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All this just so Bubba Joe can be stopped from getting high after work down at the power plant.

Well, that and the lucrative asset forfeiture laws. And power hungry sociopath politicians. And power hungry sociopath local police chiefs who love stroking their boners while arming up a military grade (well, in hardware if not training and mindset) SWAT teams for their town of 20,000.

Keep voting for BigGummint[tm], though, kids. I'm sure it'll all work perfectly once you finally get the just the right folks into just the right place. Any day now. Maybe after just one more Most Important Election Of All Time. Or two.

I'll just leave this here: http://www.leap.cc/

Even many in law enforcement--cops, judges, etc--support ending prohibition on drugs: http://leap.cc

Cops also see the dirty side of what they're doing.

LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Very true. I do not smoke pot and I think the prohibition against it is both stupid and very harmful to people on this planet. There are a LOT of people in prison for non-violent, drug related crimes. If you have not encountered this organization LEAP, you should.

You can tell how condescending this site is because their response is written by a former "police chief" the demographic probably most likely to condemn all drugs. I think back to the convention scenes in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".>

Not always.

"Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is an international organization of criminal justice professionals who bear personal witness to the wasteful futility and harms of our current drug policies. Our experience on the front lines of the “war on drugs” has led us to call for a repeal of prohibition and its replacement with a tight system of legalized regulation, which will effectively cripple the violent cartels and street dealers who control the current illegal market."

There's a group, LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, who support legalization. These are guys who have it first hand how the money in the drug trade corrupts *everything*. They've seen cops who wouldn't cheat at a penny ante card game take bribes because the money is just too much.

There was one article on their site a while back about their meeting with a member of Congress. The congressman actually said that he agreed with LEAP, but that he could *never* vote for even decriminalization of pot.

http://www.leap.cc/

An informative site, but depressing if you read too many of the the stores. Endless lives and families just destroyed because of this asinine "war."

Your answers are here.

no actual movement to decriminalize drugs

Just as you said, "You lack of exposure does not constitute a lack of interest." From the "American Journal of Economics and Sociology", Legalize Drugs Now!. Let's see how many others there are...

1. LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Cops Say Legalize Drugs
2. What if we legalized all drugs?
3. Tom Tancredo Says: Legalize Drugs!
4. Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence
5. Legalize drugs -- all of them
6. Is Now The Time To Legalize Drugs?
7. Why we should legalize drugs

Those are just the first page of results of legalize drugs. There are about another 245,000 results.

The people want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they do.

Many of the people don't want it. That you don't talk to the types of people voting for such things doesn't change the fact they don't. And as a matter of fact I have talked to some who want to keep drugs illegal, my sister is one. I've also talked with people who want to bring back Prohibition, they say it will work this tyme. But everyone I know I know where their position is who lives in the real world and not a fantasy want at least some drugs legal. About the only drugs some don't want legal are so called hard drugs like opiates. They don't always know the facts though, for instance it's said an addiction to opiates is nearly if not impossible to break, however as the Rat Park experiment showed given the right environment even those addictions can be broken.

Fight against him? They encouraged him.

Liked J Edgar Hoover? That's a big laugh. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, didn't like him. The only reason he kept his position as director of the FBI is because of his extensive collection of private files. They were all afraid he'd blackmail them. As for most people, they didn't know about him or about the files he collected on public figures.

Falcon

Like the parent poster, I do not smoke anything and I am in full support of legalizing marijuana for much the same reasons. An interesting organization to take note of is LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php.

Seriously though, the opinion you express here points out a serious problem in America, a lack of faith or trust in law enforcement officials. While it would be possible to reasonably argue that this lack of trust is warranted or not, no rational, well informed person could claim that you don't have some justification to feel the way you do. Every once in a while I tell some recent cop horror story to my Swiss wife, and her jaw just drops. It's almost impossible to believe the kind of behaviour that police engage in, without repercussion, in America.

• cop strangles kid for skateboarding
• cop chokes (and kills) a man suspected of swallowing drug
• cops defend shooting 92 year old woman

The above are just a few examples that came to mind. I can't recall a week going by without some similar tragedy occurring somewhere in America. I think it's no coincidence that so many police brutality and murders by police officers occur in botched drug raids. It's a pretty well understood phenomenon how much the "war on drugs" has twisted and corrupted cop culture, much as alcohol prohibition exacerbated corruption back in the twenties. It creates an "us vs them" mentality for both cops and citizens of inner city neighberhoods. I think the problem was documented most poignantly in a work of television fiction, "The Wire".

