poppy has reached at unprecedented level as the opium harvest jumped 34 per cent last year to an estimated 8,200 tonnes. Most of the fields of opium in Afghanistan are owned by the pro-government people specially the warlords who also control various areas and promote poppy cultivation there under the protection of US and allied forces. The US and western forces for certain reasons have given a free hand to the Afghan farmers to cultivate opium therefore turning the country into the biggest opium producer in the world.
There are also reports that the US forces are exporting drugs in collaboration with these warlords who also provide handsome money to the US forces. According to a recent report published by The New York Times, John Schewit a senior US official who had been posted in Afghanistan during the past five years as the Chief of US Anti-Narcotics Agency in an article of 12000 words has confirmed that the US forces and Afghan government have done nothing to control and stop poppy cultivation. Even the US Congress has also criticised the US AID for not providing alternative sources of income to the Afghan people. The Golden Crescent drug trade, launched by the CIA in the early 1980s, continues to be protected by US intelligence, in liaison with NATO occupation forces and the British military. In recent developments, British occupation forces have also been found involved in promoting opium cultivation through paid radio advertisements.
According to reports, the Karzai government officials have also close links with drug smugglers and the government is totally helpless before these warlords. A chain has been made for narcotics smuggling from Afghanistan and opium first product of poppy is first sent to the north of the country for its procession and then smuggled to Central Asian states from where it travels to Europe via Iran.
….
It is matter of fact that it was the ISI that helped Taliban government to control drug business who had imposed a complete ban on poppy cultivation seven years ago and ISI shut all doors for drug smuggling from Afghanistan via Pakistan but it is not acceptable for the USA and its allied forces to control the business that provides them huge money to fulfill their hidden agenda that could not be implemented through legal resources.
I got this article from the http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-958-0-5-5–.html link on http://www.infowars.com . What do you think about this info?
Where Does It Say Thou Shalt Not Do That In the Bible - The Word of God « Know The Truth By Their Fruits said,
September 16, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
[...] Show me where it says Thou Shalt Not Use Plants God created because someone who wishes to control you says so but using dangerous chemicals is perfectly fine because Big Pharma makes lots of money off of them? [...]