Are we close to seeing the end to the "war on drugs"?

Forums: Drugs, Prison, Eric Holder
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I think it's high time to end this nonsense.

What do you think?

Quote:

Citing prison overcrowding and a desire to be "smarter on crime," Holder plans to direct federal prosecutors to not note the amount of drugs certain low-level offenders—those not in gangs, those who are nonviolent—are caught with, thus allowing them to avoid mandatory minimum sentences. This, he said, "breeds disrespect for the system. When applied indiscriminately, they do not serve public safety." Holder said this new plan of attack is a reaction to a host of laws that simply make no sense.

"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law-enforcement reason," said Holder, according to the Guardian. "Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable."

...
America, which leads the world in incarcerating its own citizens, has long been known as a place where jails are used to brutalize people rather than help them get better. Holder says it is time for that system to die off: "We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate—not merely to convict, warehouse and forget." To that end, Holder is reportedly planning on publicly supporting drug-treatment programs as alternatives to incarceration for America's drug offenders. He is also said to be considering an early release program for elderly inmates whose crimes were nonviolent and who have served most of their sentences.

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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 3,899 • Replies: 9

[+4] - rosborne979 - 08/12/2013[quote="boomerang"]There are a lot of people making money by locking people up. They're sure to put up a fight.[/quote] There are a lot of drug lords, and in some cases entire...

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I think it's high time to end this nonsense.

I agree 100%, unfortunately I don't think it'll really happen any time soon.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

I know we're talking years here but I think it could happen pretty fast. I think there's a lot of support for it.

The biggest block will be that so many prisons are privately owned/operated so there's big money on the table. I'll have to do some research but found this quickly:

Quote:

In 1984, the U.S. began its ongoing experiment with private prisons. Between 1990 and 2009, the inmate population of private prisons grew by 1,664%. Today approximately 130,000 people are incarcerated by for-profit companies. In 2010, annual revenues for two largest companies — Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group — were nearly $3 billion.

There are a lot of people making money by locking people up. They're sure to put up a fight.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

There are a lot of people making money by locking people up. They're sure to put up a fight.

There are a lot of drug lords, and in some cases entire governments which exist purely because drugs are illegal also. And I'm sure they will put up a fight too. Just as I'm sure they've been influencing politics with their money for years already.

The best thing the world could do for itself would be to legalize drugs. It would instantly crush every criminal organization currently funded by drugs and would immediately free us from an enormous economic drain on many levels. And with just a tiny fraction of the money and resources saved, we could begin to effectively treat people who really need help.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Here, this is always a fun way to make your blood boil...
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/Illicit_financial_flows_2011_web.pdf

Quote:

Recently, the global banking conglomerate HSBC was struck with a $1.9billion (£1.2 billion) fine for its role in a vast international money-laundering scheme, which washed hundreds of millions—if not billions—of dollars in illegal transactions, with Mexican and Colombian cartels among the direct beneficiaries.

Liquid drug money propped up global banking system in 2008
There have been various suggestions since the financial crisis of 2008 that one of the main crutches propping up the international economy during the worst of the fiscal upheaval was black-market drug capital, which amounts to as much as 3.6% of annual global trade and (by virtue of its illegality) is among the most liquid.

Now, questions are being raised regarding the wider role played by the banking system and the governments of various countries in the global network of illegal drug capital. HSBC may have been the public scapegoat, but other banks (such as Wachovia, which has now collapsed) have been implicated in the scandal, and there are signs of deeper corruption pervading the entire system that has yet to be exposed.

The "War on Drugs" could be won with the stoke of a pen. But I bet it will be decades before we see it.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

I'm not sure it would crush every criminal organization. There will always be someone willing to cut corners to make a cheap (and therefore attractive) product.

And, I'm not sure I want my government to be in the meth distribution business.

I'm willing to be educated on the topic.

There is an attractiveness to quality control. I live in heroin country and most of the overdoses seem to happen with a "good" batch of heroin is on the market.

Do you know of any articles, etc., that point to illegal drug money's impact on politics? I'd be very interested in reading about that.

Do the drug lords own stock in the prison companies? If I was a drug lord I'd invest in prisons.

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@rosborne979,

Wow, you did that before I even asked! I'm going to mark that for my morning read.

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It seems that the country is on its way to differentiating the different controlled substances in the US’ delineated in its Controlled Substances Act (CSA) what with the states of Colorado and Washington decriminalizing marijuana, a substance in Schedule I of the CSA which is ridiculously included along with heroin.

I think that methamphetamine could be dealt with the way some countries handle heroin and its addicts with legal, supervised prescriptions and counceling.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Are you suggesting that meth, alone or in combination with other drugs, is not dangerous to anyone except possibly its users?

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

Are you suggesting that meth, alone or in combination with other drugs, is not dangerous to anyone except possibly its users?

No.

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Are we close to seeing the end to the "war on drugs"?

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