[Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush

Sun Mar 1 13:11:26 PST 2009

So much for the view that a free, open market is the cure to all of our
ills!

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 8:48 AM, Sunil Ramalingam <
sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  Donovan,
>
> I think your premise is wrong.  No one is forcing drugs on Americans.  WE
> have created the demand.  It is a DEMAND problem, not a supply problem.
>
> Sunil
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:06:05 -0800
> From: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com; sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
>
> Sunil,
>
> I took your question in a broader context.
>
> If the US was forcing cocaine into the a South America and creating
> violence and death in their streets, yes, they would have the right to
> destroy the crops in the US, or at least try to.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Donovan
>
> --- On *Sat, 2/28/09, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com>*wrote:
>
> From: Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush
> To: "vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Saturday, February 28, 2009, 3:07 PM
>
> Yes, Donovan, I missed the event when Central and South Americans attacked
> the biggest things in New York.
>
> 9/11, you say? My, that's one big cover-up if they were involved.
>
> At any rate, my question remains the same.  Do our actions give our victims
> the right to bomb us?  If no, why not?
>
> Sunil
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:47:50 -0800
> From: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com; sunilramalingam at hotmail.com
>
> Sunil
>
> They do blow "things" up here. In fact, they took out the two biggest
> things in the biggest city. Perhaps you missed that whole 9/11 thingy.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Donovan
>
> --- On *Fri, 2/27/09, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com>*wrote:
>
> From: Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush
> To: "vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Date: Friday, February 27, 2009, 6:28 PM
>
> Donovan,
>
> Do the people we bomb have the right to try to blow up things here?  If
> not, why?
>
> Sunil
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:07:14 -0800
> From: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com; nickgier at roadrunner.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush
>
> What Nick doesn't realize is that it isn't the government's responsibility
> to keep people off drugs. That is the responsibility of the individual.
> Only you can decide not to use drugs and take responsibility for your
> behavior and decisions to use or not use drugs, and what you put in your
> body.
>
> The government has made it clear to anyone who will listen from 5 years old
> to 105 years old, DON'T USE DRUGS. That is all they can do. They provide
> information to people for free, and they offer free drug counseling, and
> help with getting off drug addiction.
>
> I use to drink heavily, and smoke up to three packs of cigarettes a day,
> and I will not talk about anything else I did because this is a public
> forum. But it was me, and me alone, that had the power to decide to use and
> stop using products abusive to my body.
>
> People think it is the responsibility of the government to do things for
> you. It is not. If people want to use drugs, they will. If they want to get
> off drugs, they will.
>
> I as a taxpayer can only do so much, and refuse to take blame for the
> personal decisions that people make with full knowledge of their actions and
> behaviors.
>
> The Government didn't fail with drugs, only people that decided not to get
> off drugs fail. Only people that refuse to take personal responsibility are
> the ones that fail.
>
> And who really gives a damn if bombing cocaine fields in South America
> makes other nations mad. These people are doing wrong, and the US has every
> right to protect themselves from people trying to do harm to our citizens.
>
> Best Regards,
> Donovan
>
>
>
> --- On *Fri, 2/27/09, nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com>*wrote:
>
> From: nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com>
> Subject: [Vision2020] Failed Drug Policies from Nixon to Bush
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Date: Friday, February 27, 2009, 8:51 AM
>
> Good Morning Visionaries:
>
> This is my radio commentary/column for this week. I had Ted Moffett and a
> friend who's an expert in this area look this over before I polished off the
> rough draft.
>
> Ted suggested that I add the abuse of pharmaceuticals but the long version was
> already approaching 2,000 words.  Besides Ted has already posted some of the
> material here on the vision. Thanks, Ted, for your research which is the best on
> the Vision on all the topics you cover.
>
> I just saw "Nixon/Frost" at the Kenworthy and I had to admit that I
> began to empathize with the most despised of all presidents, but perhaps that
> was because of the superb acting of Frank
>  Langella.
>
> The group Law
>  Enforcement
>  Against Prohibition (LEAP)has an excellent video at
> <www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Content&pid=28>.
>
> Nick Gier
>
> DRUG POLICY FAILURES FROM NIXON TO BUSH
>
> By Nick Gier
>
> Every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish.
> What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?
> --Richard M. Nixon to Robert Haldeman
>
> Nixon is the first post-war president to declare war on drugs.  He was
> determined to enforce a policy that placed marijuana in the same category as
