War on drugs has failed, says US highest official

[DEAD ZONE]

US drugs tsar John Walters has admitted that Washington's anti-narcotics policy in Latin America has so far failed.

Mr Walters said in Mexico that billions of dollars of investment over many years have failed to dent the flow of Latin American cocaine onto US streets.

"We have not yet seen in all these efforts what we're hoping for on the supply side, which is a reduction in availability," he said in Mexico City.

But he predicted positive results would be seen within a year.

Mr Walters was speaking just after he had visited Colombia.

His comments can be seen as an admission that the so-called Plan Colombia has been a failure.

This initiative to wipe out drug smuggling gangs and eradicate coca crops has seen the Colombian government become the third largest recipient of US military aid in the world.

While praising Mexico's efforts to combat the drugs trade, Mr Walters also said that there'd been no notable disruption in the supply of drugs to the US.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3540686.stm

****
Wow. That's something I didn't know.

If the governments of the world were smart, they would legalize all drugs and then sell them to make money. People using them would have to agree to go to treatment. Nobody wants violence. They want the drug. Violence only comes from being illegal. How many "Plan X" do they have? They don't work!!

Its about time some one in the gove si willing to admit this war on drugs is long lost and a joke. treatment is far better and much more effective.

[Dumbie]

Oh I get, you want them to sell the drugs freely and then treat the druggies for taking drug? A Pharmacy with a clinic in the back of a Walmart Superstore would work nicely, and the illegal immigrants can bring the drugs with them as a qualification for a job.
Of course it failed it a War started by Neo-Con Nancy RayGuns, they seem to have a knack of starting wars they can’t finish. Do they have an Air-head -Refueling-Station close by? You may need to be topped off! :lol

[DEAD ZONE]

Originally posted by Dumbie
Oh I get, you want them to sell the drugs freely and then treat the druggies for taking drug? A Pharmacy with a clinic in the back of a Walmart Superstore would work nicely, and the illegal immigrants can bring the drugs with them as a qualification for a job.
Of course it failed it a War started by Neo-Con Nancy RayGuns, they seem to have a knack of starting wars they can’t finish. Do they have an Air-head -Refueling-Station close by? You may need to be topped off! :lol No idiot. I want them to take the profit out of them so there will be little insentive. The money spent on this lost war is far more effectively used to treat in order to stop drug use. Prohabition failed because of demand and so has this war only the terrorists and criminals are being made filthy rich by failed policies and idiotic statements and belifes like yours.Heck they even get them in jail where its a police state total control society.Your LAWS are doing nothing but inriching the very terrorist and criminals youclaim to want to stop.

People are drugged out right now when the item is illegal, so just what proof do you have that continuing this idiocy is the answer.

"Domestic enforcement costs 4 times as much as treatment for a given amount of user reduction, 7 times as much for consumption reduction, and 15 times as much for societal cost reduction."

Source: Rydell, C.P. & Everingham, S.S., Controlling Cocaine, Prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Army (Santa Monica, CA: Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Corporation, 1994), p. xvi.

"An additional cocaine-control dollar generates societal cost savings of 15 cents if used for source-country control, 32 cents if used for interdiction, and 52 cents if used for domestic enforcement. In contrast, the savings from treatment programs are larger than control costs: an additional cocaine-control dollar generates societal cost savings of $7.48 if used for treatment."

Source: Rydell, C.P. & Everingham, S.S., Controlling Cocaine, Prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Army (Santa Monica, CA: Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Corporation, 1994), p. 42.

The RAND Corporation found that the additional spending needed to achieve a 1% reduction in the number of cocaine users varies according to the sort of program used, and that treatment is the most cost-effective:
Control Program Additional spending needed to achieve a 1% reduction in number of cocaine users
Source-Country Control $2,062,000,000
Interdiction $964,000,000
Domestic Enforcement $675,000,000
Treatment $155,000,000

Source: Rydell, C.P. & Everingham, S.S., Controlling Cocaine, Prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the United States Army (Santa Monica, CA: Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Corporation, 1994), p. 36.