The solution however is not looser gun laws, arming yourself, vigilante groups, or any other loony-libretarian nonsense (by loony-libretarian i refer to libretarian extremists, as opposed to rational thinking people with a libretarian mindset). The solution is better policing of our police, reform of the criminal justice system (please support Jim Webb's reform efforts, and drug-prohibition repeal. There are a number of politicians and citizens group working on the issue, so I suggest you please join us and lend your efforts.

This finding is just another piece in a century's worth of evidence that drup prohibition just plain does not work. It doesn't reduce drug use, it doesn't reduce addiction rates, it doesn't reduce the harms inflicted on society due to drug abuse, it doesn't protect kids... In short, it doesn't accomplish any of the things it claims to accomplish. It does do an enormous amount of harm.

If these teabaggers actually cared about small government, privacy, individual liberty, government staying out of health care, etc, they should start fighting drug prohibition, asset forfeiture, and all the screwed up big government, big brother crap that comes out of drug prohibition. The reason why they don't is of course obvious: These teabaggers are essentialy modern day brownshirts screwing up democratic processes in an orgy of racism: usually as subtext, but more and more out in the open. The modern system of drug prohibition is of course our strongest form of institutionalized racism. These guys don't mind big government poking around in our private lives, and making decisions about our health, as long as they are targeting hispanics and blacks vastly more than whites.

It is of course an indisputable fact that the first Marijuana laws were nothing more than a legislative method of screwing hispanics in California, but I always figured the racist outcomes of drug prohibition were an accidental by-product of faulty and emotional thinking. Nowadays, when I see the overlap between the hard-line prohibitionists and the teabaggers, I start thinking, yeah, maybe deep down a lot of it is just plain racially motivated. Maybe.

I do regret letting this post devolve into a flaming of tea baggers, but I just can't help myself. I find it awesome that they chose to name themselves after the practice of laying your testicles on something. I always knew all those right wing fundamentalists were total perverts. I don't live in the states, but can I suggest that those of you living there start going to teabagger meeting with large photo collections of your testacles layed out on various things? Start whipping that tea-bag out and laying it on the speaking podium or coffee machine and taking pictures.

Let's not forget the ongoing drug war , as long as we're talking about moralistic witch hunts.

Don't forget Law Enforcement Against Prohibition!

I find it disgusting that the author of the NYT piece lumped cannabils legalisation together with UFO and the Obama birth-certificate conspiracy.

Whether or not you feel that marijuana should be legalized, the subject is a legitimate subject for political discourse, and there's overwhelming evidence that:

• Marijuana is significantly less harmful than the two legal recreational drugs (alcohol and tobacco) .
• Marijuana has many potential medical applications, including promoting neuron growth, preventing alzheimers, diabetes, treating cancer and HIV, and of course multiple scleroris.
• Like alcohol prohibition, cannabis prohibition is harmful to society.

I personally hold that the evidence overwhelmingly supports decriminalizing Cannabis, implementing a system something like in the Netherlands, but I can understand that less informed, more indoctrinated souls might not be convinced. However no sane, rational, honest person can look at the evidence and claim that this is not a subject which needs to be considered.

Lumping cannabis legalisation together with UFO conspiracies and the Obama birth conspiracy shows that the author is either: ignorant and misinformed, dissembling for a perceived career boost, or simply irrational. My guess is he's a victim of the years of propaganda and lies dissembled by the Nancy Reagan and her spiritual children, but it's equally likely that he's pandering to socially-conservative reader base or editor.

Maybe because it's something that can be done right now and quickly, and the war on drugs causes a lot of problems?

Our educational system, for example, needs to be declared bankrupt, completely wiped out in a controlled demolition, and rebuilt from the ground up. Is that going to happen next week? Health care? There's probably hundreds of proposal, from small tweaqks to whole systems, published by various think tanks and academic institutions and industry groups from all over the ideological spectrum. There's solutions to just about everything floating around out there. It's proof enough that politicians really are not interested in solving anything. Anyone over the age of 18 who hasn't figured that out isn't paying attention.

Here's a site by law enforcement people who oppose the drug war because they have witnessed first hand the toll it takes.

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Read around the LEAP site. There's one report by someone doing some lobbying for pot legalization where a politician tells them they are, in all likelihood, correct in their pro-pot arguments, but that he will, regardless, never vote that way. Does that sound like problem solving to you?

I don't know anyone who would contend that Meth or heroin are harmless. The relevant question here is "Does drug prohibition help?". In other words, does making a drug illegal reduce the number of drug addicts? Does it reduce the net consumption of the drug? Does it reduce the number of overdoses? Does it reduce the number of health issues caused by drug abuse? Does it reduce the crime caused by drug addiction?

