Major rights groups: Decriminalize use of all illicit drugs

[NaturalHigh]

As Americans debate the expanding campaign to legalize marijuana, two of the nation's most prominent human rights organizations are urging a far bolder step — the decriminalization of possession and personal use of all illicit drugs.

Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union jointly issued the call Wednesday in a detailed report contending that enforcement of drug laws has unjustifiably ruined lives, torn families apart and fueled racial discrimination while failing to curtail rampant drug abuse in the U.S.

"Every 25 seconds someone is funneled into the criminal justice system, accused of nothing more than possessing drugs for personal use," said Tess Borden, the report's author. "These wide-scale arrests have destroyed countless lives while doing nothing to help people who struggle with dependence."

Borden acknowledged that broad decriminalization of drug use, whether by Congress or state-by-state, is unlikely in the near future. She hopes the report will spur action at the state and federal level to invest more funds in treatment programs and to reclassify drug use and possession as misdemeanors rather than felonies.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/major-rights-groups-decriminalize-use-of-all-illicit-drugs/ar-BBxjySI

and in similar news...
More U.S. arrests for pot than violent crimes: rights groups

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/more-us-arrests-for-pot-than-violent-crimes-rights-groups/ar-AAiRZin

[RainCaster]

1. Maybe for pot, but not cocaine (sniff) Donald

He needs to go to jail for a long time

[Seeking Serenity]

2. Heck, I'd be for just the decriminalization of the use of LEGAL drugs.

Anybody tried to get a prescription for hydrocodone for chronic pain lately? You're treated like a criminal for merely entertaining the thought and are probably being reported to the authorities as someone who needs to be watched.

(Hyperbole, yes, but a rhetorical device to make a point.)

[Warren DeMontague]

8. Yeah, all the noise about the "prescription drug crisis" means pain patients suffer.

But remember, this is the country that sent a wheelchair bound man to prison for 25 years for taking what a prosecutor arbitrarily decided was "too many pills" to manage his own spinal pain.

Do people sometimes abuse prescription drugs? Sure. And when the "crackdown" happens, they -along with legit pain patients, mind you- switch over to things like black market heroin, with predictable results.

We need to decide whether it's more important to make sure people in agony don't suffer needlessly, or to make sure that someone doesn't catch an unauthorized buzz. Right now we go with the latter.

[Seeking Serenity]

14. I have expressed that sentiment more times than I can count

Our government, OURS, in OUR names, takes the clear position that "If we can just save ONE person from becoming addicted, then the pain and suffering of millions will have been worth it."

The tyranny of the moral busybodies (if you're on a computer and not a mobile device, read my sig line quote from C.S. Lewis about the tyranny of the moral busybodies).

[Warren DeMontague]

15. The sig- I did, actually.

I like it- it sounds more like Mencken, than Lewis.

I wonder if it was before he converted. Like Camus, Christianity rendered him a bit insufferable. At least to my mind.

[Seeking Serenity]

17. I don't know when he wrote it (and don't care if it was pre- or post-conversion

It's absolutely spot on, and it something we're facing with blunt trauma force in this country, from both the right and, yes, you can't deny it, from the left.

Face it, we've got a Democratic president who appointed the DEA administrator. They're both every bit the drug warrior as your most rabid Republican. The moral busybodies are not limited to the other party.

A pox on both of their houses.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. I do believe that Obama has moved the ball forward somewhat. In the face of no doubt deep

institutional inertia.

But I hear you; it is a struggle that needs to continue to be fought.

[Seeking Serenity]

19. I do agree that he's been less hard-line than others

Such as not crushing states that have legalized Marijuana, as he could've done under the Article VI supremacy clause.

But his DEA/FDA has been unrelenting persecuting people who legitimately need opioid medications just to have some semblance of quality of life. Remember, it was during this administration that hydrocodone (hydrocodone, for crying out loud) got moved up to Schedule II, making it that much more difficult for people who need it to get it.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. I'm with you.

We are long overdue as a society on this conversation. Like I said, do we really want people to suffer just because we're worried someone might catch an unauthorized buzz?

It pisses me off, too.

[TheFrenchRazor]

11. word; it's insane. you're just supposed to suffer until you die. builds character, you know. nt

[geomon666]

13. It took me 4 months to get my vicodin prescription filled.

Every single time I went to a Walgreens or CVS, "Sorry we don't have any in stock. Try again next month."

[awoke_in_2003]

16. Down here

you have to produce an ID for Sudafed. It's crazy.

[Cicada]

3. Portugal did it more than a decade ago. Worked great.

[NaturalHigh]

4. It can't possibly be any worse than our current "War on Drugs."

[TeamPooka]

5. Prohibition is a failed public policy, again. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Absolutely. Treat addiction as a public health issue, not a law enforcement one.

Offer treatment on demand.

And do away once and for all with this idea that our bodies belong to the state or the church, and not ourselves. Why the fuck should the government be allowed to throw you in prison for "unauthorized" use of your own nervous system?

[panader0]

7. Well put....

The mind is a monkey in a cage.

[uncle ray]

9. then we must legalize the distribution system as well.

much of the problem with drugs, is the lack of oversight of the manufacture of them, resulting in poor quality or adulterated product. if you legalize personal possession but not a legal way to manufacture them, there will be an even greater profit motive for the black market.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Maybe.

And if the ONLY alternatives are, as you put it, legalizing the distribution system or the situation we have now, where the 4th amendment has been obliterated so SWAT teams can go house-to-house rounding up anyone suspected of having forbidden substances in their bodies, then yeah, we should just legalize everything and be done with it.

Having all drugs available at the 7-11 would certainly be preferable to the authoritarian clusterfuck of the drug war, that's for sure.

But it's facile to assert there is no middle ground. For instance, the state of Oregon decriminalized marijuana possession in 1973, and it didn't legalize the distribution system until 2014. I support the legalization, regulation, and state-sanctioned and regulated sales of cannabis, however, it is clearly perfectly doable to reduce penalties for small personal possession amounts while still leaving the distribution illegal.

[TheFrenchRazor]

12. i agree; it's a matter of individual rights and shouldn't be anybody else's business. nt