According to the National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES), "The results show substantial reductions in criminal behavior and arrests after treatment: Selling drugs declined by 78 percent; Those who reported shoplifting declined by almost 82 percent; Before treatment, almost half the respondents reported "beating someone up." Following treatment that number declined to 11 percent; a 78 percent decrease; Changes in arrest rates were less striking than those in self-reported criminal behavior, but the 64 percent reduction in arrests for any crime was still dramatic; and The percentage who largely supported themselves through illegal activity dropped by nearly half - decreasing more than 48 percent."

Source: National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information, US Dept. of Health and Human Services, "National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study - Costs of Treatment," from the web at http://www.health.org/govstudy/f027/crime.aspx, last accessed Jan. 27, 2004.

The war was started before reagon. Its been ilegal a good while. Clinton failed at it as wel;l so sit back and take your anti hate meds and relax.

Treatment decreased welfare use by 10.7% and increased employment by 18.7% after one year, according to the 1996 National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study.

Source: Center for Substance Abuse and Treatment, National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1996), p. 11.

A study of heroin maintenance in Switzerland for the World Health Organization concluded:

1. The health of participants improved.
2. Illicit cocaine and heroin use declined greatly.
3. Housing situation improved and stabilized- most importantly there were no longer any more homeless participants.
4. Fitness for work improved considerably, those with permanent employment more than doubled from 14% to 32%.
5. The number of unemployed fell by half (from 44% to 20%)
6. A third of the patients that were on welfare, left the welfare rolls. But, others went on to welfare to compensate for their lost income from sales of drugs.
7. Income from illegal and semi-legal activities decreased significantly, from 69% of participants to 10%.
8. The number of offenders and offenses decreased by about 60% during the first 6 months of treatment.
9. The retention rate was average for treatment programs. 89% over 6 months, and 69% over 18 months.
10. More than half of the dropouts did so to switch to another form of treatment. 83 of the participants did so to switch to an abstinence-based treatment, and it is expected that this number will grow as the duration of individual treatment increases.
11. There were no overdoses from drugs prescribed by the program.

Source: Robert Ali, et al, Report of the External Panel on the Evaluation of the Swiss Scientific Studies of Medically Prescribed Narcotics to Drug Addicts (New York, NY: The World Health Organization, April 1999).

I could fill pages with these PROOFs that my way works and yours is just emotional hype .

[w1che]

Let me get this straight.. You sell them a drug on the condition they get treatment for the very drug you're selling them legally.. That doesn't make sense..

[Dumbie]

While I appreciate the research Dead Head has done, he seems to be thinking, he also seems to be missing a vital incentive for the WAR on drugs, that is the building of a police state. After the revolt in the sixties the government realized that they were underman and under funded and only with a WAR Chest could they expand the Police State. They instilled fear into the community who allowed their taxes to created millions of new police positions who spend a large portion of their time responding to the consequence of the WAR.

Removing profits is exactly the way to approach this issue, regulation through the established pharmaceutical industry would work just fine. The one caveat I would recommend though, is that the recipient be identified as a voluntary drug user and limit their activities while in the program.

I would extend this to people who have mandatory medication as well. People who use drugs to maintain health may not have all their senses about them and driving a car could endanger the lives of drug free citizens. All citizens who take medication, whether voluntary or mandatory should be identified and classified. Certain jobs would require a healthy body and mind which drugs of any type could influence.

That is where a change in drug policy will take us, we will be forced to deal with Seniors on Heart or Cancer Meds, Women on anti-inflammatories and men on Viagra.

You can’t treat people for drug addiction any more than you can treat them for religious addiction, that is unless they want to stop depending on the crutch.:toast

[DEAD ZONE]

Originally posted by w1che
Let me get this straight.. You sell them a drug on the condition they get treatment for the very drug you're selling them legally.. That doesn't make sense.. sure it dose. they are already adicted.The drug will be used regardless.The numbers dont lie.

The American taxpayers are funding both side of this useless and unwinable war. We need our leaders to take a serious look at this problem and find workable solutions. Prohibition didn't work because so long as a substance has a willing buyer, it will never truely be eliminated.

