Up through the late 70's and early 80's then, when prison rates simply exploded, while the US government themselves were the ones importing tons of cocaine and other drugs into the country. Police budgets were made obese with public tax dollars, as was the booming prison industry, reaping enormous profits from the misery of others and stripping freedom from non-violent citizens in the name of "public safety."
Meanwhile, the real threat is the totalitarian police-state that has been built up around us, in this War on Drugs, and now too the War on Terror. Another sham. Is it coincidence that during the CIAs covert wars in Central and South America, cocaine was the scourge, while today, the most potent threat from drugs comes in the form of Afghanistan-sourced Heroin?
In America, we like to think of ourselves as free, while picking fun at other nations who have fallen under the sway of some totalitarian regime, imagining that we would never tolerate any such thing here at home. But think about this... The United States of America keeps more people in prison than any other nation in the world, including our Cold War nemesis Russia, or even modern Communist China with their 1.3 billion people. That's not per-capita comparison either. They a billion+ more people than the U.S. and still have far fewer people in prison. The United States has only 5% of the world's population, but a full 25% of the world's total prison population. One out of four people in prison on the planet, are doing time in an American cell. So, thanks in very large part to a failed war on drugs, the land of the free is now the land of incarceration, literally.
"By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise."
~Adolf Hitler
Obama’s New Drug Control Report Calls for More Workplace Drug Testing, Nationwide Zero Tolerance Laws, Prescription-Only Ephedrine Products, and the Return of the “Above the Influence” Campaign
The first thing you should know about President Barack Obama’s 2012 Drug Control Strategy report is that it begins and ends with the declaration that the war on drugs is working and will continue apace.
MC Short-Change
Obama administration policies have “yielded significant results,” according to the President’s introductory letter, which concludes by saying, “While difficult budget decisions must be made at all levels of government, we must ensure continued support for policies and programs that reduce drug use and its enormous costs to American society.”
The report ends with a familiar refrain: “Legalization of drugs will not be considered in this approach. Making drugs more available and more accessible will not reduce drug use and its adverse consequences for public health and safety. We will continue to educate young people and all Americans about the science on the harmful health effects of marijuana use.”
The pages in between those two statements contain a broad outline for increased drug enforcement, mandatory rehabilitation programs for people who don’t need or want them, and the return of melodramatic Reefer Madness-style agitprop aimed at teenagers.
The worst policy plans contained in the report are outlined after the jump.
Read the complete article at link:
http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/17/obamas-new-drug-control-report-calls-for
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