Leftist Dogma

Thad McCotter, U.S. Representative and Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee is discussing leftist dogma. Thad goes into details but I'm just going to cover the bullet points. They are:

1. You are a victim of yourself and others
2. You are a danger to yourself and others
3. Nuts Who Scream “Death to America” Need Love, Too

There are statists on the right who subscribe to at least two out of the three points. The Rs need a House cleaning as well. Case in point: the large core of support among Republicans for the Drug War. I believe support for that fits #1 and #2. And you know - it ain't working. Kids can get illegal drugs easier than they can get a legal beer. Doing nothing would work better and cost less.

But let me see if I can get this right. By 1914 Americans were no longer competent to deal with opiates and cocaine. Formerly over the counter drugs. By 1920 they couldn't handle alcohol and by 1937 they lost the ability to deal with cannabis. Oh. I forgot. In 1933 their ability to deal with alcohol in the environment suddenly returned. All it required was passing a law (an Amendment to the Constitution actually - but still - law).

Pot (heh) meet kettle.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Deliverance

The US Government has a plan. A plan to deliver us from the the scourge of drugs. Really. For sure. Well OK not so sure. It is hard to sell sure after the twentieth or thirtieth time. Well it is all good. But not in fun.

Law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 2,200 people in an investigation targeting Mexican drug trafficking organizations in the United States, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The probe, called Project Deliverance, focused on the transportation networks that carry methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the United States, with return trips of drug proceeds and weapons.

At a news conference Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the extensive operation began nearly two years ago. He said federal agents targeting violent drug cartels have seized nearly 70 tons of marijuana and nearly 1,500 pounds of heroin. Authorities said some of the drugs were hidden inside buses that cross the Southwest border.

But Holder said the fight is far from over.

“Make no mistake. We know that as successful as this operation was, it is just one battle in what is an ongoing war,” he said.

Yeah. A War On Plants and Plant Extracts is going to be successful one day. Real Soon Now. The war on the opium and coca plants has been going on for 96 years (Harrison Narcotics Act). The war on the hemp plant has been going on for 73 years (Marihuana Tax Act of 1937). So yeah. Real soon now there will be some useful results.

At the news conference in Washington, Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of the DEA, described the law enforcement strategy as an effort to cut off and shut down the supply of drugs headed northward and the flow of drug profits and guns southward into Mexico.

Well the US Government has been doing that for over 70 years with no end in sight. Evidently the government is beginning to wise up. A little. Look at what the Drug Czar recently said about the government effort.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told the Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

So what do you call an effort (how many Drug Kingpins have been collected so far?) that makes things worse and yet is intensified with each successive failure?

A Government Program.

That is how it works with socialism (price supports for criminals). And yet a lot of so called conservatives support this program. A friend of mine tells me that in the new crop of "Conservatives" running for election this year there are quite a few who favor government price supports for criminals (what would a pile of vegetables be worth if it wasn't for Drug Prohibition?). I don't get how you can be a Conservative and support a government program that has never worked, is not working, and will never work in the way proposed by its supporters. Did I mention that it costs at least $50 billion a year (Federal, State, and Local). A rather nice chunk of change in these hard times.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Some Random Drug War Notes

Well not so random actually. They are the working notes of anti-Drug War Lobbiest and retired Detective/Officer Howard Wooldridge.

De Nile is also a river in Egypt:

At a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting this week our Deputy Secretary of State for the Americas, Mr. Valenzuela was asked by the chairman about the murders of 16 school kids at a birthday party in Mexico. His response was ‘the murders were a sign of success’ of the policy of Mexican President Calderone. I did not believe my ears. After the hearing I asked 2 others if I had heard correctly. Yes. I reviewed the tape at home. Yup. Like body counts in Vietnam and Iraq, dead students are a sign of success. Who knew?

Unsurprisingly a modest search of the Internet turned up nothing about those remarks.

Hell froze over:

On Tuesday I attended a press conference in the Capitol. The IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police) endorsed the Webb Commission bill. 17 of my colleagues in full dress uniforms stood behind four Senators asking the Congress for a speedy passage* of the bill. The IACP represents 20,000 Top Cops. It is the only major group to endorse the Webb bill. The rest are fighting it for all their worth.

I never thought the IACP would support this bill. I was wrong. On this occasion it is good to be wrong.

More about IACP support.

And why are the rest of the top police opposing it? Follow the money.

