MARIJUANA TO ROBITUSSIN, WHAT A RUSH!

MARIJUANA TO ROBITUSSIN, WHAT A RUSH (Frazer Chronicles)

An international panel released it's findings, stated in a 24 page paper that has been released today, June 2nd. about drug use and the war on drugs. The report detailed the many failures of a battle to stop illegal activity that has made billions for the perpetrators, has cost nations billions to combat and has wrecked untold millions of people's lives. At the center of the debate is an attitude and the values of millions of people from around the world.

The battles lost are part of the greater global war on drugs, where every victory won is blunted by 10 defeats. In the real world, where numbers actually counted, the decades old war would have been over years ago, lost by bungled actions by law enforcement, the lack of funds to adequately arm the war and a complete unwillingness to understand the enemy.

The hundreds of thousands of people in prison on drug related offences, the money that these incarcerated law breakers cost their countries and the completely futile effort by law enforcement to combat drug cartels should lead intelligent thinking people to look for some sort of alternative to fight the scourge that drug suppliers and users are around the world.

Sadly the report cites evidence, overwhelming evidence, demonstrating that repressive strategies do not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs, has not, and can not be won. This fact has been acknowledged privately throughout agencies for more then a decade and although nobody will admit it, the government money that has been invested on the cause, has been thrown down a deep, dark hole and can never be retrieved.  

In many cases, in  many countries, drug enforcement is simply spinning it's wheels in their efforts to control the flow of illicit drugs into their countries. If they plug one avenue of drug trafficking, another one opens up almost immediately. The effort isn't really a war, in a war, a war that lasted as long as the drug war has, an ultimate victory needs to be in the conversation, but there is no victory conversation in this war.

You might think that I sound like an advocate for drug use, or the legalization of certain kinds of drugs, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I hate drugs, drug use and those slime that pray on the young, the poor and those recreational users that come from the suburbs into the cities. I am also a realist, and realistically the "war ain't workin,"

The United States imprisons more people then any other nation in  the world, due largely to the war on drugs. Since the 1970's, drug war practices have helped stigmatize, criminalize and marginalize millions of Americans. Disporportinately poor people and people of color are targeted, while failing miserably to reduce problematic drug use, drug related disease transmission or overdose deaths.

The amount of money spent by American officials in their pursuit of the drug users, sellers, makers and traffickers into the country is an unbelievable figure, a figure that I can guarantee most Americans couldn't even guess. In the physical year, 2011 which ends June 30th.  the total  was $17,252,045,292 dollars. The break-down, Federal, $6,379,151,510, states, $10,672,893,782.

On average, the federal government spends about $500 per second on the war, the estimate for arrests in 2011 for drug related offenses is more then 1.6 million, or 13% of all arrests in the United States. Someone is arrested every 19 seconds for a drug related violation, 89% of those arrested was for drug possession only.

These are sobering numbers, and evidence conclusive that the war on drugs not only is not effective, but that it is lost. In fact, the United States government has dabbled in the very crimes that ostensibly, they are fighting. The CIA, the DEA, State Department and several other governmental agencies have been implicated in various drug trafficking scams, which were used to fund illegal covert activities in several nations.

As I mentioned, "I hate drugs," and everything that they stand for, basically a mind altering high for those who are weak, or so completely unable to cope with their lives, that they need something. I have tried drugs, pot and the aforementioned Robitussin, and all it did for me was to make me paranoid, more paranoid then I usually am.

Hell I can't even control alcohol and I always figured if I couldn't control that, I'd better not get "hooked" on anything stronger. I have seen what drugs can do to people, how it  wrecks their lives so completely that they never recover. But this war on drugs simply is not working, and a new direction needs to be explored.

It's going to take people of vision, people that have the welfare of the nation as the core for any suggestions that might come from any such panel. Pot heads are out, as are medical marijuana users. Decision makers will need to be clear headed, only those people that drink alcohol would be allowed to act on any suggestions. Now doesn't that sound just like those people that are in charge of answering the drug related questions.....today