War On Drugs Has Not Been Worth The Costs: Poll

[Redfairen]

Source: Huffington Post

Only one in five Americans think that America's war on drugs has been worth the costs, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.

According to the new poll, 53 percent of Americans say that the war on drugs has not been worth the costs, while only 19 percent say it has been. Another 28 percent are not sure. Among political independents, the drug war is even less popular. The term "costs" in the survey was not defined, so respondents could have been considering both qualitative and quantitative costs of the war on drugs.

Democrats and Republicans in the survey said that the war on drugs has not been worth the costs by almost identical margins -- Democrats 46 percent to 24 percent and Republicans 45 percent to 25 percent. But independents said it was not worth the costs by a 65-11 margin.

The poll also found that more disapprove (39 percent) than approve (30 percent) of President Obama's handling of drug policy.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/18/war-on-drugs-costs-poll_n_2504162.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[Cooley Hurd]

1. War on Drugs - another sick Nixon legacy...

[think]

2. Kick,Rec,Sigh.....................

[theaocp]

3. Shocking. Truly shocking.

By which I mean, not at all shocking. In the least. When the world turns to shit, arbitrarily going after poe-theeds just ain't that fucking important, is it? Well, unless you're Obama's Justice Dept. Then, it's all about the federal law, baby! Maybe he'll wisen up, too.

[abq e streeter]

4. But I feel SO much safer knowing that my government is trying to make sure

that sitting in your living room, giggling uncontrollably while watching the teletubbies , will not be tolerated.

[Scuba]

5. The "19%'ers" are pharmaceutical and private prison investors.

[randome]

6. It seems like too often the 'war' on drugs is conflated with marijuana policy.

Most people believe in decriminalization of marijuana but I think most would also agree that interdiction of heroin and cocaine is a good idea that should continue.

The word 'war' is a misnomer but 'interdiction of dangerous substances' is a better term.

[theaocp]

8. The DEA would be crippled

without cannabis prohibition.

[randome]

9. Then they could do a better job with interdicting the truly dangerous drugs.

There will always be enough work to do with just that.

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. Pot accounts for about half of all drug arrests.

But not for much of the drug prisoner population. I think there are something like 40,000 pot prisoners out of about 500,000 drug war prisoners.

A disproportionate number of those drug war prisoners are poor people of color. Funny how that works.

Retaining the prohibition on hard drugs retains all the harms associated with prohibition: Law enforcement corruption, retail and wholesale illegal drug business (gangs and cartels) violence, black market prices leading to acquisitive crime, all the downsides of using law enforcement to solve social problems. And there will still be hard drugs easily available. That's how it's been so far.

I favor ending drug prohibition, period, and dealing with drugs as a public health issue, not a criminal one. We can talk about how that might work, if you like, but a kind of cold way of thinking about it is to say we should treat drugs like alcohol and leave the cops out of it except to clean up the mess.

With alcohol, law enforcement involvement is limited to people who threaten the public safety (drunk drivers), the public order (public intoxication--in some places, disturbing the public), or who are committing crimes under the influence (bar fights, domestic aassaults, child abuse or neglect, other stupid, drunken shit). We don't arrest alcohol users and we don't go after "alcohol trafficking organizations."

We suffer some social harms from alcohol, but we've removed the harms caused by prohibition. I think you could reasonably argue that not prohibiting alcohol is a net harm reduction. We could do that with other drugs, too, especially if coupled with access to treatment on demand under a sane health care system.

[randome]

13. Cocaine and heroin, etc. are not in the same league as alcohol.

I think the majority of people, if polled on hard drugs and not the simplistically termed 'war' on drugs, would agree with keeping these out of the country as much as possible.

Marijuana arrests are an entirely different matter. I agree that no one should be imprisoned for that so long as they aren't selling to children, etc.

[Comrade Grumpy]

15. Support for legalizing anything other than weed rarely exceeds 10%.

The problem with keeping hard drugs out of the country as much as possible is that you can't. We spend $40 billion a year trying to enforce prohibition, and cocaine and heroin are as cheap and plentiful as ever. And we get all the harmful effects of prohibition.

[Lenomsky]

20. I think you are mistaken ..

Heroin is a very safe drug to use however yes it's physically addictive. If users were given clean unadulterated heroin and clean needles etc if required then harm and crime would drop dramatically.