The answer to all of these questions is NO , prohibition does not help. The evidence to support this claim is incredibly strong. Countries which treat drug problems as a public health issue, rather than a criminal issue, have an overwhelmingly higher success rate than countries which enforce prohibition. These countries include Holland, Switzerland, and recently Portugal. Indeed, we in America found that it much easier and more effective to deal with alcoholism as a health issue, than to prohibit alcohol.

Supporting an end to prohibition does not mean supporting increased drug use, or increased drug abuse. It means supporting sane, rational, evidence based policies which reduce the levels of drug abuse and addiction. By supporting prohibition, you aren't helping people like your friend . Think about it: Were the drugs that got your addict friend in trouble legal when he got addicted? Of course not. So prohibition didn't help them. Would they be better off if they had landed in jail? Evidence suggests the contrary. Would they have been better off if their drug consumption occured in the open, where trained professionals were available to counsel them on their problems and the effects of the drug? Well, there's no guarentee that your individual friend would have been saved, but under those systems the number of lost causes is much, much lower. He would have been able to get better help quicker under such a system, and would have been able to make better informed decisions.

Then of course, you need to add into the equation the damage that is done by prohibition: cost, countless jailed, corrupt police, unregulated drug distribution which leads to contamination and overdose, shared needles which lead to hiv and hepatitis spreading, poorly informed consumers, erosion of civil liberties, and a rampant and wealthy drug cartel. How can anyone justify a policy that causes so much harm, and doesn't help the people it is claming to help?

Everything I have claimed above is backed up by an enormous amount of data. I don't have a good synthesis of that data, but you can refer to stopthedrugwar.org and leap.cc, as well as drugnews.org, which will provide useful links. I can also organize some particlarly relevant UN documents on request.

If you want to reduce the number of people whose lives are ruined by drug addiction, treat them like a person with a sickness, don't treat them like a criminal: repeal prohibition

Your statement is senseless for the following reasons:

1. Your assertion that legalizing Meth is "not an option" is based on the assumption that legalisation and taxation of a drug will result in an increase of consumption of that drug. In fact, the experiences of countries which have decriminalized drug consumption, and replaced "drug war" methods with harm-reduction methods (i.e. legalization, treatment, and counceling), have experienced reductions in drug consumption, and most importantly in drug addiction. These countries include Switzerland, Holland, and Portugal. The data overwhelmingly indicates that a policy of regulation, taxation, education and treatment is far more effective at reducing drug abuse and addiction than prohibtion. See leap or stopthedrugwar.org for more information.
2. Most estimates show that the drug cartels biggest source of revenue is marijuanna (the estimate http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/04/04/drugs/> here is 62% ). This is understandable, as Marijuana is a popular drug, and relatively harmless (certainly less harmful than other legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol). There is no reason to believe consumption of other drugs will increase when marijuana is legalized. This implies that simply legalizing marijuana will cut the drug cartels revenue by 62%. Only a fool would believe this would have no effect on their influence

Any rigorous, honest evaluation of this issue indicates that the solution is extraordinarily simple. Just as ending prohibition was the solution to the mob violence of Al Capone's era, ending drug prohibition is the solution to ending the Drug Cartels.

I am glad I am grown up and retired. It seems from my vantage point that the law has lost all common sense and direction. These aggressive and ambitious prosecutors are convicting experimenting teens for sex crimes, and misusing statutes like the one under discussion to get another notch in their respective belts. What public good was served by prosecuting this poor slob as a hacker? None. He has no dangerous computer skills. What public good was served by prosecuting those girls for sexting? None. Criminalizing anti social or maladaptive behavior is clearly against the public interest. The guy should have been fired at most, but perhaps merely warned and sent to counseling. Now society has another unemployable felonious ward instead of a taxpayer. The same applies to drug laws IMHO.

We need better feedback on prosecutors who over reach to further their ambitions and appease the lynching impulse in their constituencies. There are too many SOBs like that creep who pilloried those Duke athletes. Are there not enough real criminals?

Our justice system is just plain broken. Senator Webb of Virginia is co-sponsoring a bill to study and revamp it from top to bottom. Check out the video on the LEAP website (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

You can keep telling yourself that, but its pretty obviously false.

[citation needed]

It's pretty obvious to me that neither of them is very addictive, and I have evidence--they're pretty much even (and significantly lower than alcohol, the usual drug on the "legal" end of the double standard argument), but they have different characteristics. Health problems are arguable, but the only ones I am aware of are the ones caused by smoking, which is not the only way to ingest marijuana.

