Bill Clinton: Drug war 'hasn't worked'

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nervousone

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Former President Bill Clinton says in a new documentary that his administration’s attempts to limit drug trafficking from Colombia “hasn’t worked.”

Clinton joined other world leaders — including former President Jimmy Carter — in filmmaker Sam Branson’s new documentary, “Breaking the Taboo,” which premiered Thursday at New York’s Google headquarters and charges that the global war on drugs is a failure.

“What I tried to do was to focus on every aspect of the problem. I tried to empower the Colombians for example to do more militarily and police-wise because I thought that they had to. Thirty percent of their country was in the hands of the narcotraffickers,” Clinton says in the film, which is available free online.

In the film, narrator Morgan Freeman says, “the U.S. spent billions of dollars funding military operations” in Colombia to cut of cocaine coming into America.

Clinton later says: “Well obviously, if the expected results was that we would eliminate serious drug use in America and eliminate the narcotrafficking networks — it hasn’t worked.”

The documentary was made before Washington and Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana, but its release comes as U.S. officials — including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — remain critical of its legalization. The Office of Drug Control Policy declined to appear in the film. Clinton said in November at a foreign policy forum in Washington that she was “not convinced” that legalizing marijuana would end violence related to drug trade.

Carter says he faced similar drug war problems as President Barack Obama and criticizes former President Ronald Reagan.

“When I was president, we had the same problems with drug production and distribution and consumption that we presently face. We tried as best as we could to minimize the emphasis on our criminal punishment, and I made a major statement to the Congress asking for changes in the law.”

He continued: “President Reagan and his wife [Nancy] adopted the drug program as the No. 1 issue for her to proclaim. She had a phrase: Just say, ‘No,’” Carter says in the film. “She made it clear that her prohibition against drugs included marijuana and everything else. So I don’t think that there’s any doubt that President Reagan made a profound impact then on the consciousness of our country, and I think that he also shaped the opinion of many members of our Congress.”
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/clinton-drug-war-hasnt-worked-84784.html#ixzz2EUfZgbod
 
OMG! Really?! The drug war has not worked?!?

Billy Boy loved that white powder from Colombia. Then again married to an ice queen lesbian in a total marriage of convenience would drive most bisexual men like him crazy and they'd gorge on junk food, coke, and have sex with 1,000's of women and probably a lot of men like he has.
 
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PriestTheyCalledHim said:
OMG! Really?! The drug war has not worked?!?

Billy Boy loved that white powder from Colombia.
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While I agree the failure of the drug war is hardly news, the acknowledgement of it's failure by major political figures is a good thing as it encourages debate about the issue and eventual reform of the laws.

Clinton is also saying this at a time when the federal government is going to have to make a decision on what to do concerning the newly passed laws in Washington and Colorado.

I highly recommend everyone check out the documentary mentioned in the article.
 
Bill Clinton needs to shut the fuck up.

Why?

No one believes him. No one believed him when he repeatedly lied about not having sex with Monica Lewinsky, and by virtue of that fact, no one is going to believe him when he says the drug war hasn't worked (unless you already believed it wasn't working before he put in his two cents).

Crack heads like this only hurt the legalization movement.
 
Captain.Heroin said:
Bill Clinton needs to shut the fuck up.

Why?

No one believes him. No one believed him when he repeatedly lied about not having sex with Monica Lewinsky, and by virtue of that fact, no one is going to believe him when he says the drug war hasn't worked (unless you already believed it wasn't working before he put in his two cents).

Crack heads like this only hurt the legalization movement.
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A injecting drug user going by the moniker 'Captain Heroin' calls former President of the United States Bill Clinton a "crack head" to "shut the fuck up because no one believes him" even though he has approval ratings that are higher than any other politician in the country. He is one of the most respected and powerful individuals in the world.

Someone is certainly hurting the legalization movement and it sure as fuck isn't Clinton. When are you starting the "Captain Heroin Global Initiative" to attempt to help the people of the world anywhere near on the scale Clinton has?
 
Captain.Heroin said:
Bill Clinton needs to shut the fuck up.

Why?

No one believes him. No one believed him when he repeatedly lied about not having sex with Monica Lewinsky, and by virtue of that fact, no one is going to believe him when he says the drug war hasn't worked (unless you already believed it wasn't working before he put in his two cents).

Crack heads like this only hurt the legalization movement.
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I admire him for speaking up. While - in the minds of many - he may have serious credibility issues, the fact is, he was a two term president who spent much of his eight years in office ineffectively trying to halt the importation and use of cocaine from Colombia. And I think it's great that he finally realizes it was a huge waste of resources, and also that it never really made a difference.

