Two very interesting, and seemingly incongruous facts.

It will likely take me awhile to digest those into my 'theory' (which is really just a quick stab at the obvious).

At first blush, my guess would be that the cocaine trade, as you point out, is a well oiled machine, and a darling among the rich, whereas the marijuana trade is overrun with 'wannabes" that are prime pickings for DA's up for re-election, and trophy heads for warriors against drugs. You pretty much have to be a rich player if you're going to know who to bribe, and I'd guess the prison's are choking on poor kids that just wanted to make a little pocket cash. Also, one price pressure for domestic marijuana producers is the fact that drug dealers in America will have their assets seized, without due process, and without recourse. Hiding a successful operation is likely difficult due to the space and energy required, making serious competition a scary proposition.

All of this is just conjecture ... I conject a lot.

CDub

You make some excellent points, ones that are rarely made in this debate. I would add two things to your list, and invite you to draw your own conclusions:

Consider: the street price of cocaine has stayed almost the same for 30 years. There is so much profit in selling illegally that inflation is absorbed without reducing profits much. This shows organization and control over this illegal black market.

Consider: the only illegal drug which is easily grown in this country, marijuana, has vastly increased in price over the same period. While some marijuana is smuggled in to this country, most of it is produced domestically, meaning no international market is involved. And the price has gone way up.

Like I said, draw your own conclusions to those two data points, but since you were focused on economics, I thought they should be added to the discussion.

Thanks for commenting.

-CW

I find your comments very well reasoned, and I agree for the most part, but I'd like to inject my theory in answer to your final question.

"Isn't it long past time for our tax dollars to be spent on something that'll give us a better return on our investment?" --- Herm71

I think it boils down to how you define "our". If by our investment you're talking about the money tax payers are investing, then yes, I'd say it's about time. But since tax payers are really out of the loop on how our tax dollars are invested, perhaps it would be interesting to examine who might might be getting an excellent return from "our investment".

Consider; Drugs are big business. Huge quantities of product and cash flowing daily throughout the globe. This requires logistics, investment, security, weaponry, land, laboratories, transport equipment, bribes. In other words, a successful drug operation is a network of very rich people in many countries, especially the larger markets such as the USA. Like all large successful businesses, most of the dirty work is handled by low level, low paid employees ... interchangeable and expendable.

Consider; The war on drugs is big business. Huge quantities weaponry, cash, logistics, transportation equipment, security, land, bribes. In other words, a successful 'war on drugs' operation is highly profitable to a network of very rich people in many countries. Like all large successful operations, most of the dirty work is handled by low level, low paid employees ... interchangeable and expendable.

Consider; Making drugs illegal drives up prices.

Consider; Networks of very rich people are able to manipulate US policies.

Consider; The US government is composed primarily of very rich people.

Consider; with armies of security forces on both sides, crushing competition is lucrative, and gives the 'war on drugs' crowd the ability to show 'success'.

So when you say 'return on our investment', I assure you, there are lobbyists representing some very rich clients working hard in DC today to increase our investment in the war on drugs. And they're pleased as punch with the returns.

So when someone like Norm Coleman says, "The adults who lead NORML today should be joining the Senator, and those who now know the dangers of drugs, to do the responsible thing to prevent legalization of drugs of any kind that could harm the lives and future of our children.", a number of his rich friends and supporters see another investment pay off handily. Oh, and by the way, the children whose lives and futures Norm seeks to protect ... interchangeable and expendable.

Your correction, however, merely underscores my point: We've been pursuing some sort of "war" on drugs for dang near a century, yet rates of both use and abuse have remained relatively constant. Isn't it long past time for our tax dollars to be spent on something that'll give us a better return on our investment?

Peace.

While Krupa may have been the first person busted (I haven't checked that fact, so I'm taking your word for it), the "Drug War" began much earlier, and the war on marijuana began as an anti-Mexican immigration measure. From a report studying the history:

===================
1. The first state marijuana prohibition law came in Utah in 1915 and was enacted into law along with a number of other Mormon religious prohibitions.