Regardless, the double standard (assuming you are disagreeing with that as well as OP's sketchy facts) most definitely exists, and organizations such as LEAP show that it is not only marijuana users who see it.

It keeps an awful lot of cops in business.

It also keeps prices high for traffickers and sellers.

Neither of those parties want to see it legalized. Only the users with no sales interests do.

While the part about organized crime is true there are law enforcement officers who want to legalize marijuana:

• Arizona's Attorney General Talks Marijuana Legalization"
• "Marijuana Legalization: Retired Seattle Police Chief Says Obama Should Listen to Voters"
• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Falcon

Here's one: law enforcement officers want as many things as possible to be illegal, to protect their job security, so they lobby hard.

Actually that's not a rational reason, there are many law enforcement officers who want to legalize marijuana, such as:

• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
• "Arizona's Attorney General Talks Marijuana Legalization".
• "Marijuana Legalization: Retired Seattle Police Chief Says Obama Should Listen to Voters"
• "Law enforcement group urges legalized drugs to aid economy"

And that's only a few exmples.

Falcon

Ask your local law enforcement and prison guard unions. They have pleanty.

I asked law enforcement, and they agreed with me.

Maybe you should stop taking your morning coffee with cream and FAIL?

And most of them are rooted in a desire to keep the drug war going so they can continue in their jobs. Most of the harm of marijuana comes from its prohibition and legal consequences, not from the effects of the drug itself.

There is a significant number of law enforcement officials that want to end the drug war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LayaGk0TMDc
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

nine out of ten policemen think its important to keep drugs illegal, because otherwise they will have to buy their own.

There are some vocal dissenters though.

Here's something that helps your position: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

"Police really appreciates war on drugs."

No, not all Police.

http://www.leap.cc/

"the only drug liberals I see are upper class people with no personal experience of drug abuse"

Such naïvety is easily corrected. Here's a whole website of people from all walks of life, who deal with drug abuse and would like to see the law changed.

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

Hey, works for me as long as you're comfortable with someone like Moi having the capacity to earn a billion in untaxed revenues using your research, statistical data and common pragmatism. Kinda tickles when the 'what if' and 'how' triggers, eh. Maintain that stance to the hot seat of DC and I'll pay for everything. Do whatever else you want, I don't really care because I've got other plans. Geekoid for President!!!

Five years of this and I win!!!

(shameless plug)
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

"Silence was particularly fond of ridiculing Harvard. She complained that it had been ruined by corruption and elitism, and that most of its students learned nothing there except how to be conceited"

"bustin for drugs" is the same type of issue.
there is a growing number of police officers that actually oppose the drug war, because it actually makes crime worse (i.e the prohibition): http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php

true- like for questioning the drug war. Police officers in the organization LEAP are the some of the most credible voices in dismantling disinformation in TV ads from the ONDP:
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEdzZaXwf8o

sigh... you are still missing the point.

When you support blatantly unconstitutional laws like the prohibition of prostitution or drugs, you are helping criminalize what most people see as acceptable behavior. Yes, some people won't follow the law, and will still deal/turn-tricks/etc in inappropriate areas, but when you enforce those issues, you are enforcing "zoning" or "visibility" issues, not fascist morality issues.

I also strongly disagree that people won't follow the zoning/etc restrictions if prostitution and drugs were legalized. There's a strong economic incentive to stay legal, and it simplifies the business. Compare to liquor stores - there isn't a moral outrage against police enforcing underage-selling laws for alcohol, as that's a useful law that doesn't restrict responsible adults. There is a moral issue with the police enforcing the other things, though, as it conflates the "bad" use with responsible use.

I suggest looking into LEAP, and how some cops are trying to clean up their image and relationship with the populace.

I learned some interesting facts from this site: http://leap.cc/

The most interesting was that in the early 1900's - at the start of the prohibition era, at the time when they officially began to make drugs illegal - 1.3% of Americans were addicted to drugs.

In the 1970's - at the start of the drug war - 1.3% of Americans were addicted to drugs.

Now, today, 2007 - after $70 Billion dollars spent on the drug war, the highest incarceration rate of ANY country in the entire world, and thousands of innocent victims and well meaning policemen dead - 1.3% of Americans are addicted to drugs...

I was utterly shocked. In fact, I didn't believe it until I did the math myself! Look up addiction rates and divide by 300M Americans - the statistic is right on target.

It's time we step up as human beings and STOP all this needless suffering! The people who are going to get addicted to drugs will get addicted. You cannot stop this by hurting people! We are in a prohibition era, thru and thru. We know from history that Prohibition DOES NOT WORK. And it does not work because People Deserve Better.