The Truth about Heroin - Dispatches UK

Cocaine is not physically addictive however it is psychologically addictive.

Alcohol is taxed heavily which pays for the negative impact to a degree.
Nicotine is also taxed heavily which pays for health care easily and the other benefit is less pensions to pay as 30% of smokers die from smoking.

The idea that Marijuana is safe is crazy as smoking pot is bad for your health but I like stoners they cause no problems as a rule.

I'd legalise or at least decriminalise all drugs and licence alcohol use so if you are a bad drunk and cuase problems you lose your licence for a period. Drunks are the worst drug users I know.

[AZ Progressive]

7. The War on Drugs has helped the Government to incarcerate blacks and latinos and...

put them to do slave labor for big corporations (and other employers) so that they can sell cheap goods in the U.S., some while claiming that such things are made in the USA. Also, you can't forget the prison industrial complex's role as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/06/prison-labor-pads-corporate-profits-taxpayers-expense

"The worst abuses of the PIE program occur in the agricultural sector, particularly in states where draconian immigration laws have led to labor shortages that have left crops rotting in fields. Rather than have to pay real-world wages, farmers turned to lawmakers to help, who, in turn, were only too happy to offer up their prisoners as a cheap alternative. In Arizona, for instance, a state law requires that all able-bodied inmates must work. Prisoners who do jobs within the institution can expect to be paid between 10 cents and 50 cents an hour, but those lucky enough to get a job working for one of Arizona's Department of Corrections (ADC)'s private partners can expect to be paid a whopping fee of "more than 50 cents an hour"."

and


In a recent expose by Truthout, a female prisoner at Arizona's state prison Perryville unit described her day working as a laborer for a private company called Martori Farms.

"They wake us up between 2.30 and 3am and kick us out of our housing unit by 3.30am. We get fed at 4am. Our work supervisors show up between 5am and 8am. Then it's an hour to a one-and-a-half-hour drive to the job site. Then we work eight hours, regardless of conditions … We work in the fields hoeing weeds and thinning plants …

"Currently, we are forced to work in the blazing sun for eight hours. We run out of water several times a day. We ran out of sunscreen several times a week. They don't check medical backgrounds or ages before they pull women for these jobs. Many of us cannot do it! If we stop working and sit on the bus or even just take an unauthorized break, we get a major ticket which takes away our 'good time'."

[SHRED]

10. Here's a great place to "cut government spending"

[Socal31]

11. Is this even a question?

It has done more damage to the environment, the economy, human health, and national image than most any other "war" we have been involved in.

[bvar22]

14. This is especially frustrating...

...because neither Political Party mentioned a single WORD about the Failed War on Drugs during the entire campaign season of 2012,
nor was it allowed as a topic of discussion at the Debates.
Neither was the obscene level of Americans held in Prison in the US,
nor the manifest problems with our PrivatizedFor Profit Prison System.

TPTB have learned that if they can keep something OFF the TV,
then it isn't real. As Carl Rove stated, they really DO create their own reality.

[duhneece]

24. I'll be pushing (letters, phone calls, letters to editor, etc.)

It's time, it's way past time, too many lives hurt, crippled and even distroyed-no more. I'm not going to take it any more, silently.

[rachel1]

16. It only benefitted the megalomaniacs and the prison-industrial complex

and punished everyone else by either intimidating or incarcerating untold amounts of non-violent people.

[grahamhgreen]

17. Yah, so why Obama cracking down on dispensaries?

[randome]

18. Because the # of dispensaries grew dramatically.

And many of the crackdowns were at the request of local authorities. LA just closed about 200 dispensaries alone, I believe. It was out of hand. There are not that many terminally ill people in LA to need that many dispensaries and everyone knew it.

[grahamhgreen]

19. But drug war no good. why waste money? AMerica no want.

[Comrade Grumpy]

21. You don't have to be terminally ill to qualify for a medical marijuana card in California.

The LA city council's move to shut down dispensaries has been stopped in its tracks by not one, but two, separate municipal initiative petitions, and now the council has added a third. The voters will decide.

[KansDem]

22. Especially when the big-bank money launderers like HSBC...

...commit criminal acts and only pay a small fine.

Prompts one to ask, "Why do we even have a 'War on Drugs?'"

[samsingh]

23. it has not been worth it. the war itself is a crime.