The War on Drugs–The War Like No Other–The War That Never Ends –Gold, Silver or Lead Bullet?

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“[The] war like no other, … a colossal absurdity.” 

~Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

~Milton Friedman

The War on Drugs with John Stossel 1 of 6 Introduction and Police Baiting

The War on Drugs with John Stossel 2 of 6 Introduction and Police Baiting

The War on Drugs with John Stossel 3 of 6 Introduction and Police Baiting

The War on Drugs with John Stossel 4 of 6 Introduction and Police Baiting

The War on Drugs with John Stossel 5 of 6 Introduction and Police Baiting

The War on Drugs with John Stossel 6 of 6 Introduction and Police Baiting

Legal Drugs vs. Illegal Drugs 1 of 4

Legal Drugs vs. Illegal Drugs 2 of 4

Legal Drugs vs. Illegal Drugs 3 of 4

Legal Drugs vs. Illegal Drugs 4 of 4

Inside USA – Mexico’s drug war – 25 July 08 Part 1

Inside USA – Mexico’s drug war – 25 July 08 Part 2

Mexican Drug Cartel Threatens to Kill Texas News Reporters

Glenn Beck: Zeta Gang Takes Control of Border

Drug War’s Racist Roots? – Ethan Nadelmann

Ethan Nadelmann: True Obstacles to Drug Law Reform

http://fora.tv/2009/09/09/CONNECTIONS_Ethan_Nadelmann_on_Legalizing_Drugs 

Illegal Drugs & How They Got That Way – crack & cocaine

Illegal drugs and how they got that way – opium, heron

Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way – Marijuana Part 1 of 5

Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way – Marijuana Part 2 of 5

Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way – Marijuana Part 3 of 5

Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way – Marijuana Part 4 of 5

Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way – Marijuana Part 5 of 5

History Channel (Hooked)- LSD, Ecstasy and Raves 1/5

History Channel (Hooked)- LSD, Ecstasy and Raves 2/5

History Channel (Hooked)- LSD, Ecstasy and Raves 3/5

History Channel (Hooked)- LSD, Ecstasy and Raves 4/5

History Channel (Hooked)- LSD, Ecstasy and Raves 5/5

Milton Friedman on America’s Drug Forum pt.1 of 3

Milton Friedman on America’s Drug Forum pt. 2 of3

Milton Friedman on America’s Drug Forum pt.3 of 3

Harvard Economist on why marijuana should be legalized

Those who favor the endless war on drugs usually focus on the drug user and point out that if society should  legalize drugs that are now illegal to use and sell, we would have more drug users. 

The war on drug has failed:

http://oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2K8NSDUH/tabs/Sect8peTabs1to43.htm#Tab8.1A

Government intervention to make legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol products  more expensive by plaicng higher excise or sales taxes on them has failed as well:

Individuals not governments should decide which products and services including drugs they want to consume and at what price. 

Individuals should decide when they need treatment for their consumption decisions. 

Let individuals regulate themselves. 

Government  regulation has failed and continues to fail. 

How many Americans will be in U.S. prisons and at what cost for drug use and selling, until the American people say to themselves this war is ” a colossal absurdity”.

While the number of drug users has gone down in the United States, the number of individuals in prisons has gone up. 

As a classical liberal or libertarian my concern is not on the drug users but the consequences of the war on drugs on individuals who do not consume or use illegal drugs. 

When any substance is made illegal to use or sell, the suppliers of these illegal drugs can earn substantial profits for assuming the risk of distributing. 

The result is criminal gangs or cartels fighting to monopilize the illegal drug trade. 

When you legalize drugs and take away most if not all of the high profits to be made in the distriubtion and sale of the drugs, the criminal gangs or cartels  look towards another activity to make money. 

As long as these drugs are illegal, the criminal gangs will be attracted to its sale and distribution. 

The results in violence to those not involved in the sale and use of the drugs as well as the corruption of public officials. 

Good intentions are not enough. 

Make the drugs legal and you will put many of the drug gangs out of business. 

Then the police can focus their attention on violent criminals. 

By far overeating, tobacco, and alcohol use or abuse leads to bigger health and medical  problems than illegal drugs. 

Government intervention in the form of prohibition, like wage and price controls, never works, and does more long term harm than good. 

Ron Paul debates Stephen Baldwin on Legalizing Marijuana

Glenn Beck Legalize Marijuana & Stop The Violence

“…The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill said in the middle of the 19th century in On Liberty. The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Government, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual’s own good. 

The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. 

If it’s in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they’ll do you harm, why isn’t it all right to say you must not eat too much because you’ll do harm? Why isn’t it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you’re likely to die? Why isn’t it all right to say, “Oh, skiing, that’s no good, that’s a very dangerous sport, you’ll hurt yourself”? Where do you draw the line?…” 

~Milton Friedman

Background Articles and Videos

Thucydides

“…Thucydides (c. 460 BC – c. 395 BC) (Greek Θουκυδίδης, Thoukydídēs) was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of “scientific history” because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.^[1] 

He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right.^[2] His classical text is still studied at advanced military colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations theory. 

More generally, Thucydides showed an interest in developing an understanding of human nature to explain behaviour in such crises as plague, massacres, as in that of the Melians, and civil war. …” 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides 

Overview of Drug Use in the United States

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), estimates the prevalence of illicit drug use in the United States. Some of the more notable statistics from the 2004 study follow. 