- DaftShadow

The US War on Drugs is a sham and the politicians know it. But the constant barrage of absolutist demonization has left no feasible opening to seriously suggest the alternative: legalization.

The UK isn't so bad. Atleast they have had the courage to allow medical marijuana research, which has resulted in the legal Sativex. Cannabis is classified as Class C, resulting in warnings & fine for possession. And very recently, a parliamentary committee lambasted the whole classification system. Even many senior politicians (like David Cameron) and police chiefs have called for considering legalization. The US does have an equivalent movement in LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) with about 5,000 officers, but getting the word out relies on media accomodation, and unlike the UK, the US is not a very tolerant venue.

--posted on behalf of daksya

The US War on Drugs is a sham and the politicians know it. But the constant barrage of absolutist demonization has left no feasible opening to seriously suggest the alternative: legalization.

The UK isn't so bad. Atleast they have had the courage to allow medical marijuana research, which has resulted in the legal Sativex. Cannabis is classified as Class C, resulting in warnings & fine for possession. And very recently, A parliamentary committee has lambasted the whole classification system. Even many senior politicians (like David Cameron) and police chiefs have called for considering legalization. The US does have an equivalent movement in LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) with about 5,000 officers, but getting the word out relies on media accomodation, and unlike the UK, the US is not a very tolerant venue.

Don't you mean the war on drug users and suspicious arabs?

Because let's face it, when all the money in the world fails to make a difference, you're approaching the problem the wrong way.

Thought: are Americans more or less likely to die at the hands of terrorists after our invasion of Iraq? With over 2,000 dead, and thousands more left injured, the current situation is basically a complete disaster. And angering millions in the Arab world makes us a bigger target. Face it, you can't scare people who are willing to die, period.

Thought: should being "high" be illegal if being "drunk" is not? Because certainly a compelling case could be made to prohibit alcohol because of drunken driving, violence, accidents, and abuse potential. More so than marijuana, even. But alcohol prohibition in the 1920s was a failure because it didn't curb demand, yet created crime to fuel an underground market, just like with the war on drugs today. But for prohibition to be repealed, people had to talk openly about the problem. Hard to do that with drugs, because the government misrepresents the facts to demonize drugs.

Obligatory: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, 15 minute video: http://leap.cc/audiovideo/LEAPpromo.htm

America needs a change of direction, and honesty in politics.

http://www.leap.cc/ - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Help is on the way.

Prohibition will end if these cops have anything to say about it. And they do. It's still going to take awhile, but in all honesty we are starting to win.

http://www.leap.cc/ - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. ;-)

It seems that all the intelligent people I've met understand the the War on Drugs is a total snipe hunt.

As long as their is demand, there will be a market.

The fundemental question seems to be:
Is the government trying to punish marijuana smokers or educate them?

More than 60% of all drug incarcerations are for non-violent possesion of marijuana.

As a rational individual, it seems obvioius that their current tactics only succeed in punishing marijuana smokers. Actual use of marijuana is at the same levels or higher than it has ever been so as a preventive, prohibition has most definitely failed. The supply of marijuana is greater than ever and the potency is higher too. The DEA says this to scare the uninformed. They attempt to create the analogy that stronger means greater threat. In reality, stronger means that pot heads have to consume less marijuana to get high. So in reality, higher potency means healthier pot smokers. Who do you believe the DEA with their vested interest in maintaining the status quo or an independent organization of scientists and medical researchers, the esteemed World Health Organization. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/general/w ho-index.htm

If anything prohibition has made the problem worse. Prohibition tends to create a black market which opens the door for large scale criminal organizations. Examples of these are the Mafia ( very small organization until their massive growth thanks to alcohol prohibition), the Latin & South American drug cartels in the '80's, and of course the DEA.
http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html

In fact the only voices that seem to be raised against the legalization of marijuana are those of the DEA and the penal system. That's only natural, without them maintaining their lies, their free ride is over. Even the politicians are afraid of the power of the DEA. Apparently the DEA thinks they don't have to obey the Constitution.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2003 /jan/16/514528463.html?Marijuana%20Group:%20Feds%2 0Broke%20Law

http://www.leap.cc/ is a really interesting website put together by former Law Enforcement Officers that have seen that the Drug Laws cause more harm than good.

My more people that know the truth, the better our society becomes.

Just because you like being sober doesn't mean you have to hate those that want to smoke pot.

The United States is still a free country, right?

Aside from the effects of drugs physically, there is a huge effect economically as well.

This is somewhat off-topic, but the war on drugs is a costly and losing one, and even some law enforcment professional will agree.

-indulgenc