Yesterday, the President of the Marshall Islands announced he's legalizing cocaine in his microstate.
About time.
I don't endorse cocaine use, nor do I use cocaine. But it's not because I'm worried about going to jail. It's because I'm worried about dying.
We should all follow the example of the Marshall Islands. Can we all admit The War on Drugs is a colossal failure? Seen footage from Northern Mexico lately? Or Colombia? Or Bolivia? The term War in Drugs dates back the early 70s, when President Nixon signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 into law.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, we waste taxpayer money on law enforcement, court time, extra prison space and covert military operations abroad.
We make enemies abroad when we spray herbicides abroad, because we also kill legitimate crops and damage fragile ecosystems.
We make enemies here at home because the War on Drugs dredges up issues of race and economic disadvantage through sentencing guidelines.
Thanks to mandatory-minimum sentencing, people who possess small amounts of drugsb can serve years in prison, while violent criminals get eleased early thanks to prison overcrowding.
Seventy-five percent of Americans think the War on Drugs has failed.
Have people stopped doing drugs? No. People do drugs at similar rates as they always have. So why do we continue to fight the War in Drugs?
Is anybody listening?
I've often thought that there was a whole taxable market going untouched.
ReplyDelete"It's war on the streets and the war in the Middle East. Instead of a war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me."
ReplyDelete-the late great 2pac shakur