Marijuana should be immediately legalized. The proven effects are no different than the effects of alcohol or tobacco and removing the potheads from the criminal justice system would save tremendous amounts of money (and the taxes on sales would help the economy) and would save time where the police could focus their efforts on other crimes.

We should then take the tax money from the legal sale of marijuana and use it for drug treatment. Unlike Marijuana -- cocaine, herion, etc. are seriously dangerous both to the individual and society and since we will never eliminate use while willing buyers exist, we should try to lessen its effects on society by removing (through treatment) the willing buyers of these hard drugs.

We should also (with the tax money from the legal sale of marijuana) buy enough muzzles for all the idiots who will scream that those in favor of these steps are "soft on crime" or "soft on drugs." Any intelligent General will tell you that somtimes in life you have to choose your battles and if we are going to fight all drugs with military strikes at the sources and incarceration of the users, then we are guaranteeing that we will lose this "war."

There have been people coming out of the CIA, ATF and spooks from the special forces for 20 years saying "ain't gonna work - we ain't winnin' and we can't win".
But because it's such a lucrative program for the agencies involved the 'war' continues................sucking money from our country that could be use dto either rehab the users or warehouse the hopeless addicts.

FYI - I have no doubt that the suggestion of legalizing drugs is based on Amsterdam, and just so you know tax payers do not pay for the rehabilitation - the druggies do. The government applies enough taxes to the drugs that the excess goes right back into the rehabs centres so non-doped up citizens never have to pay for it. In fact, the whole drug area is also isolated to the Red light district so non-dopeheads never have to see these 'immoral' acts either.

But the end result is that there is literally no violent crimes in Holland. Look up the stats, or better yet go there - it will amaze you.

[DEAD ZONE]

Originally posted by Dumbie
While I appreciate the research Dead Head has done, he seems to be thinking, he also seems to be missing a vital incentive for the WAR on drugs, that is the building of a police state. After the revolt in the sixties the government realized that they were underman and under funded and only with a WAR Chest could they expand the Police State. They instilled fear into the community who allowed their taxes to created millions of new police positions who spend a large portion of their time responding to the consequence of the WAR.

Removing profits is exactly the way to approach this issue, regulation through the established pharmaceutical industry would work just fine. The one caveat I would recommend though, is that the recipient be identified as a voluntary drug user and limit their activities while in the program.

I would extend this to people who have mandatory medication as well. People who use drugs to maintain health may not have all their senses about them and driving a car could endanger the lives of drug free citizens. All citizens who take medication, whether voluntary or mandatory should be identified and classified. Certain jobs would require a healthy body and mind which drugs of any type could influence.

That is where a change in drug policy will take us, we will be forced to deal with Seniors on Heart or Cancer Meds, Women on anti-inflammatories and men on Viagra.

You can’t treat people for drug addiction any more than you can treat them for religious addiction, that is unless they want to stop depending on the crutch.:toast UH....that was part of the point? Try again.

# The Mollen Commission was appointed to investigate corruption in the New York City Police Department. The Commission "found that police corruption, brutality, and violence were present in every high-crime precinct with an active narcotics trade that it studied, all of which have predominantly minority populations. It found disturbing patterns of police corruption and brutality, including stealing from drug dealers, engaging in unlawful searches, seizures, and car stops, dealing and using drugs, lying in order to justify unlawful searches and arrests and to forestall complaints of abuse, and indiscriminate beating of innocent and guilty alike."

Source: Cole, David, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (New York: The New Press, 1999), pp. 23-4.

In his book No Equal Justice, Georgetown Law Professor David Cole notes "The (Supreme) Court's removal of meaningful Fourth Amendment review allows the police to rely on unparticularized discretion, unsubstantiated hunches, and nonindividualized suspicion. Racial prejudice and stereotypes linking racial minorities to crime rush to fill the void."

Source: Cole, David, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (New York: The New Press, 1999), p. 53.

