Translate

A Call for Healing

A Call for Healing
Democrats Call for Healing the Country
Showing posts with label War on Drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War on Drugs. Show all posts

Jul 14, 2017

Taliban Depends on War on Drugs

To beat insurgents, you must cut off the source of their supplies. The American Plains Indians were finished when the American buffalo was hunted close to extinction. Indians depended on buffaloes for food and used their hides for clothing, shelter and their fur for trade. ISIS collapsed when the US bombed their oil trucks and oil fields.

The War on Drugs is the reason we have so many endless guerrilla wars in the works, as well as rogue countries, failed states and violent, heavily armed drug gangs. Selling illegal drugs makes it easy to finance an army. The Taliban runs on opium poppy sales. Opium and heroine prices are higher due to the War on Drugs.  The FARC in Columbia and Shining Path in Peru are cocaine funded insurgents. Cuba, Nicaragua and North Korea all earn a lot of foreign exchange from illegal drug sales. Drug cartels in Mexico and other parts of Latin America are beter armed than the police.

I think it's time to end the War on Drugs. It's the second coming of Prohibition, only much worse. Prohibition, and the violence and corruption that came with it, was limited to the US. The War on Drugs is a worldwide disaster. Frankly, the costs aren't worth the benefits. It would be easier to deal with user rehab programs than multiple crime waves and insurgencies all over the world. We need to legalize drugs and tax them heavily. We can start with marijuana to see how it works out. As I see it, it's a national security issue.

Sep 18, 2014

The Second Coming of Prohibition

The War on Drugs is the second coming of Prohibition. it has all of the huge profits and all of the consequent violence. You can't outlaw substances many people will buy anyway, legal or not. We need to decide we can't win and quit. We need to start by legalizing marijuana at the federal level and make it a state issue. Then we can tax it heavily and fund a defense department. After marijuana, we probably need to legalize cocaine because of the size of its market. Again, we can tax it heavily. Protecting people from the ill effects of drugs is not worth the social costs of rampant violent crime that results. Just like Prohibition, the War on Drugs has to stop.