The war on drugs has failed. Now we need a more humane strategy

[CHIMO]

It is time to admit the obvious. The "war on drugs" has failed, at least in the way it has been waged so far. In Latin America, the "unintended" consequences have been disastrous. Thousands of people have lost their lives in drug-associated violence. Drug lords have taken over entire communities. Misery has spread. Corruption is undermining fragile democracies.

And, after decades of over-flights, interdictions, spraying and raids on jungle drug factories, Latin America remains the world's largest exporter of cocaine and marijuana. It is producing more and more opium and heroin. It is developing the capacity to mass-produce synthetic drugs.

Continuing the drugs war with more of the same is ludicrous. What is needed is a serious debate that will lead to the adoption of more humane and more effective strategies to deal with the global drug problem. Earlier this year the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, which I co-chaired with the former president of Colombia, César Gaviria, and the former president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, released the first high-level statement ever to endorse harm-reduction generally and decriminalisation of marijuana specifically.

The core conclusion of the statement is that a paradigm shift is required away from repression of drug users and towards treatment and prevention. The challenge is to reduce drastically the harm caused by illegal narcotics to people, societies and public institutions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/06/cardoso-war-on-drugs

[msongs]

1. that strategy is called legalize them. offer education and rehab with the $$ saved. But the police

will hate that because we will not need so many of them anymore.

[notesdev]

2. Good cops won't

Good cops know that the drug war is evil and do not enforce it if they can avoid it.

It's the ones who do nothing but - the special forces, drug SWAT teams, BATF goons, and all the rest who make their living exclusively from prohibition - that we have to worry about. Like the terrorists we trained in Afghanistan, we may just end up regretting supplying these people with training and weapons.

[paulsby]

3. utter crap

im a cop. i HATE the war on drugs (especially on MJ).

i know lots of cops, and even a DEA agent (When it comes to MJ) who believes the same

WE don't make stupid war on drugs laws.

LEGISLATORS do.

obama certainly is for the war on drugs, so is his drug czar, kerlikowske, etc.

trust me, i work for an agency that is WOEFULLY understaffed. there is PLENTY of police work to do, even if we legalized all drugs tomorrown.

when i worked in detective division,we routinely passed over solvable but time consuming "minor crimes" simply because we could only do so many cases with so much personnel.

heck, we are so understaffed, we have sent many drug detectives BACK to patrol.

i do not, in any way, shape of form, take responsiblity for bad law. i don't MAKE law.

it's the legislators fault.

period.

and it doesn't matter what the police will ALLEGEDLY hate. we don't make law. we enforceit