Do you support the war on drugs? why or why not?

Cocaine, meth, crack, etc., yes, of course.
Marijuana, ecstasy, etc., no.
There are way too many people in jail for petty drug charges.

I have not supported the possession and selling of illegal drugs, since the 1960s. i could see what was coming for the addicted personalities of Americans. illegal drugs are like a cancer and slowly eating away at the very fiber of addicted people. my war on drugs has ended. i am now retired and the addiction and selling of illegal drugs has mushroomed out of control. i now turn over the keys to younger drugbusters and wish them good luck.

There will always be an uphill battle to control what people want, whether its legal or illegal.

No, because it does not work.
Decriminalise the consumption and instead offer free rehab and counselling for users when they get caught.
It worked like a charm in Portugal.

IMHO, the War on Drugs has been a ruse to for the CIA to fund off-the-books operations (with drug money) and for the government to ensure a steady supply of raw material for the private prison industry (having created a catalyst to privatize prisons in the first place).

No. It’s a waste of resources and an unnecessary intrusion of government into private lives. If people commit other crimes while on drugs they should be held fully responsible for their actions.

Here is a good link for the Americans: War on Drugs Clock

“Police arrested an estimated 872,720 persons for cannabis violations in 2007, the highest annual total ever recorded in the United States, according to statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent, 775,137 Americans were charged with possession only. An American is now arrested for violating cannabis laws every 38 seconds. ”

Yeah, and prevalence of use is twice the level of that of the Netherlands… where it is legal.

I’ve seen what drug addiction does to people, and it’s something I wish we could stop. But I don’t know how to curb the demand for drugs, and as long as there’s demand, there will be somebody willing to take the risks to keep the supply lines going. If you want to win the war on drugs, start fighting poverty and despair.

As @ragingloli said, Portugal is a perfect example of how much better shit works out when drugs arent illegal.

It bothers the hell out of me that one can get locked up for life for having a couple hits of LSD on them, but someone who molests children can be out in less than 10 years.

It also bothers the hell out of me that something like 55% of the people held in federal prisons are on drug charges.. So we clog the prison system with nonviolent offenders instead of murderers and rapists.

I don’t support the term. Talking about a war in this context is right-wing propaganda alleging that the problem is caused by farmers in Colombia who we need to fight, while in fact the problem is created by drug consumers. Instead of wars we need to find and deal with the root causes.

There is no war on drugs.

The biggest problem IS organized crime, the root cause IS prohibition.

The phrase “war on drugs” is absurd and makes no sense. It’s always struck me as an appeal to violent conservatives who apparently just like declaring “war” on shit. (Likewise “war on terror”)

Like most such slogans, it reduces an extremely complex problem to an emotional catchphrase.

It’s also helped to make our prison system one of the worst human rights atrocities in the developed world.

In order to have a “war on drugs.” We would need to invade and eradicate those responsible.

Not going to happen.

There is the issue of medical marijuana. It’s legal for folks in one state and not another.
Legalize it and make some money.

cocaine is evil.

Yes, I was a hippie in the 80s and partied with rock stars, but I knew the consequences.
There will always be a drug, either alcohol or some other vice.

The fight is within.

The War on Drugs was doomed to failure from the outset. It has removed the focus from the actual problems that cause addictive personalities and addictions, and focused instead on the symptoms. It’s like treating a camper’s poison ivy rash with plenty of calamine lotion, but never removing the camper from the poison ivy patch.

Anyone who has taken even a high school course in economics knows about the law of supply and demand. Supply goes down, prices go up, it becomes more profitable to make the product available.

Marijuana is a red herring. The original prohibition against hemp was promoted by several businessmen (Andrew Mellon, Randolph Hearst, and the DuPont family) because it promised a cheap substitute for paper pulp. Hearst, as a publisher, had invested a lot of money in timber as a resource for paper, and Mellon had invested with the DuPonts in nylon, which was being threatened by hemp. It seems no coincidence that the “reefer Madness” propaganda was promoted and distributed widely by the Hearst publishing empire.