• An estimated 19.1 million Americans age 12 years or older were current users of illicit drugs in 2004, meaning they used an illicit drug at least once during the 30 days prior to being interviewed. This represents 7.9% of the population 12–17 years. The rate declined slightly between 2002 and 2004 (8.3% in 2002 and 8.2% in 2003).
• Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, with a rate of 6.1% (14.6 million current users). There were 2.0 million current cocaine users, 467,000 of whom used crack. Hallucinogens were used by 929,000 people, and there were an estimated 166,000 heroin users. All of these estimates are similar to estimates for 2003.
• Between 2002 and 2004, past-month marijuana use declined for male youths aged 12 to 17 (9.1% in 2002, 8.6% in 2003, and 8.1% in 2004), but it remained level for female youths (7.2%, 7.2%, and 7.1%, respectively) during the same time span.
• The number of current users of Ecstasy (MDMA) had decreased between 2002 and 2003, from 676,000 to 470,000, but the number did not change between 2003 and 2004 (450,000).
• In 2004, 6.0 million persons were current users of psychotherapeutic drugs taken nonmedically (2.5%). These include 4.4 million who used pain relievers, 1.6 million who used tranquilizers, 1.2 million who used stimulants, and 0.3 million who used sedatives. These estimates are all similar to the corresponding estimates for 2003.
• Among youths aged 12 to 17, rates of current illicit drug use varied significantly by major racial/ethnic groups in 2004. The rate was highest among American Indian or Alaska Native youths (26.0%). Rates were 12.2% for youths reporting two or more races, 11.1% for white youths, 10.2% for Hispanic youths, 9.3% for black youths, and 6.0% for Asian youths.
• In 2004, 19.2% of unemployed adults aged 18 or older were current illicit drug users compared with 8.0% of those employed full time and 10.3% of those employed part time. However, of the 16.4 million illicit drug users aged 18 or older in 2004, 12.3 million (75.2%) were employed either full or part time.
• About 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older in 2004 were classified with past year substance dependence or abuse (9.4% of the population), about the same number as in 2002 and 2003. Of these, 3.4 million were classified with dependence on or abuse of both alcohol and illicit drugs, 3.9 million were dependent on or abused illicit drugs but not alcohol, and 15.2 million were dependent on or abused alcohol but not illicit drugs.

Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0880105.html 

The economics of drug prohibition and drug legalization

Social Research, Fall, 2001 by Jeffrey A. Miron

“…the paper first presents an economic analysis of drug prohibition and demonstrates how drug markets under prohibition compare to drug markets under legalization. The analysis shows that many negative outcomes typically attributed to drugs are the result of prohibition, and it explains why these outcomes would be reduced or eliminated under legalization. This analysis does not by itself imply that legalization is preferable to prohibition; the analysis suggests that one effect of prohibition is reduced consumption of drugs, and under some views this is a desirable outcome. The analysis simply makes clear that some features of drug markets and drug use are the result of drug prohibition–independent of the physical or pharmacological properties of drugs–and it provides a framework for thinking about the consequences of alternative policies. 

The second part of the paper discusses the conditions under which drug prohibition is likely to be the right public policy response to the negative outcomes that can accompany drug use. Since most effects of prohibition are undesirable, the main potential benefit of prohibition is any reduction in drug consumption relative to what would occur under legalization. I discuss different perspectives on drug consumption and how these relate to the virtues, or not, of prohibition. The discussion explains that standard arguments used to justify policies to reduce drug consumption are less compelling than commonly asserted, even though drug use causes substantial harm in some cases. The discussion also explains that, even if reducing drug use is an appropriate public policy goal, other methods for reducing drug consumption are available that potentially achieve a better balance between the harms of drug use and the harms of drug policy. 

The paper’s third section discusses alternatives to prohibition and legalization, such as sin taxation, subsidized treatment, medical provision of drugs, needle exchanges, and public health campaigns. Many of these policies can and do coexist with prohibition or legalization, but they are distinct policies that require separate analysis. I show that each policy has positive and negative aspects, and that evaluation of each depends on views about drug consumption and on relevant evidence. …” 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_3_68/ai_80310014/ 

Consumer Sovereignty

Consumer sovereignty is a term which is used in economics to refer to the rule or sovereignty of consumers in markets as to production of goods. It is the power of consumers to decide what gets produced. People use the this term to describe the consumer as the “king,” or ruler, of the market, the one who determines what products will be produced. ^[1] Also, this term denotes the way in which a consumer ideologically chooses to buy a good or service. Furthermore, the term can be used as either a norm (as to what consumers should be permitted) or a description (as to what consumers are permitted). 

In unrestricted markets, those with income or wealth are able to use their purchasing power to motivate producers as what to produce (and how much). Customers do not necessarily have to buy and, if dissatisfied, can take their business elsewhere, while the profit-seeking sellers find that they can make the greatest profit by trying to provide the best possible products for the price (or the lowest possible price for a given product). In the language of cliché, “The one with the gold makes the rules.” 

To most neoclassical economists, complete consumer sovereignty is an ideal rather than a reality because of the existence — or even the ubiquity — of market failure. Some economists of the Chicago school and the Austrian school see consumer sovereignty as a reality in a free market economy without interference from government or other non-market institutions, or anti-market institutions such as monopolies or cartels. That is, alleged market failures are seen as being a result of non-market forces. 

The term “consumer sovereignty” was coined by William Hutt who firstly used it in his 1936 book “Economists and the Public”. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_sovereignty