War On Drugs!!

I heard a talk on this subject by Noah Chomsky, a Cambridge University professor of Political Science the other day. These are his statements, which I've paraphrased, hopefully fairly accurately. The focus of his talk was "The Columbian Plan", by which our government would provide funds and military equipment (including biological and chemical weapons) to combat the drug trade in Columbia. He said there are many ways to combat drug abuse (based on scientific research):
1. Treatment (the most effective - 1/3)
2. Solving social problems in the producing country (1/8)
3. Incarceration (1/13)
4. War on production, trade, and users (1/23)
As you can see, our current method, warfare, is the least productive method.

So why would our government, when faced with the fact that it doesn't work, intensify the effort rather than try some more constructive approaches? Mr. Chomsky has some explanations for that. With the cooperation of Central and South American governments, Big Agricultural Businesses came into these 3rd world countries and essentially destroyed the stable markets for the local peasants. Faced with losing their livlihood and unable to feed their families, many embraced a stable market - drugs (either coca or marijuana). These peasants and drug lords are a thorn in the side of the government, so they call in America to get rid of the drug trade. But it's not the drug trade they want to get rid of. It's the peasants. They want the land ( the big agri industries and the governments)

America (the government, that is) gets what it wants, too. And it's not to end the drug trade. They get to put "unproductive" members of society in jail, and out of the way.

If you look at the latest budgets, you will see that money for treatment is being cut. You will see that money for prisons is going up. You will see money for hardware, weapons and staff going up. What other conclusion can you come to? Our government isn't interested in stopping the drug trade. It is interested in controlling it. And in cleaning up the "undesirables" in our own country.

How does the government have the ability to do this? By creating an atmosphere of fear and ignorance regarding drugs. Media conspires to help create this atmosphere. There is a lot of research on drugs. The government uses only that research that supports their "war", ignoring or suppressing the rest.

In all honesty, I am not in favor of using drugs. Cocaine, Heroin, Ecstacy, and all the other designer drugs scare the hell out of me. Marijuana is another story (One drug I feel should be legalized immediately and convicted users released from prison, freeing up about a third of available prison space). And why do we tolerate alcohol? It's one of the nastier, deadlier drugs. How many people die each year to alcohol (directly or indirectly, e.g. car accidents)? Isn't it convenient for all of us that we can abide this hypocrisy.

This idiotic "war on drugs" has got to stop. We are literally throwing our tax dollars away pursuing programs that everyone know doesn't work.