Declare victory in the war on drugs – then run like hell

[edgarshade]

Reuters

By Laurence Copeland
October 29, 2012

With reader comments

Wherever you look – radio and TV, novels, internet – history is all the rage these days. Perhaps a large part of the appeal is the nice warm feeling it gives us of being able to look down on the sheer madness and heartless cruelty of our own ancestors. What did they think they were doing back in the 16th century burning witches? Or 300 years later, locking up poor young girls for getting pregnant? Or sending men to jail simply for being homosexuals, as we did until the 1950s ?

History may seem to be nothing but a catalogue of human folly, but have you ever asked yourself what features of contemporary life will have our own descendants scratching their heads and asking themselves: how could they – meaning us, today – be so crazy?

My guess is that the feature of modern life that future generations will find hardest to understand will be our attitude to narcotics. The war on drugs will look to them as mad as the Salem witch trials do to us today.

But then so was Soviet Communism, so back in the 1960′s the urge to rescue Vietnam from the clutches of the evil empire was understandable. As with the war on drugs, the cost was in the end far far too high – and as with the war on drugs, it was mainly borne by innocent civilians, the collateral damage in the fighting between the two sides. Just as, back then, the ever-rising body count was mindlessly quoted as evidence that America was winning, so today the value of drug seizures is cited as proof we’re winning – it isn’t, and we aren’t.

In the end, reality will catch up. Just as the U.S. military was unable to deliver the victory the politicians demanded in Vietnam, the same is plainly happening now with drugs, as more and more senior policemen – the generals in this crazy war – are ready to tell their political masters the truth, that it’s all over, we’ve lost, and the proof is out there on the streets for all to see, where the price of many drugs is at rock-bottom levels.

Even if we call a halt to the madness tomorrow, it will take decades to recover, but the sooner we stop it, the better. There is only one possible solution, and it is the one which got America out of Vietnam (and will end up getting us out of Afghanistan): declare victory – and run like hell.

More...
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-deba...ctory-in-the-war-on-drugs-then-run-like-hell/

 

[slimvictor]

Great article.
I like the comparisons it makes with Vietnam.
The drug war is also a losing proposition, and people didn't realize what they were getting into.
They got caught up in a flurry of propaganda and patriotic quotations, and delivered death and destruction to millions of innocent human beings.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

I can completely see the war on drugs being listed as a failure of similar magnitude

interesting

 

[zekethemusicman]

it would be interesting to compare the numbers of casualties in the war on drugs vs. the Vietnam War. Both are definately in the millions, but id wager that the war on drugs has produced more casualties, both in those incarcerated/prisoners of war etc, and those who have received bodily harm from either event. Both are all out wars on people. Its just one has gone on for over four decades now. I dont think my iphone can calculate the numbers involved here. Thats so sad.

 

[BlueHues]

There's so many people in America whose life choices and mindless consumption of the latest "corporately marketed garbage" fuel the destruction of our world just as much, if not to a greater degree than our cultures' drug consumption does! And yet, these same "non-drug using consumerists", smugly and self righteously live in denial of the shortcomings of their own "lifestyle choices", while blindly pointing the finger at anyone who consumes anything the government has deemed "bad"!
It would be laughable if it wasn't so destructive!
Can anyone think for themselves a little bit? Or is that just too risky, socially?

 

[daytryptr]

There's so many people in America whose life choices and mindless consumption of the latest "corporately marketed garbage" fuel the destruction of our world just as much, if not to a greater degree than our cultures' drug consumption does! And yet, these same "non-drug using consumerists", smugly and self righteously live in denial of the shortcomings of their own "lifestyle choices", while blindly pointing the finger at anyone who consumes anything the government has deemed "bad"!
It would be laughable if it wasn't so destructive!
Can anyone think for themselves a little bit? Or is that just too risky, socially?

We live in a society of addiction. Food, shopping, drugs, tv, the list goes on and on.

Go back to bed America, here's some American gladiators, your government has everything under control, go back to bad America. Your society is not deteriorating underneath your feet, go back to bed America.

It's kinda like cancer, and everyone is in denial of the ramifications of our lifestyles. Nature will take care of the inconsistencies given enough time.