UK - European blueprint signals way for America to end the war on drugs

Guardian

Posted by
Charles Shaw Monday 15 November 2010 10.00 GMT

With reader comments

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2010/nov/15/america-war-on-drugs


'Forty years. One trillion dollars. Half a million prisoners. Millions disenfranchised. Failed states. Spiralling cartel violence. No real drop in use or demand. This is the broadsheet for the American "war on drugs".

So why does the US keep "fighting" this "war"? It's as if the US is addicted to the war on drugs itself. International drug policy is at a tipping point, and the world seems ready to begin making serious shifts, yet the US still pursues this obsessive "war" against plants and people, even as the consequences of these policies have become larger than the problems they were put in place to solve. '

'Charles Shaw is the author of the memoir Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics and Spirituality and the director of the Unheard Voices Project. He is editor of the openDemocracy Drug Policy Forum and the Dictionary of Ethical Politics, both collaborative projects of Resurgence, openDemocracy, and the Sainsbury/Tedworth Charitible Trust. He will be talking about his experience of the US drug war and criminal justice system in an evening of open discussion with acclaimed documentary maker and criminologist Roger Graef OBE on Tuesday 16 November at The Hub in King's Cross, London. For more details, email [email protected]'

Meh.
I hate the US so much
:-( and their war On drugs .

Isn't that the same paper that a year ago was convinced the world would end well before 2112 if mephedrone wasn't banned?

ya I agree we should stop this futile war on drugs. But doesn't this guy realize the UK is just as bad as the US when it comes to policy making>??? US = UK, they are the same so stop kidding urself like we aren't. I've been to the UK and I know it very well as well as the US.

fryingsquirrel said:

Isn't that the same paper that a year ago was convinced the world would end well before 2112 if mephedrone wasn't banned?

Click to expand...

Gaurdian is a good paper. Pro reality, unlike the tabloids.

From Escobar and Boston George to Freeway Rick, the Contras and Oliver North, it is the country's longest and, arguably, costliest war. The enemy is perpetuated and held in place with dirty legislation. Each city, neighborhood, and drug dealer in our culture is enveloped in a paradoxical war on US citizens and the ironic overconsumption of (legal and) illegal drugs. Regions like Afghanistan (their poppies make all our heroin) Mexico, and recently Arizona and Texas have seen thousands die every month with no end in sight. The ideology of criminalizing a plant or a substance of any kind has been going on for so long, our society will not own up to the consequences such stubborn politics have on individuals like you and me. The acuality that decriminalization (see Portugal, Netherlands, various countries in Latin America support quasi-legalization) could induce over time is real. The end to such a war seems distant and inconceivable.

^Well aren't you a smart little cookie with all them big words.
New article, old philosophy. No typical American in their right mind would read a book cos God forbid that requires imagination...

Merely trying to get my point across. probably was too long-winded, but if one BLer reads that and is more aware; agrees with it, then its a good post.