So...Can We End the War on Drugs Now?

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In April 2009, the Cato Institute published a comprehensive case study of the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal.[2] Empirical data from that report indicate that decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates.~Wikipedia

On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal
took effect that decriminalized all drugs, includ-
ing cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal
framework, all drugs were “decriminalized,” not
“legalized.” Thus, drug possession for personal
use and drug usage itself are still legally prohib-
ited, but violations of those prohibitions are
deemed to be exclusively administrative viola-
tions and are removed completely from the crim-
inal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be
prosecuted as a criminal offense.



~Glenn Greenwald

http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf

We are taking about legalization, not slapping a different name on it and calling it good.

Full on legalization would only make the people who already abuse drugs sink into an already deeper hole.

And mary jane isn't any better than tobacco or alcohol. On that note, it actually is idiotic to think weed is any worse or better than tobacco or alchohol, and should go back to being illegal anyways. We don't need any more drugs to abuse than we already have. But if you want to waste your life smoking reefer instead of following the law, be my guest.

I don't care if a bunch of people were doing it too, it was still illegal. Sorry for being black and white.

The drug business functions because it has addicted customers. Like any other business, if it lost the majority of its customers, a lot of suppliers would go out of business. If even half of the billions spent on the probably corrupt "war on drugs" (which is a war mainly on dealers and users, not on producers, traffickers, distributors or the Mr Bigs of the drug world) had been spent instead on first class and financially accessible addiction services, then there could have been huge progress.

Instead you still have this 'war on drugs' which is a politically driven policy catering to punitive and puritan attitudes, a political vote catcher, which has achieved very little compared to the midboggling resources poured in to it. And the American tax payer finances it (might as well flush your tax dollars down the toilet).

This no-win situation won't change until average Americans make the need for realism on drugs policy into a voting issue. And I can't see that happening in the current political climate of reactionary policy and voter apathy in regard to this issue.

Well actually it's been quite thoroughly documented that marijuana in fact causes less physical harm than tobacco and alcohol....the main physical risks of marijuana come from specifically smoking it, which is not the only way to ingest it. However studies show cannabis smoke is less likely to contribute to cancer than cigarette smoke...and in fact the cannabanoids in the cannabis might act as somewhat of a protectant from the carcinogens smoke causes. Also it has lower toxicity, too much alcohol can kill you....too much weed not really, its essentially impossible for a human to consume a deadly amount of marijuana. Aside from that some people dislike the way cannabis makes them feel or it sets off their anxiety and its not impossible to become addicted to it. But yes much less toxic than alcohol and cigarettes if you actually bothered to brush up on current research/cannabis information and not just read what the FDA/DEA website or whatever tells you.

Also even if they did outlaw marijuana again, which no politician in Colorado who wants votes would do...there would still be just as much of it statistically drug use does not go down because said drug is made 'illegal'....If the feds try and step in too much it will get messy....my State has really opened a can of worms. Also I can simultaneously smoke reefer and be following the law since its legal here. Laws should make sense, and they are not set in stone....arresting and jailing people for smoking an herb is a little bit ridiculous if the public calls for a change to that archaic policy its the governments job to listen, which in some states it has/is. And I personally don't really care that it was illegal...it shouldn't have been and now its not. And I'd be wasting my life in a psych ward if I didn't use cannabis at all...since it is one of the things that significantly aids the depression/PTSD symptoms which helps me keep up with basic hygiene, laundry, feeding myself and such of course it does not always prevent every mental health crisis but sure reduces them. I'd be open to try a medication that could entirely take its place, but no such luck with any I've tried in fact many just add unpleasant side effects to my already existing issues.

I think there are far more people suffering from obesity than from drug addiction, which horrible health effects. Are we going to ban food now too? Because people are f*****g addicted to food.

If we ended the War on Drugs, U.S. presidents would order their DEA agents to sell crack cocaine on the streets of Los Angeles (Reagan administration). They would mock the dangers of drug use in sacrilegious ways (Clinton administration). They would pencil-whip their own exemption from federal laws and regulations which prohibit holding elected or appointed public office because of "prior illicit drug use" (Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations). They would force drugs on unwitting citizens (Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations). And, they would cover up and deny that they did these things.

No, the world as we know it would end if we stopped fighting the War on Drugs.

I am appauled. You smart people, bright 'little geniuses; as Mr. Aspergers would say, believe that the government got poor people addicted to drugs. ......I have no words to describe how stupid that concept is.

It is like saying 9-11 was an inside job. Idiotic.

I'm sorry but I have to take a break from this, for a long time. What children.

Yes find the most ridiculous opposing view point to yours and pretend like that is what everyone in the thread is expressing that they agree with. Though its not like the govenment is fighting the war on drugs because its the morally right thing to do(not that id agree with that either). If you are so much smarter than everyone here why haven't you figured out governments can be corrupt, and that laws are not set in stone nor are they always just or in the best interest of the people?

Good.
Have a long break.

Can someone explain to me why drugs are illegal again?

It's my body, I can do with it what I want, as long as I do not hurt others in the process. I say, we legalize *all* drugs. If people want to do heroin, let them. It's their business, not yours, and anyone who claims otherwise, is sticking his nose where it does not belong.

I, for one, welcome the day when we can buy heroin at the corner store.

It's not all that long ago, relatively speaking, that people could. It didn't lead to huge social/crime problems. The problems began with prohibition, in the 1920s, when the drugs were criminalised and the mafia took over, never an outfit to not spot a business opportunity. That was the start of the "war on drugs", and look where it lead!
Alcohol of course was decriminalised with the abolition of prohibition but the drugs were not, probably because the mafia had monopoly by then and that gave governments an additional tool to arrest mafiosos, which they relished, as major vote catchers from 'decent Americans'. Then in the 1930s, the US started a public relations war on drugs, producing ludicrous films about the monstrous evils of marijuana (which were totally propaganda) and look ludicrous from today's more informed perspective; but the voters lapped it up, so things progressed to the "War on Drugs" era which has achieved so little for so much from so many. Seen in the historical context, it is a comedy of hypocrisy and error.