> heroin. In the early days of Nixon's war, a person caught with any amount of
> marijuana could be sentenced to seven years in prison.
>
> In 1971 Nixon appointed Pennsylvania Gov. Ray Shafer to chair the National
> Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, which unexpectedly recommended that pot
> possession be decriminalized.  Always coarse and obscene, Nixon lashed out
>  at
> members of the Commission
>  calling them
>  "bastards" and
> "Jews."
>
> Since the day Nixon rejected the recommendations of the Shafer Commission,
> fifteen million Americans have been arrested for marijuana charges (88 percent
> for possession only), but pot dealing and smoking continue unabated. Since 1980
> the number of drug offenders incarcerated by states increased from 6 percent to
> 21 percent and those in federal prisons went from 25 to 57 percent. Sadly, 80
> percent of all those in prison for drug offenses are either Latinos or African
> Americans.
>
> Paramilitary SWAT teams in U.S. cities have been overly aggressive against
> suspected drug dealers.  The libertarian CATO Institute has reported that these
> units have entered the homes of 170 innocents and killed 43.  The CATO website
> also lists 23 nonviolent offenders and 25 police officers killed.
>
> Last year the U.S. spent $69 billion interfering in the lives of
>  North and
> South
>  Americans, supporting
>  military activities and crop eradication that have
> alienated millions of people south of the border.
>
> In 2007 one of the first acts of Mexican President Felipe Calderon was to use
> the army to crack down on Mexico's three major drug cartels. Calderon used
> the army because local and regional police and many office holders had already
> been bought off by the cartels.  The results of Mexico's military solution
> to drug smuggling have been disastrous.  In the past two years an estimated
> 8,790 people have been killed, including 800 soldiers and police officers.
>
> Mexico is the transshipment point for 90 percent of the cocaine coming to the
> U.S.  The main source of this drug is Columbia, which has been the focus of U.S.
> efforts of eradication and interdiction.  Since 2000 the U.S. has poured $6
> billion dollars into Columbia, but cocaine production has still increased 4
> percent
>  during that
>  time.
>
> Large
>  acreages of coca have been destroyed; the big cartels have been broken
> up; left-wing guerrillas are in retreat; and the streets of Bogata are safer.
> But the coca farmers have simply switched to smaller plots closer to the jungle
> and right-wing paramilitary units are still involved in cocaine production and
> smuggling.
>
> Nixon's war on drugs have turned entire nations against us.  Evo Morales, a
> former coca grower, is now Bolivia's president.  At recent speech at the UN,
> Morales held up a coca leaf and spoke about a World Health Organization (WHO)
> study that concluded that the ingestion of coca was not harmful and that it
> might even have some beneficial effects.  When I was in Peru in 2002, my guide
> distributed coca leaves to our group as a remedy for altitude sickness.
>
> In 1989 I chaired the Borah Symposium on the topic "Cocaine and
> Conflict" and our keynote speaker was Ethan
>
>  Nadelman. Now the head of
>  the
> Drug Policy Institute, he is a leading spokesman for drug legalization, which
> means legal regulation, not total free use (except of marijuana) of hard drugs.
>
>
> Proponents of legal regulation contend that removing the illegal trade and
> criminal gangs will have the same positive effect as the ending of Prohibition
> in 1933.  A $250-350 billion business would become a source for much needed tax
> revenue that can be used to rebuild communities and rehabilitate those relative
> few who have been addicted to drugs.
>
> A 2007 Zogby Poll asked the following question of 1028 people: "If hard
> drugs such as heroin or cocaine were legalized, would you be likely to use
> them."  Only 6 answered in the affirmative.
> There are over 250 shops in the Netherlands where one can buy marijuana
> legally, but only 16 percent of the adult population has even tried cannibals,
> while 33 percent of
>  Americans
>  have.  One commentator
>  quipped that the Dutch have
> made smoking pot "uncool."
>
> Reading the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) website, one would think that
> liberalizing drug laws in Europe has been a complete failure. In England doctors
> used to prescribe heroin to addicts under controlled conditions and their
> numbers stabilized at 2,000, but since that program was abolished in 1970 the
> number has risen to 300,000.  Similar programs in Germany, Spain, Switzerland,
> and the Netherlands have proved effective.
>
> One of the most effective organizations for legal regulation of drugs is Law
> Enforcement against Prohibition (LEAP). Since its founding in 2002, LEAP's
> membership, former police officers, DEA agents, and city officials, has grown to
> 5,000.  These men and women have seen first hand how Nixon's war on drugs
> has devastated their communities and made criminals out of ordinary citizens.
>
>
> As long as the
>  U.S. has the
>  highest drug use rate in the industrialized world,
> this demand will drive the criminal drug trade and will continue to destabilize
> all the countries south of the border. We should immediately un-declare the wars
> on drugs and terror.  Police surveillance and investigation should replace
> paramilitary over-kill. We should decriminalize the use of marijuana and we
> should try the policy of legal regulation of all other drugs and see if it
> works.
>
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