“More Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses or drug-related probation and parole violations than for property crimes. And although America spends five times more jailing drug dealers than it did 30 years ago, the prices of cocaine and heroin are up to 90 percent lower than 30 years ago. … In “Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know,” policy analysts Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken argue that imprisoning low-ranking, street-corner dealers is pointless: A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence.”
“I have to sell weed to get money for school because I can’t get federal aid since I’m a felon. I’m trying to do right.”
Sometime next month, newly-elected Guatemalan President Otto Perez plans to propose legalization of drugs, including the decriminalization of drug transportation, to other Central American leaders.
It took Perez just one month in office to shift to calling for drug legalization. The retired general ran for the presidency on a platform of hard-line action against drug smuggling, but it seems like the sheer force of the drug trade has changed his mind; 95 percent of all cocaine sales to the United States go through Mexico, the most prominent and bloody face of the drug war, but 60 percent of them begin in central America.
“Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities… . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.”
Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in America, statement to stockholders, 2005.
In other words: ending the Drug War and eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences is bad for business. Adam Gopnik notes that CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators.” presumably, inter alia, to keep harsh sentencing laws on the books.
(via letterstomycountry)
Private prison industry? What private prison industry?
“You have to keep God first regardless of whatever trials or tribulations you might have in life. If you don’t believe in God, hey, I don’t have anything against you, but I’m still going to tell you what I have to say. You just can’t get out of that hog pen by yourself. You have to be a humble person and have respect. It’s not just about football. That’s what I try to pass on.”
Sam Hurd, then with the Dallas Cowboys, discussing what he was trying to stress in youth football camps two-and-a-half years ago.
Now with the Chicago Bears, Hurd has been arrested on felony drug charges for allegedly seeking five to ten kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana per week as well as having a list of the NFL players he distributed to that is in “double digits.”
Is it more dangerous to drive drunk or stoned?
A new study suggests that legalizing medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities. The authors noted that legalizing marijuana reduces alcohol consumption, and people are more wary of driving high than drunk. Which drug is actually more dangerous on the road?
Alcohol, and it’s not even close.
“Black youth are arrested for drug crimes at a rate ten times higher than that of whites. But new research shows that young African Americans are actually less likely to use drugs and less likely to develop substance use disorders, compared to whites, Native Americans, Hispanics and people of mixed race.”
“The ‘war on drugs’ has been well lost, and should never have been waged. While it isn’t explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, I can think of no political right more fundamental than the right to peacefully steward the contents of one’s own consciousness. The fact that we pointlessly ruin the lives of nonviolent drug users by incarcerating them, at enormous expense, constitutes one of the great moral failures of our time.”
“The government has as much of a right to control what I as an adult put into my body as it does what I put into my mind, it’s NONE of their business.”
Judge Jim Gray, the Republican who co-authored the Regulate Marijuana Like Wine Act and believes there will be an end to marijuana prohibition within two years.
(Source: d-0wn)
Breaking The Taboo 2011 | Official Trailer (English Version) (by quebrandootabu)
End The #WarOnDrugs
I’m assuming I’ll have to wait until this is available on DVD, but that full H.W. speech containing the snippet which opens this trailer was really something:
Now, I can imagine a few whispers out there: Maybe you think we’ll never get drugs under control, that it’s too easy for the dealers to get back on the street. Well, those days are over, too. The revolving door just jammed. Some think there won’t be room for them in jail. We’ll make room. We’re almost doubling prison space. Some think there aren’t enough prosecutors. We’ll hire them, with the largest increase in Federal prosecutors in history. The day of the dealer is drawing to a close.
I’m sorry but I don’t understand. The U.S. is going to spend more money on a failed war on drugs when it has so many problems — crumbling infrastructure, decaying schools, layoffs at public workers in all sectors — at home that seem to need attention. Didn’t Republicans invent the war on drugs? Hasn’t it been shown to be ineffective? Didn’t former President Jimmy Carter just this month second the report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy that declared the war on drugs a failure and called for a new approach? And yet …
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged more foreign aid to fight drug cartels in Central America. Mrs Clinton told a regional security conference in Guatemala that the US would increase its aid by more than 10% to nearly $300m.
I wouldn’t let the Democrats off the hook so easily. Even if a Republican president “invented it,” both parties played a part in making it astronomically worse. As Eric E. Sterling, former counsel to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, recalled to PBS’ FRONTLINE a while back:
In 1986, the Democrats in Congress saw a political opportunity to outflank Republicans by “getting tough on drugs” after basketball star Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. In the 1984 election the Republicans had successfully accused Democrats of being soft on crime. The most important Democratic political leader, House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill, was from Boston, MA. The Boston Celtics had signed Bias. During the July 4 congressional recess, O’Neill’s constituents were so consumed with anger and dismay about Bias’ death, O’Neill realized how powerful an anti-drug campaign would be.
O’Neill knew that for Democrats to take credit for an anti-drug program in November elections, the bill had to get out of both Houses of Congress by early October. That required action on the House floor by early September, which meant that committees had to finish their work before the August recess. Since the idea was born in early July, the law-writing committees had less than a month to develop the ideas, to write the bills to carry out those ideas, and to get comments from the relevant government agencies and the public at large.
One idea was considered for the first time by the House Judiciary Committee four days before the recess began. It had tremendous political appeal as “tough on drugs.” This was the creation of mandatory minimum sentences in drug cases. It was a type of penalty that had been removed from federal law in 1970 after extensive and careful consideration. But in 1986, no hearings were held on this idea. No experts on the relevant issues, no judges, no one from the Bureau of Prisons, or from any other office in the government, provided advice on the idea before it was rushed through the committee and into law. Only a few comments were received on an informal basis. After bouncing back and forth between the Democratic controlled House and the Republican controlled Senate as each party jockeyed for poitical advantage, The Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986 finally passed both houses a few weeks before the November elections.
Sterling’s been pretty popular recently with the 25th anniversary of Len Bias’ death and apparently started a blog today (on WordPress … *sigh*).
