The Drug War and the DEA

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/panama-row-reveals-us-drug-agencys-power-2169875.html

Happy New Year everyone. I might have a New Year blog to write over the weekend...but meanwhile I continue to see the topic of "prohibition" and the most costly and failing world-wide war against "drugs" as one of the key issues of our times.

Better than the article linked above is the first "comment" to that article by "malcolmkyle". Since I could not write a better opinion myself...I just chose to copy here for your reference:

Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of hypocrisy, incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.

Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence, and for what other purpose than to uphold the defunct and corrupt thinking of a minority of misguided, self-righteous Neo-Puritans and degenerate demagogues who wish nothing but unadulterated destruction on the rest of us.

Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use, among all echelons of society, is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.

By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model - the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous and ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved. Thus the allure of this reliable and lucrative industry, with it's enormous income potential that consistently outweighs the risks associated with the illegal operations that such a trade entails, will remain with us until we are collectively forced to admit the obvious.

There is therefore an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. Anybody 'halfway bright', and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. So put away your pipe, lock yourself away in a small room with some tinned soup and water, and try to crawl back into reality A.S.A.P.

Because Drug cartels will always have an endless supply of ready cash for wages, bribery and equipment, no amount of tax money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again. Only an end to prohibition can do that! How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?

If you support the Kool-Aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, tortured corpses, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, economic tribulation, unemployment and the complete loss of the rule of law.

"A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln

The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!

Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare; if you support it you must be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, insane or corrupt.

While I share these sentiments, I understand why so many Americans support our government's spin on this issue. Drugs and other forms of addiction...including food and prescription drugs...are killing tens of thousands every year in the USA alone...and we want "big brother" to take responsibility for it. We are the biggest consumers of drugs both legal and non by far on a per capita basis. As long as we have this prohibition and focus only on the symptoms of our addictions and the black market suppliers to them...we will continue wasting billions of dollars annually through government and military operations that could be better invested elsewhere.  This war has been more futile and expensive than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

I know many will think I am a total conspiracy theorist...but I still believe...and with recent Wikileaks publishers proving it more...that governments have used this "war on drugs" to further push their military agenda and dominance over "the people" on a grand scale. The "DEA" has basically supplanted the "CIA" as the largest infiltrators of foreign governments and soil. Big government has used the fears of terrorists and our "addictions" to convince us that they alone can provide for our "safety and tranquility" through bigger/newer bureaucracies of government and military might. Constitutional limitations of federal governments and courts have been thrown out the window of expediency. I fear this momentum has gone so far down the fast lane that it might never be recoverable for the side of constitutional law. 

I am fully convinced that if these "illicit" drugs were made and regulated in the USA like all other drugs...taxed and controlled...there would be less of this drug "sub culture" controlling so many of our fellow citizens. There would be more money for education, addiction clinics...and all these foreign "narcos" would be out of business or at least limited to competing as a foreign importer. At least they would have to compete on a market basis against legitimately produced domestic drugs of choice.

While in general I agree that most of these drugs are very harmful to humanity (along with cigarettes, alcohol and "McDonalds" type food fare)...it seems quite obvious to me that as the commentator above has stated so eloquently..."Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use, among all echelons of society, is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time"...it is time we regulated versus prohibited "the people" from having what they want. If they do harm while "high"...they should be prosecuted heavily. To incarcerate them simply for escaping their own realities or pain is NOT a humane thing to do. That my friends is not for us to judge. "There but by the grace of God go I"...

Prohibition basically just makes the criminals and governments rich...at the expense of the taxpayer and drug user. You don't see the connection?  No demand...no supply. It's so simple as to be invisible to current day leaders of our institutions.