# A 1998 report by the General Accounting Office notes, "...several studies and investigations of drug-related police corruption found on-duty police officers engaged in serious criminal activities, such as (1) conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures; (2) stealing money and/or drugs from drug dealers; (3) selling stolen drugs; (4) protecting drug operations; (5) providing false testimony; and (6) submitting false crime reports."

Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 8.

A 1998 report by the General Accounting Office cites examples of publicly disclosed drug-related police corruption in the following cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, and Washington, DC.

Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 36-37.

The National Guard currently has more counter-narcotics officers than the DEA has special agents on duty. Each day it is involved in 1,300 counterdrug operations and has 4,000 troops on duty.

Source: Munger, M., "The Drug Threat: Getting Priorities Straight," Parameters, (Summer 1997).

Eighty-nine percent (89%) of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46% have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants (usually no-knock entries into private homes). Twenty percent (20%) of police departments use paramilitary units to patrol urban areas.

Source: Kraska, P. & Kappeler, V., "Militarizing American Police: The Rise and Normalization of Paramilitary Units," Social Problems, Vol. 44, No. 1 (February 1997).

In 1996 "Drug Czar" Retired General Barry McCaffrey said of the Drug War, "It makes us all very uncomfortable to see uniformed military units getting heavily involved."

Source: McGee, J., "Military Seeks Balance in Delicate Mission: The Drug War," Washington Post, (November 29, 1996).

[Dumbie]

We're actually in agreement here DZ, I have for the longest time thought there was a better way. I am also cognizant of the cost of reducing the power of the Police State.
Using an example of legislative relaxation in drug policies, say that at first the government grew Pot and sold it through their own network. As they did in the 70’s for cancer patients. The reduction in cost would reflect in a reduction in crime and the need for x amount of police. Next you take on Opiates or whatever, and the reduction in cost creates a reduction in crime and the need for y amount of cops. The cops power is reduced by the fluctuation in the demand v supply and now you have z amount of cops and all the support mechanisms around them without a job. Then you have the retiring soldier who has no other training but to be a cop. I know in some states it is required that an applicant for the State Police have a minimum of 6 years of military policing to qualify. Now I suppose that with this new War on terror that some could be diverted to that specialty, but certainly not all. And I haven’t even touched on the county sheriffs or the federal Guards.

In a time when we need to be creating jobs, reducing the police state will never fly. The resistance from the unions alone will be a fight, which is handled in this local with early retirement and healthy severance packages.

In truth without the fictitious creation of jobs our economy looks as bad as Germany’s. The war on drugs is more then meets the eye.

Remember the war on poverty and the schools pumping out 50,000 sociology degrees per year? Which way did they go?<0> The government needs the police state and the jobs, and to keep reminding us every night that drug guys are out there and so is our Heroes putting their lives on the line. In the mean time our taxes for the most part are used for this activity. In this City 60% of the revenue spent goes to police and fire services. I would suspect that this number is a general reflection of Cities throughout the nation. Add to that the equipment suppliers, the educational systems, the buildings , maintenance, insurance, pensions, on and on and you have a huge, arguably the largest employer, voting block, power base, and influence in the nation. That’s what the war on drugs and all it’s money supports.

[aclu14]

The Netherlands, which legalized marijuana, has a smaller percentage of people who actually smoke it, than the US does. The Minister of Health (or some guy with an important sounding title) said "We've succeeded in making pot boring." That's what it comes down to, you take the appeal out of something and less people will want it. The stamp "illegal" tends to become an attractive ad campaign.

[DustyBottoms]

Originally posted by aclu14
The Netherlands, which legalized marijuana, has a smaller percentage of people who actually smoke it, than the US does. The Minister of Health (or some guy with an important sounding title) said "We've succeeded in making pot boring." That's what it comes down to, you take the appeal out of something and less people will want it. The stamp "illegal" tends to become an attractive ad campaign.

This is actually a good strategical way to fight back.

If we can successfully market the drug users as losers - it might make the new users think twice before imbibing.

[weldordave]

DUH! War on drugs has failed since 1969. This is now big news?:lol :lol :clap