1. The early state marijuana laws in the Southwest and West were passed because "All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy." That is, they were the result of racial prejudice against newly arrived Mexican immigrants.

2. The other early state marijuana laws were passed out of the fear that opiate addicts, who had been deprived of legal access to opiates by the Harrison Tax Act of 1914, would turn to marijuana. In other words, they were afraid that opiate use would lead to marijuana.
===================

OK, call them stoners for writing a review with two #1's, but if you want factual data on the drug war, the best resource I've found on the net is:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/index.htm

The quote above came from their list of studies they have up on their website. These are divided between academic studies and government commission studies, and are quite extensive.

Just some info for anyone interested in reading the history of it all...

-CW

First, my sympathies (for lack of a better sentiment) on the status of two of your kids. Like CW, I can totally appreciate how close personal experience might diminish one's objectivity on a subject. However ...

You mentioned two examples in your post: A movie you saw in seventh grade and a Dragnet episode. Um, I hate to break it to you, but THAT'S FICTION. Of course something you saw in seventh grade is going to end in tragedy. It's supposed to. It's called propaganda. It's intended to scare the bejeezus out of adolescents so that they don't smoke, do drugs, have sex, turn gay, whatever. And Dragnet? Joe Friday? Come on! You ever see Reefer Madness? That shit could really happen, man ... that's REAL! One puff of the "devil weed" and you're a stark raving rapist. Give me a break. I want to be respectful and I'm not trying to be totally dismissive, but I'm seriously having a hard time, uh, taking that line of reasoning ... seriously.

I'll concede that early drug use sometimes leads to abuse problems later in life. Sometimes, but not always; not even the majority of the time. Most kids experiment a little and, like Norm Coleman, grow up to be functioning, productive adults. I'm sure he's not the first to grow up to be a hypocrite, either. The thing is, it's *already* illegal for minors to buy cigarettes and alcohol. But they get it anyway, to be sure. For that matter, it's illegal for them to buy, uh, illegal drugs too. But somehow adolescents get them also. Legalizing drugs does not mean allowing little Johnny and Jane to march down to the Stop-n-Shop to pick up a pack of joints or a sheet of acid. They're minors; they can't buy cigs or booze, they can't buy porno mags, and they can't vote. This is because they aren't mature enough to fully grasp the consequences of their actions. Yet, somehow, adolescents nationwide still hide girlie mags underneath their mattresses and go out behind the gym to smoke cigarettes. And, lo and behold, despite the illegality of marijuana, they're still takin' bong hits in their parents' basements when left alone. Legalizing drugs would not change this; they'd still be off limits to minors, but somehow I'm sure the minors would find a way to come by them.

The problems associated with substance abuse are "sexy", in that they tug at heart strings, make good copy, and make it easy to solicit donations for the cause. I live in the Bay Area. I've seen the junkies panhandling on Market Street in S.F., pockmarks on their arms from needle punctures, sunken cheekbones, hollow eyes. It breaks my heart. And, yes, there is a social cost. But nobody chooses to be a junkie. However, there is a FAR greater number of responsible drug users in America than there are addicts, in spite of the majority of drugs folks use being illegal. I've seen the stats, it's like 10 to 1; for every addict there are 10 responsible drug users. You never know it, because ... well, because they're responsible. They're not making headlines; they're quietly pursuing their happiness in the privacy of their own homes, not bothering anybody.

You ask, in essence, to quote The Simpsons, "What about the children?" Well, what about them? What about the nice church lady, Mary Winkler, who blew away her abusive pastor husband a year or so ago with a shot-gun; what about her children? Or Andrea Yates who drowned her children by rolling her car into a lake in 1994 and blamed in on a fictitious black man? And then there's Deanna LaJune Laney who beat two of her sons to death because God told her to. My point is that plenty of people do some pretty nasty sh!t to others without the excuse of drugs. I'd venture to say that the percentage of drug-related collateral damage is vastly disproportionate to the number of horrible, twisted non-drug related travesties that are perpetrated in this country. That's not to say that one is less horrible than the other, but let's put it into perspective.

