What the Drug War Needs is a Debate, Not a Disingenuous Battle Plan

[Downwinder]

by Steve Schaffer, COHA Research Associate

http://www.coha.org/2009/09/what-the-drug-war-needs-is-a-debate-not-a-disingenuous-battle-plan/

[Peace Patriot]

1. We can't get out of the miserably failed "war on drugs" because of our WAR PROFITEERS!

And this inability of our democracy to change also applies to humongous military budgets and the NEED for WARS to keep the US taxpayer booty coming in.

The second reason that we can't get out of wars or the "war on drugs"--even though both policies are INSANE--is the 'TRADE SECRET' code voting machines which were fast-tracked all over the country during the 2002 to 2004 period, to create a false public endorsement of Bush/Cheney's wars and to prevent serious reform in the future. ES&S, the electronic voting machine corporation, which just bought out Diebold and became a monopoly, is worse than Diebold in its far rightwing connections. The initial funder and major investor in ES&S is reclusive far rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals!

That's who is 'counting' our votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code! The far rightwing wants war, torture, punishment, imprisonment and executions because that is the kind of culture they enjoy and profit from. And they can't have it without fixing elections, because they are a tiny minority in this progressive country. And until we change this, and restore transparency to our election system--the counting of our votes in public view--nothing is going to change. We can talk all we want--and have a dialogue with Mexico, as this writer suggests--but the war profiteers will not permit reform and they are backed up by the 'TRADE SECRET' code, which gives a handful of rightwing nuts the ability to play our system like a piano. They may let an Obama get elected, to throw suspicion off their 'TRADE SECRET' control, but they will give him a Congress filled with Pukes and "Blue Dog" Democrats who will blockade any significant reform. And then, when they feel like it, and with the complicity of the corpo/fascist media, they can install Hitler II in the White House, and proceed with whatever diabolical plans they have in mind (Oil War II-South America is one of them, in my opinion. Executing homosexuals may be another.)

Yes, it's that bad! ES&S must be stopped! Half the states in the US have NO audit/recount controls AT ALL. The other half do a meager 1% audit--entirely insufficient in a 'TRADE SECRET' code system run by rightwing nuts. The most hopeful venue for restoring transparent vote counting is local/state jurisdictions, where power over voting systems still resides, and where ordinary citizens still have potential influence. Congress is too cowardly to do it, and are benefiting and profiting from this cauldron of corruption we call elections.

For a truly scary map of ES&S control of our elections, see: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7413

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The OP is excellent and worth quoting, but the writer does not address WHY such a debate cannot change US drug policy...

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What the Drug War Needs is a Debate, Not a Disingenuous Battle Plan
Steve Schaffer, COHA Research Associate

In what was to become a growing trend throughout much of Latin America, the Mexican government unleashed its security forces against the drug cartels several years ago in what ended up being a failed effort at interdiction. The strategy was then to change: On August 23, 2009, Mexico City announced that it would be eliminating jail time for possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. President Felipe Calderón said that the new law would free up law enforcement resources. Now, Mexican officials can focus on the larger and more lethal drug cartels, rather than cluttering Mexico’s criminal justice system with cases dealing with petty drug dealers and small-time addicts.

While many Mexicans were indifferent about the new law, Washington could not conceal its disappointment with its neighbor. In addition to Mexico, both Brazil and Uruguay later announced the elimination of measures harshly penalizing citizens carrying small amounts of drugs. Likewise, Argentina is planning to enact a decree exempting drug users from the criminal justice system**. On September 8, 2009, the Mexican president asked his Attorney General, Eduardo Medina Mora, a key figure and hard-liner in the government’s war on drugs, to step down. This occurred after criticism of the government further escalated when drug lords executed 18 people outside a rehab center in Juarez.

So the question provoked by this series of events is, when it comes to an effective drug strategy, what is the world waiting for? More directly, what will it take for the White House to act? Since the current strategy is clearly not working, why not open up the hemispheric drug policy to public debate for the very first time. The dialogue would want to stress one fundamental point: the anti-drug war quarterbacked by Washington is not working and that a new plan must not focus on the pre-existing and ineffective strategies of interdiction, eradication and prohibition of cocaine, marijuana and heroin.

A clear-cut division between the petty drug dealer, addict, and drug lord in the drug chain may not exist since they all feed on, as well as merge, into one another. If petty drug use is tolerated, it likely means that clients will be buying and shooting up, and that drug lords still will be pushing and profiting. On the other hand, we learned from Prohibition that while alcohol consumption may have slackened, illegal trafficking and associated violence escalated making the situation worse than before it was outlawed. The same can be said about today’s current legislation on drugs.

But failed drug policies are not something exclusive to Mexico. In a television segment produced by CBC news in 2007, the long list of failures of U.S. drug policies were cited. For example, from 2000-2006, the US spent $4.7 billion on Plan Colombia which indirectly forced the relocation of Colombia’s main cocaine producers to more remote areas of the country. Later, another change of methodology in 2005 was introduced due to the fact that levels of cocaine production and consumption ended up being more or less the same as in 2000.

(MORE)
http://www.coha.org/2009/09/what-the-drug-war-needs-is-a-debate-not-a-disingenuous-battle-plan/

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**(Note from me: Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have also rejected the US "war on drugs" as a failed and furthermore a threatening policy. The US military base at Manta, Ecuador, for instance, was used to spy on South American countries, and possibly to provide bombs, plane and pilot for a Colombian attack on Ecuador's territory last year. Ecuador's president just evicted the US military from its base in Ecuador. Bolivia has legalized the coca leaf, a traditional medicine (not cocaine), and its president Evo Morales threw the DEA out of Bolivia last September, along with the US ambassador, for colluding with white separatists in their murderous insurrection against the Morales government. Venezuela and Ecuador are particularly vulnerable to US/Colombia attack, as they are adjacent to Colombia and have huge oil reserves that the US multinationals want control of. THe Pentagon is planning to establish seven news US military bases in Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth. The US "war on drugs" is not just a "war on drugs"; it is a WAR in the making.)