In the Seventies, when the baby-boomers found out that pot is not as bad as “they” said, the US Government paid Mexico to destroy the hemp crop that was such a lucrative, if illegal, export to the US. This made the price of pot rise to the extent that it was cheaper to buy cocaine, especially the newer and more addictive form of “crack”.

I could write a book!

@Yetanotheruser Bravo! The legislation also provided another way to harass Mexican Americans and African Americans.

Yeah, prohibition was a convenient way to suppress minority cultures.
Marijuana, Coca and Opium at least.

I think drugs should be monitored by prescription under a doctor’s supervision. Making them illegal does not make sense. Politicians would go broke if it wasn’t for the money they receive from drug dealers to keep the status quo.

@YARNLADY You mean the pharmaceutical industry?

I think marijuana should be legalized and taxed like alcohol. Furthermore, I think more research needs to be done on purely medical uses of marijuana.

@Dr_Dredd No, the illegal drug dealers that pay politicians to keep the drugs illegal

@YARNLADY I know. I was kidding… sort of. :-)

@Dr_Dredd maybe : – )

I feel that the war on drugs is a farce. While I am against things like crack and meth, I see no problem with a little weed, and I think that we blow far too much taxpayer money prosecuting people for often petty drug offenses.

Now, if you really want to stop drugs then you will do a better job of going after the source to reduce supply and you will find a way to reduce demand other than throwing millions of people in jail. I think it safe to assume that more than 0.3% of the US uses some form of drugs, likely marijuana, so I mean millions!

@john65pennington It sounds like you missed the point. Are you against drugs in all forms or are you just after people who break the law regardless of whether the law is right? I understand that police officers are neither judges nor legislators, but you sound a little like Judge Dredd there.

I support the enforcement of it and the people who do. But a war on drugs, is kinda dumb. It’s like the war on terrorism. It’s an idea, not a person/people.

If the War on Drugs had any credibility, then why was marijuana the D.E.A.‘s main focus for decades? Why is marijuana Schedule 1 Most dangerous, no medical use, when methamphetamine is Schedule 2 or 3 Less dangerous, some medical use ??

Why are some LSD sellers in prison for what amounts to a life term? These are people who are not out to hurt anyone… so why do we treat them worse than thieves, rapists, and even some murderers? The very fact the situation is thus, makes the War on Drugs a farce. I’m glad current drug czar Kerlikowske basically admitted as such recently. But unfortunately, all government funding still basically goes towards authoritarian enforcement.

Heroin and meth addicts routintely beg hospitals for drug treatment, only to be turned away for lack of funds and insurance Emergency Rooms only stabilize, they don’t treat.

Why does the government turn away serious drug addicts who are begging for help, and then chase after the sellers of entheogenic drugs like marijuana and the psychedelics?

I realize some drugs really are very dangerous and have no value, such as crystal meth. But that begs the question as to why the DEA focused on marijuana for so many years.

Why do we chase down drug users who don’t want treatment, while ignoring drug addicts who are begging for treatment?

And why do we treat drug sellers, including sellers of spiritually useful drugs, worse than rapists, as far as the law is concerned?

And if drugs were so destructive to humanity, why was the CIA importing them into the streets of LA? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5MY3C86bk

The War on Drugs turns the Law into a joke. Do we really want that?

The History Channel had a couple specials on drugs. Totally, totally worth watching.
The part I find really funny was that you used to be able to buy credits for marijuana, but it was illegal. So the enforcement agencies would arrest you when you tried to buy it.
Heroin and Cocaine used to be used for headaches and were marketed as “cure-alls”. I’m not saying we should legalize them, maybe marijuana for medicinal purposes. I know it is, kinda, already. It’s just really interesting how they came about and how they used to be legal.
Another film is called The Union

Back in the seventies a a friend of mine attended a small college in a small rural town in Illinois. Her dorm room faced off-campus, and someone from the town noticed that she had a marijuana plant growing in the window, and reported it to the police. When her court date came up, the first question the judge asked was if she had a permit to grow hemp.