Finally, you're totally right, it's the innocents that we should be trying to protect. The thing is, although Nixon really ramped up the Drug War nationally after New York's Rockefeller instituted his drug laws in 1973 -- which was long before Nancy Reagan urged us to "Just Say No!" -- jazz drummer Gene Krupa was actually the first person ever to be busted for possession of marijuana in 1943. So it can actually be argued that the Drug War has been going on for the last 64 years. To what end? We've got mandatory minimums that lock non-violent users up for their productive life (not unlike the scenario in the book you reference), destroying families and removing many potentially productive people from society, and drug use and drug addiction rates have gone nowhere. The Drug War (or, War on (Some) Drugs) has made exactly zero dent in "saving" anyone. It sure has done wonders for the GDP, though. And that's what really counts, isn't it?

Again, I know some of my tone has probably sounded somewhat sarcastic, and I apologize for that; I generally think the level of discourse in internet discussions have sunk to incredible lows, and to the extent that I have contributed to it, I am sorry. And, again, I am sorry for any pain and disappointment that your children may have put you through. But considering that you used as a reference a seventh grade propaganda film, I felt I had to respond in kind.

Be swell (not swollen) ;-)

Drug dealing is a world wide enterprise, it has supporters deep in all areas of government, encluding justice and law enforcement, from the highs reaches down to the local level.

This is a *Fact*.

Only the ignorant OR those involved in this most harmful and illicit trade would not support complete regulation of this industry.

>And I do respect those opinions.

I know you do.. That's what I like about you. We can be diametrically opposed on the most emotional of issues, yet still maintain the basic human respect of those who disagree. :D

Now, let me wipe this brown stuff of my nose and I will address the rest of your post.. :D

The problem with allowing people to injest whatever they choose to in the privacy of their own home is that it rarely JUST affects that one person who chooses to injest.

I recall a movie I watched in 7th Grade Social Studies. It was a movie about the "Happy Pill" where people could just pop that pill when things got rought... The very last segment had a great impact on me.. It showed a mother and a father with a screaming baby and the mother saying, "Wow! Her temp is up to 106..." and the parents just popped their happy pills and closed they door...

Another childhood memory is of an old DRAGNET episode (Oh boy, am I really giving my age away here, or what!!? :D) where Friday and Gannon responded to a house where the parents were smoking pot.. And they found the infant daughter face down in the bathtub, dead.

Yes, we can keep the DUI and DWI and all the other laws that apply to alcohol and apply those to drug usage... But will that really matter to the innocent men, women and children killed by drug abuse??? I don't count the druggies.. If they want to play russian roulette with their lives, let 'em.. Cops can sponge them off the road and the embankments and mutter under their breath, "GOOD RIDDANCE"....

But what about the babies with the 106 temp who die because their parents took the "Happy Pill"??

What about the toddler who lies dead, face down in the bath tub because their parents are stoned on pot??

Do you think THEY will care about what laws apply when???

As far as other countries and how they deal with it, that's really not applicable.. Americans are a different breed.. In essence, the average American is not "mature" enough to handle the legalization of drugs... Yea, sure we might "grow up" eventually, but at what cost???

Finally, did you ever read the book by Stephen Coonts, UNDER SEIGE?? I may not have the title right, but it's a Jake Grafton book and not to be confused with the Denzel Washington/Bruce Willis movie of the same name.

THAT is my take on drugs and how "enforcement" should be handled... It may be harsh and it may be unfair, but I guarantee you that it would be the most effective..

SPOILER**********SPOILER************SPOILER

For those who haven't read the book, the final "solution" for the National Security "drug crisis" was to get all the drug users and pushers and dealers and hang them from the lamp posts...

Michale.....

There are some people who want to waste their lives, they're going to, and whether they use a legal substance, an illegal substance, or something in between (prescription happy pills, for instance), I believe that they're going to go down the path by themselves.

