Common Sense and the Drug Problem by Hank Sames February 25, 2008 “Largest Pot Bust on Record” ... “State to Fund New Jail Construction” ... “City Police and County Sheriffs Lobby for More Federal Funds to Fight Drugs” ... “Federal Courthouse Overwhelmed with Drug Cases” The headlines are disturbing and are never-ending. The “war on drugs” has gone on since the Nixon administration in the 1970s and ...
Ending America’s Domestic Quagmire by Paul Armentano December 1, 2007 A growing number of political pundits are questioning America’s military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some are beginning to draw parallels to lawmakers’ much longer domestic war effort: the so-called war on drugs. The comparison is apropos. For nearly 100 years, starting with the passage of America’s first federal anti-drug law in 1914, lawmakers have relied on the mantra ...
The Lies of the Drug War by Paul Armentano November 1, 2007 Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics by Matthew B. Robinson and Renee G. Scherlen (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007); 268 pages; $27.95. One war appears to be going well for the United States and its allies these days: the drug war. That was the lead in dozens of U.S. newspapers in response to a June 2007 ...
Will a Drug Warrior Be Hanged? by James Bovard October 1, 2007 Thailand’s billionaire prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was deposed in a coup last year by the country’s military. Somchai Hom-la-or, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, recently declared that “Thaksin and his government committed crimes against humanity.” Thai lawyers and human-rights activists are suggesting that he be indicted and tried by the International ...
End the Other War, Too by Sheldon Richman February 1, 2007 The war in Iraq goes on, but we shouldn’t let it overshadow the war at home — one that frequently takes the lives of people who don’t deserve to die. It’s known as the war on drugs, but it’s really a war on people who themselves are not making war against anyone. Too often individuals ...
End the Other War Too by Sheldon Richman December 1, 2006 The war in Iraq goes on, but we shouldn’t let it overshadow the war at home — one that frequently takes the lives of people who don’t deserve to die. It’s known as the War on Drugs, but it’s really a war on people who themselves are not making war against anyone. Too often individuals ...
Lies and Myths about Opiates by Randal Cousins October 1, 2006 Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy by Theodore Dalrymple (New York: Encounter Books, 2006); 146 pages; $21.95. This is a hugely important book. If it gets sufficient attention, it could be a major landmark in the ongoing campaign to introduce truth into the honesty-challenged issue of recreational drugs. Although written very much from a conservative point of ...
DEA Snake Oil by Jacob G. Hornberger August 18, 2006 Don’t ever suggest that federal bureaucrats are not smart. Take, for instance, the DEA, the federal agency that has the responsibility of waging the war on drugs, a war that has obviously failed to achieve its objective after 30 years of warfare, not to mention all the collateral violence that the drug war has ...
The Drug War’s Immorality and Abject Failure by Anthony Gregory July 1, 2006 If the idea is to create a drug-free America, then we can safely say that after hundreds of billions of dollars spent, millions of arrests, and decades of escalating police and military efforts, the war on drugs is a complete failure. The reason is clear if you think about it. The ...
Free Cory Maye by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2006 Where are all the celebrities and human-rights activists? Where are Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon? Bianca Jagger, call your office! I watch cable news a lot, but I have yet to see one word about death-row inmate Cory Maye. Why not? You haven’t heard of Cory Maye? Few people have, despite the best ...
Conservative Nonsense in the War on Drugs by Jacob G. Hornberger February 17, 2006 Conservatives never cease to fascinate me, given their professed devotion to “freedom, free enterprise, and limited government” and their ardent support of policies that violate that principle. One of the most prominent examples is the drug war. In fact, if you’re ever wondering whether a person is a conservative or a libertarian, a good litmus-test question is, How do ...
The Most Absurdities per Kilo by James Bovard February 1, 2006 The war on drugs has produced more absurdities per kilo than any other federal policy. Drug warriors have had high-profile belly flop after belly flop. Yet most of the media and the vast majority of American politicians continue to treat this war with deference, if not reverence. One of the biggest farces of the George W. Bush-era war on drugs ...