The War on Drugs in America

requiett · Post by **requiett** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:14 am

If you're an American citizen, do you agree with the fact that America is spending $2,415,000,000 every year to wage war on its own citizens? I was appalled when I read the budget for the DEA on its own website.

http://www.dea.gov/agency/staffing.htm

While I do agree that there should be some manner of substance regulation for the general welfare and safety of people, this is hinging on totalitarianism. More and more warrantless searches are being conducted on a daily basis in the name of fighting the "tyranny" of drugs.

I do not take the concept of constitutional rights lightly. Yet, it is being shredded before our very eyes in the name of fighting drugs and terror. The presidential oath even dictates that the job of the president is to DEFEND the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.

This should be nothing new to the more observant of you around here, but to those who like to drown themselves in the sideshow media, I would urge you to pay a little more attention, and I don't mean to CNN, Time-Warner, Fox, etc.

Minion · Post by **Minion** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:32 am

i know i'm beating a decaying, almost skeleton horse by saying this, but they should make pot legal in the states.
i can't imagine that it makes up any large percentage of that budget, but shaving off some of it couldn't hurt.

and it may be a stretch by saying this, but some people just starting to use heavier drugs may decide to just smoke pot, since theres no longer any fear of getting caught.

Minion · Post by **Minion** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:36 am

and i realize that post has little to do with the original post

godix · Post by **godix** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:58 am

Personally I think the answer is easy. Legalize and tax most drugs, boom instant profit and fewer victimless criminals in jail. Some drugs would need to stay illegal of course and we'd still have all the problems of illegal drug trade. So what you do is first change immigration laws so anyone who wants to can come to this country provided they're not a health risk or guilty of crimes in their home country that are also illegal in the US. Then you give border patrol the authority to shoot to kill. After all, the only ones coming in illegally would be health risk and criminals. Then switch the entire nation over to nuclear power. Take the nuclear waste and cover the entire mexico/us border with it. Once a month or so drive along the radioactive border and collect all the bullet ridden bodies. Mulch em up and use em to build up New Orleans above water. Sure, NOLA would be radioactive but glow in the dark streets would just add to the mardi gras celebrations and it's not like the citizens have much of an IQ that'd be hurt by the radioactivity anyway.

There ya go. How to solve drug smuggling, lower the crowded prison population, end illegal immigrant arguments once and for all, get rid of polluting coal power plants, get rid of nuclear waste, and prepare NOLA for the next hurricane. I might also point out I'm actually mostly serious up to nuclear waste/NOLA part.

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:13 am

The nice thing about the 'war on drugs' is that it allows the same disregard of rights as the 'war on terrorism' - but more people are willing to ignore the price tag and lost rights if they think it's to keep kids from shooting up. This way they can use the money for both "wars" to foot the terrorism fund.

I don't believe there is a war on drugs. The price tag keeps going up because drug use keeps increasing and "concerned parents" keep approving increases to remove themselves from blame for raising delinquents. I'd be very surprised if even a fraction of that amount is spent on reducing drug use. As long as the drug use keeps increasing, they can keep raising that slush fund.

Then again, I live in Indiana. Meth is so common here 2 in 10 families have someone making it in their homes and everyone (cops included) know which 2 are the ones doing it. The local police have been bitching about the lack of funds for years without a single increase. We have more non-fatal accidents from meth labs exploding than we do from car wrecks. And since most of those involve people on welfare, it's getting more expensive every year. If we actually had a few billion in funds to fight this sort of thing, you'd think $50 might make it over here to pay a cop to make a house-call bust now and then.

CodeZTM · Post by **CodeZTM** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:22 pm

Scary. My Comp class just had a huge 3 week essay ramage on this same topic. The biggest argument was totally missed. The huge budget it costs to deal with drugs. Personally, I believe that any and all tobacco/alchohol companies should be blow up, ashes burned, put into a clay pot, thrown into a volcano, and then blowing up the volcano.... But I doubt that will happen, so let's just minimize our already huge debt, and just let the idiots learn from their mistakes.

madbunny · Post by **madbunny** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:50 pm

code_chrono wrote:Scary. My Comp class just had a huge 3 week essay ramage on this same topic. The biggest argument was totally missed. The huge budget it costs to deal with drugs. Personally, I believe that any and all tobacco/alchohol companies should be blow up, ashes burned, put into a clay pot, thrown into a volcano, and then blowing up the volcano.... But I doubt that will happen, so let's just minimize our already huge debt, and just let the idiots learn from their mistakes.

Xenu already tried that millions of years ago, and his problem is still around.

Shazzy · Post by **Shazzy** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:35 pm

Arigatomina wrote:
Then again, I live in Indiana. Meth is so common here 2 in 10 families have someone making it in their homes

Is it just me or is there a correlation between suburban ennui and drug use?

Arigatomina · Post by **Arigatomina** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:05 pm

Shazzy wrote:Is it just me or is there a correlation between suburban ennui and drug use?

Maybe. I think it's that small communities have fewer voters so they don't matter. When you hear about drug problems it's a big city crammed full of voters and reporters. The difference is publicity. It might be easier to buy the expensive stuff in a big city, but you have to watch your back to make sure there isn't a cop spying on the deal. In a small town you can make whatever you want in your own home, invite the neighbors over for some fun, and it doesn't matter who knows about it because they can't afford to get a warrent.

The best they've done here is set a legal limit on over the counter drugs containing ephedrine to one packet per day per customer. That just means a home brewer has to go to a few gas stations to get enough ingredients instead of buying it all in one trip, and people with asthma have to get a prescription instead of getting their drugs 4 for $1 over the counter.

I think there's a problem when we have to make laws to limit the ingredients because we can't afford to arrest the offenders.

slackergirl · Post by **slackergirl** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 1:31 am

godix wrote:Personally I think the answer is easy. Legalize and tax most drugs,

Technically speaking, most drugs are legal, so long as you are properly liscenced to prescribe them. They're only illegal if you get them without a prescription.

I also think that you are perhaps overlooking a good chunk of the DEAs time and effort: regulating and monitoring the medical community. Trust me, it needs monitoring.

Also, my big argument against legalizing pot would be that there's no quick, reliable "blood pot level" test to weed out (pun intended) the ****tards who think driving high is a good idea. And you can't deny that number would go up if pot were more readily available. (Not that it isn't pretty easy to get as is...)

Just my 2 cents. Take it for what it's worth.