Re. Lewinsky affair - did it not in fact amount to a couple of blowjobs (not that I'm saying it's any less serious than intercourse considering that he's married)?

Edit - I had a chance to watch 'Breaking The Taboo' and I must say that I am now quite optimistic that this ridiculous 'war' will soon be over with. Quite optimistic indeed.
 
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Captain.Heroin said:
Bill Clinton needs to shut the fuck up.

Why?

No one believes him. No one believed him when he repeatedly lied about not having sex with Monica Lewinsky, and by virtue of that fact, no one is going to believe him when he says the drug war hasn't worked (unless you already believed it wasn't working before he put in his two cents).

Crack heads like this only hurt the legalization movement.
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No he needs to speak louder and more often. Bill is very popular which is why President Obama deployed him so often on the campaign trail in areas where Obama was unpopular.
 
My point was that people who like what he have to say already believe in legalizing cannabis. The conservatives in this country, who already do not like the idea of legalizing cannabis, aren't going to be persuaded by Clinton.

I don't care what he lied about, it's the fact that he lied. He also did nothing to change things for the better as president, and actually made the war on drugs WORSE during his presidency.

2011-10-08-imagecharts-Presidents_Medical_Marijuana_MPP.png


So, again, I'll reiterate; he needs to shut the fuck up. He can't create a time machine to change all of the horrible things he did (regarding marijuana policy), so I don't care what he has to say now. He's a monumental failure for his stance against marijuana as a president alone.

OMG, he was worse than George Sr. who would have thunk it?! 8(

nervousone said:
Someone is certainly hurting the legalization movement and it sure as fuck isn't Clinton.
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Refer to the chart above, and educate yourself.

crimsonjunk said:
Bill is very popular which is why President Obama deployed him so often on the campaign trail in areas where Obama was unpopular.
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You mean like, the south? That's probably because the south is generally racist and doesn't like black people. Obama should have utilized Hillary Clinton and not Bill Clinton IMO.
 
How do his policy positions from a over a decade ago have any relevance to Clinton's current position on marijuana reform? Bill Clinton has the highest polling rate of any politician in the country. The view of the electorate changes over time as do the views of politicians. As far as the idea he won't convince conservatives; he doesn't have to. People such as George Will and Pat Robertson are both pivotal in conservative politics and support various forms of legalization. Conservatives support states rights, and for libertarians it is a no brainer as well. Legalization is supported by conservative principles.

The fact is, this documentary is a move in the right direction for a change in our drug policy. It highlights many leaders from around the globe finally coming to terms with the fact we need to change this policy somehow.

Just because you hold some grudge against Clinton because he lied about getting a blowjob is not a legitimate reason to discredit his statements, and frankly, it makes you seem extremely petty. I am sure you have never told a lie.

Actions speak much louder than words pounded out on the keyboard on the internet, and Clinton is out there doing something positive for the legalization effort as well as other unrelated philanthropic efforts throughout the world. Hate on him all you want but he is much more valuable to the politics of drug reform and the betterment of society than you can claim to be.
 
He's a monumental failure for his stance against marijuana as a president alone.
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For supporting a position shared by half of America, when his going against it would give his opponents fuel to use against him (prodrug people are either already voting Democrat (see: young people), or are libertarians who aren't gonna vote dem anyway)?

Support is coming from some sectors of the Democratic party now because opinion has swayed enough for it nationally that it is politically expedient to do so (I don't see Obama as being even secretly happy about these initiatives though, he's very GW Bush like in his support for centralization of power and increasing the authority of the executive).

tl;dr: hating an active politician for being against cannabis legalization is naive idealism, at best we can criticize his position on it as part of broader issues/trends of his presidency.
 
nervousone said:
Just because you hold some grudge against Clinton because he lied about getting a blowjob is not a legitimate reason to discredit his statements, and frankly, it makes you seem extremely petty.
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The grudge would be what he did to continue and strengthen the war on drugs, especially against marijuana. I don't know if I could make that any clearer through my earlier posts. Being a renown liar just doesn't help his case.
 
That table is unfair.

Give bill a break.. he made some mistakes.. at least he's now trying to sort em out.
 
clearly there were no cases of property forfeiture along with drug arrests any time prior to GWB, and only since Obama have people recognized owning weapons and violating Federal law are not neccesarily congruent?
 
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