I also believe that it's everyone's natural right to do so. That's where the libertarian/unalienable right thing comes into it for me. I mean, prohibition didn't work all that great, did it? How's the drug war going? Made a dent yet after umpty-billions spent?

And if you do some research into European countries, you'll find their addiction rates actually lower than in the U.S. Part of the "thrill" of drugs for many is that they're illegal. Take that away, and addiction rates actually decline over time.

Was our country in chaos before about 1900? You could go down to the pharmacy and buy any drug you wanted back then, for like a nickle. Sure, there were lots of housewives addicted to laudanum (opium), but today you get the same people on "Mother's little helper" pills from big Pharma. Is there really that much difference ultimately?

But to answer your main point, even though it wasn't the point I was trying to make (my mistake, bad wording) -- you've got to also consider the flip side. I would be interested in your perspective, coming as you said from a LEO background. It can best be put as: what happens when a law is so unenforceable that people treat it like a joke? Doesn't that undermine society's respect for the law in general, and wind up doing more harm? And isn't that another form of anarchy?

To truly state the Libertarian position: It's not that it's too hard to enforce. It's that the State should not be regulating what a citizen can or cannot ingest, in the privacy of their own home, as consenting adults, without directly harming others. This doesn't mean scrapping DUI or DWI laws, they would still apply in full force under the "as long as you're not hurting anybody else" concept of what government should be for.

Again, it's a philosophical argument about the reach of government to me. But I can understand those who have seen people's lives wasted and who have different opinions on the matter. And I do respect those opinions.

-CW

>Once you start down that road, it takes
>you to Libertarianism. See my earlier
>post on "pursuit of happiness."

I disagree..

If we start legalizing things that are simply "too difficult" to enforce, the road it takes us to is pure anarchy.

Drug abuse is not the victimless crime that many people would like to think it is. Take all the alcohol related problems in this country, multiply it ten-fold and that's what you would get with legalized drug usage.

I will concede that SOME drug usage is a medical issue vs a criminal issue. But where do you draw the line??? Does the drug dealer who is selling the stuff have a "medical problem"??

"EBAY-itis"???

Of course not..

The concept of legalizing something simply because it is too hard to enforce leads us to a dark and dreary place where the rule of violence reigns, as opposed to the rule of law.

As to the hypocrisy issue, statistically speaking, early drug use leads to problems later in life IS true.

I have three children. Two boys and a girl. Of the three, the oldest boy and the daughter started smoking and doing drugs at a young age. They are now 25 and 20 respectably, still living at home with a child, no job and no future to speak of. My middle boy, who didn't do drugs or smoke or drink(until legal able to do so) enlisted in the army at 17, made it all the way thru Army Ranger Training, had to leave due to a medical problem (that has since cleared up) had a successful job that he just left and is now in the USMC for advanced training.

Now, people like Franken and Coleman are the exception and people like my oldest son and daughter are the rule.

And with legalization of drugs, you will see many, many, MANY more of my oldest son and daughters than you will see Frankens and Colemans and Bushs.

Regardless of the very real threat that legalization presents, the fact is that the Legalization crowd's main argument is that it is too difficult to enforce the drug laws.

That's a piss poor reason to legalize something...

If I may venture into "GODWIN" territory here, "Oh hell with it. It's much too difficult to fight Nazism over in Europe... Let's just let Hitler have Europe and Asia. It's too hard to oppose him.."

Or, if I may utilize a movie quote...

"Did you see a light?? Why didn't you walk into it?"
"Fuck that... Too far, man..."
-Seth Green, IDLE HANDS :D

In any case, this is probably one of those issues (like torture.. :D) that we will simply have to agree to disagree on. I have a "Cop's mentality" when it comes to drugs and druggies and it's so ingrained, I doubt anything could change my mind.

Michale.....

Once you start down that road, it takes you to Libertarianism. See my earlier post on "pursuit of happiness."

