In Colombia, Obama to face pressure on Cuba, drugs

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

In Colombia, Obama to face pressure on Cuba, drugs
By Julie Pace
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated: April 11, 2012, 5:29 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama will face fresh pressure on Cuba and illegal drugs when he meets this week with Latin American leaders, some of whom have grown skeptical of his promise to forge a new era of partnership.

Obama will join more than 30 heads of state in the coastal Colombian city of Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas. Notably absent will be Cuban leader Raul Castro, as well as the president of Ecuador, who is boycotting over Havana's continued exclusion from the hemispheric meetings.

The White House, wary of a foreign policy distraction in an election year focused largely on domestic issues, has tried to play down a push by some regional leaders to include Cuba at future summits, as well as discussions about decriminalizing drugs as a way of reducing cartel violence.

Instead, Obama will aim to highlight issues that are more politically palatable back home, namely the prospect of Latin America as a growth market for U.S. businesses. The White House says 40 percent of U.S. exports are to the Western Hemisphere.

Read more: http://www.buffalonews.com/wire-feeds/24-hour-national-news/article805735.ece

[malcolmkyle]

1. Prohibition Sucks - The End!

During alcohol prohibition, all profits went to enrich thugs and criminals. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on education, etc. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally, the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?

It's possible that many of the early Prohibitionists did not actually intend to kill hundreds of thousands worldwide and put 1 in every 30 American adults under supervision of the correctional system while bringing shame upon what was once a shining beacon of liberty and prosperity. But predictively similar to our "Great Experiment" of the 1920s, this foolish and counter-productive 're-run' has once again spawned rampant off-the-scale criminality, corruption, a bust economy, mass unemployment, the world's highest incarceration rate, a civil war in Mexico, an un-winnable war in Afghanistan, and an even higher rate of drug-use (both legal & illegal) than in all other countries that have courageously refused to blindly follow us down this sadomoralistic, dystopian rat hole.

Should we wait for complete and utter economic ruination before demanding a return to sanity and the restoration of our unalienable­ rights?

Surely it's high time we all stood up and told our dysfunctional government that we're totally pooped at being abused, beaten and jailed in order that unconscionable Transnational Corporations - and their Media Enablers - can continue to dupe, addict and poison us for obscene profits.

According to the CATO Institute, ending prohibition would save an annual $41 billion of expenditure while generating an estimated $46 billion in tax revenues.

[dipsydoodle]

2. That's a net difference of + $87 billion.

Not to be sneezed at !