Last month in the hallway of the Heritage Foundation, I ran into Ron Brooks, chief lobbyist for the nation's 69,000 narcotics officers (one cop in 12 is a narcotics officer). He smugly stated that my organization only had a few thousand members vs his 59,000 strong organization. I countered that a solid poll had just shown that 22 percent of all active duty cops would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana. This percentage meant about 225,00 cops feel like I do. Per the same poll, a majority of cops felt that marijuana should be just a ticket, not an arrest. I told him that he and the narcs favored prohibition because it was a big, overtime check and job security. He became upset and stormed off.

That is not the only corruption going on in the Drug War. Ever wonder how all those drugs get across the border?

Worse than we thought:

Senator Pryor (D-AR) had the courage ( no other Senators attended the event) to call a hearing on the ‘Corruption of federal officers by the Mexican Drug Cartels.’ One witness stated that the polygraph exam was washing out 60% of the applicants. The audience was stunned at such a figure.

Then came the bad news. The Border Patrol only polygraphs 15% of applicants. The witnesses testified further that the Drug Cartels are hiring people who then apply to the Border Patrol. Why receive only one paycheck? And you wonder how drugs flow across the border like beer in a German bar?

Well not to worry. We are winning the Drug War. In fact we have been winning it for 40 years. Or would that be 96 years - since the passage of the Federal anti-cocaine and heroin laws - or for 73 years since the passage of the Federal anti-marijuana laws?

YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME AND ALL OF THE PEOPLE FOR THE PAST 40 YEARS

“So what numbers can you ‘hang your hat on?” asked Wooldridge. “In 2005 our federal government reported these sobering numbers: One – 110 million Americans had tried an illicit drug at least once. Two – 35,000,000 had used an illicit drug the previous year. More importantly, ask yourself what is the most crucial question for you and your children. Is it how much has drug use has gone up or down or how easy is it for your kids to buy drugs from marijuana to heroin. Of course it is drug availability which is the crucial question and that is why the Prohibition Crowd never, ever wants to discuss that aspect.

“Drug Prohibition will be repealed when a majority understand its destructive effects AND tell their politicians. Help your family by re-directing police time towards public safety, not personal safety. Going after Willie Nelson smoking marijuana on his back porch is NOT making America safer. Silence here means politicians will keep voting billions to feed the police drug machine.”

Which just goes to show you how long failure can be maintained if you are spending other people's money to support it.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Mexico Legalizes Users

Mexico has legalized personal use of all kinds of currently illegal drugs.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.

The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.

I wonder if research on the medical use of marijuana such as treating/preventing cancer will be moving to Mexico since the DEA has strangled such research in America?

Let me point out that such a law will do nothing to limit the reach of the drug cartels. In America under Alcohol Prohibition, alcohol consumption was legal. Its manufacture and distribution were not. All Mexico has done is legalize demand while doing nothing to legalize supply. The supply chain murders will continue.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Success At Last

Our South American agricultural policy is at last bearing fruit. Production has been rising for the last eight years and is up significantly in the last year alone.

Coca is a serious destabilizer—keeping Colombia’s rebels armed and the country’s progress in check. But after almost a decade, U.S.-assisted efforts to reduce the crop’s production in Colombia haven’t just failed; they’ve been downright counterproductive. Plan Colombia was meant to improve security, stamp out drug cultivation, and improve law and order after a decades-long conflict with leftist militants. But coca cultivation rose 15 percent between 2000 and 2006, an October 2008 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study found. A separate U.N. study found that in 2007 alone, the area of land hosting coca crops rose 27 percent. To put it mildly, something is not working.

How can they say it is not working when production is up?

Oh? They wanted production to go down? Never mind.

The United States has spent $6 billion on Plan Colombia, but Colombia still supplies 90 percent of U.S. cocaine. Time for a rethink on the drug war?

Ya think?

Penn and Teller On Drugs

I was over at one of my daily reads Little Green Footballs and came across this Penn and Teller episode of their program Bullshit on Recycling. Very interesting. Very Funny. And laced with profanity. Kind of like Amanda Marcotte only they make you laugh.

So I started noodling around and found a bit they did on the War On Drugs. And how well it is not doing. As you know I rarely post pictures or video clips in order to keep this place low bandwidth friendly. I'm going to make one of my rare exceptions for this one. (about 30 minutes).

These guy are geniuses. And, smart too.



Not Work Safe

Cross Posted at Classical Values