Without getting in to the morality of drug use (especially vs. alcohol use, as Jonathon points out); the simple fact is that treating drug abuse as a medical problem instead of a criminal problem works much better. Europe and Canada have proven this beyond any doubt.

It IS hypocrisy to agree later in life to things you know from personal experience aren't true. I think both Al Franken and Norm Coleman have changed their attitudes and matured on the subject, but I personally would want Al making the laws and not Norm, as Al seems to view the subject with more compassion than Norm.

-CW

And I agree, the GTA analogy was not perfect as it just addressed the criminality aspect of my position, rather than the consequences aspect.

But my main point is that it's not hypocrisy to work against something in maturity that you indulged in as a youth. It's simply, in my not so humble opinion, an issue of becoming older and wiser.

My main problem with the whole "LEGALIZE DRUGS" issue is it smacks of cowardice and taking the easy way out..

"It's too hard to enforce it so let's just make it legal!!"

Once you start down THAT road, there is no telling where it will take you..

Michale.....

I agree with you about drug use not always turning out so great for everyone later in life. My sister, with a college eduction (Journalism), is working a minimum wage job with bleak prospects for any kind of retirement. She became heavily involved in drugs up to her late thirties and it took away everything she had.

On the other hand I'm not so sure I agree with the grand theft auto analogy. With that you are talking about a crime of theft in which their is a car thief and a victim of theft. With drug laws you have a criminal (legally defined since buying marijuana is against the law) and a victim who are the same person.

Also, I purposely left out until now that my sister's other huge problem was alcohol - and that's perfectly legal. For me, therefore, keeping one neurologically altering substance legal (alcohol) and outlawing another (marijuana) would be the equivalent of making car theft legal but outlawing bus theft. They're two sides of the same coin and to enforce one but not the other seems hypocritical. I think that is where many people have a problem.

Quickly back to the problems drugs cause. I don't think this can be stressed enough. My sister's problems and, very recently, my stepson's problems (dropped out of school, became very anti-social - but better now and off the stuff) have led me to flinch sometimes when I see people taking drugs too lightly or making too many jokes about it, even though I have been guilty of countless lighthearted comments myself and of course, have smoked plenty in my time. I think my biggest problem is when people write off any negative impact drugs may have.

And finally (and then I promise I'll shut up) I do believe that some people are predisposed to addictions and others are not. My sister and I were raised in the same house by the same two people and yet I can drink and occassionally smoke pot and not have it become a problem. Usually weeks intervene between drinks for me and it's been a long, long while since I smoked. Obviously the same cannot be said for her.

Since this happens with nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, heroin and on down the line I think we have to choose if we want to play "nanny" to our citizens or let them make their own choices, knowing that sometimes those choices lead to ruin.

I'm for making our own choices, and as such, despite my personal experiences with the hellishness drug addiction can cause, am against outlawing substances that people take for pleasure.

Gotta go now and do some real work as well as update my own blogs which have been on hold while I was away for the holiday.

All the best...

Jonathan

I am having trouble with these two statements from the NORML quote.

>we grew up OK.

>We became lawyers.

Those two statements are mutually exclusive. :D

Seriously though.. You seem to indicate that any youthful indiscretion is OK, because SOME people commit them and still grow up "OK"...

Using this reasoning, it should be perfectly fine to approve and condone Grand Theft Auto, simply because someone stole a car as a youth, but still grew up "OK"...

A lot of things are "cool" and fine when you are a young kid. But, as one gets older and matures, they look back and realize how wrong and bad it was. That is not hypocrisy. That is life.

With regards to the legalization issue... Think of the precedence that is set. OK, so the hippie potheads get their marijuana legalized. Then the heroin druggies want their drug of choice to be legalized. And then, of course, the meth addicts MUST have their drugs made legal.

BIAS NOTE: I am speaking of this as a person with an extensive LEO background, so I am obviously not very objective, having seen firsthand the vast majority of scumbag druggies who don't turn out as well as Norm Coleman or George Bush. Many of them were dead.

Michale.....

Keep those tips rolling in!

-CW