What is the cost of the drug fighting equipment, the guns, the toys used by the DEA? Who loses if there is no need for it?

I think an interesting and illuminating way to look at THE WAR ON DRUGS is to compare it to other so-called galvanized efforts. I've already mentioned that many of the peons of the Border Patrol pilfer small pot seizures with _de facto_ nodding permission from much higher in the GS-grade rankings of Fed employees. The border dudes are what: maybe GS-6 employees, _maybe_ Level 3 or 4, getting their direction from GS-12s as a rule. Then, all of a sudden, from an even higher GS-ranked official comes a subtle order from (I think it's Region 4) Washington to the effect that small seizures should be destroyed at the discretion of the enforcing officcer. And my daughter's gobbling Ho-Hos and she's popular with her neighbors. But then...

Think about prostitution instead of drug trafficking, and think of local law-enforcement efforts to pop the ho's as opposed to Fed crackdowns on Xaviera Hollander or whichever chick boffed that ugly-ass governor of New York, Speliot Itzer. I honestly don't believe that many of these five-star busts are politcally motivated. Instead, they're headline motivated, like popping Pee Wee Herman for rather sadly flogging the dolphin in a two-bit Florida porn palace. JUSTICE=HEADLINES.

Then, compare it to the State, Local or Municipal levels, where the grunt cops try really reaally hard to pop 'em a whoor at work. Because it's just like on teevee. "Honey, I'm tired. Had to book three streetwalkers tonight and one of 'em, God forgive me, she weren't but 15."

The Feds don't give an incinerated rat's ass about street-sold tail. The locals want to live on the teevee.

Our allegedly moral laws smell like squashed possums on hot asphalt.

There is _no_ war on drugs, not even a flickering spat.

I'm sure that the total cost of all the DEA's arsenal is but a piss in the ocean as to the money that eventually feeds into the economy via the drug trade. I believe that there'll always be a need for street drugs even if there is legalisation. The dealers will try and undercut Government tariffs which should be relatively easy, imagine the tax on an ounce of weed? The DEA fuelled with the fact now that the dealers are stealing directly from the Government will be able to come down really hard with their toys, they'll still be around, so everyone wins. We are talking business here right? There are no morals.

Well back in the days of Reefer Madness, all the major paper companies where waging war on very well know fiber: Cannabis, as it one of the most efficient plants and fastest to grow and with the most yield in fiber pr. square feet than any other plant, and it is a weed so it can grow everywhere. My point to this being is that they funded movies trough churches, movies like "Reefer Madness" and etc, in which the tried to demonize Cannabis, to distort the views of the general public, but did the succeed?

Federal Tax stamps for weed have long since been available here. They're idiotically expensive, and thus bought only by philatelists and speculators. The Netherlands example sets a worthwhile bar (but only where it comes to narcos; weed is rampantly available fucking the tarfiffs and the laws up down and sideways-- the 'coffee houses' are fronts for superbo smoke sold under the Gov's grinning see nothing/no nothing/hear nothing monkey facade. awnt to get privately rich? Open a state-sponsored 'coffe house' in Utrecht.

Maybe the actual question is this simple: do we want drugs controlled? Most people would reluctantly say 'Yes, I do.' Even if it means overturning moralistic reefer madness morality laws. And the only trustworthy alternative, most Americans believe, would be government-sponsored distribution. This plan has helped immensely in The Nordic Model, and has been seriously considered on the outer edges of ordinary American political dialogue -- and bear in mind that the 'outer edges' of politico theory here is never far from the center.

My son's best friend died with the cardoor still open, his UNC Lacrosse ball cao still on the rook, spike still in his arm -- perhaps the first victim of the fenatyl-based dug/turf war in Philadelphia. Soon followed by similar brief epidemics in NYC, Chicago and Boston. Probably others after I lost my taste for following the death trail.

The only war with drugs is the constant war between the thugs who dole the shit out.

Human beings are hard-wired to dig under rocks or climb them or invent explosive materials to clear the path blocking the way to reward. And a preponderance of evidence suggests that human beings have an innate desire to alter the consciousness. State Stores with ID confirmed withdrawals of marijuana? Sure, give it a spin. With heroin, yeah, that shit as well. With cocaine? Well, I have some personal issues there because it's such a piss poor example of a drug: I figure if that shit fucks you up _anything_ will fuck you up.

Want hallucinogens (admit it, of course you do)? Join the large and growing Naive American Church, and gobble mescaline until you puke into surrounding states. Prefer psyciocybin? Move to the Southeat - going to be a bumper crop this year.

There isn't any war on drugs.

Fucking _period_.
G

And a note on the Recovery Industry, that mostly exists in America where every downfall of man gets monetized, just like the prison industry, in europe it is not an industry for profit, it is there to help people in need. But the recovery industry here is just nuts, you have to take more drugs to quit the drugs you where addicted to in the first place, change comes from within, not at a place you go to, and where you probably didn't want to go in the first place and it is filled w. people that are more nuts than you and it all seems like a bad re-run of Celebrity Rehab, now there's a discussion for ya, the monetization of portraying the recovery of mainstream personas on National TV.

Recovery Inc is based on 12 Step programs although no modality does better than a 5% success rate. This is starting to change as results based funding is starting to happen. The most successful treatment modality is simply personal, private behavioural change which no one hears about but is well documented. Drug policy here is firmly rooted in 19th century Protestant morality and is it any wonder that AA emerged from the Oxford Group. Great organizational model, however. As far as the "drug war" nothing has really changed since Thomas and Keith wrote "The Octopus". On the bright side lots of small businesses got their seed money from the black market... we sure could use a cash infusion now.

I would be curious to see the effects of destroying the black market through total legalization of everything (except rocket launchers, that would be a bit strange). I bet crime would reduce by 75% and Hollywood would run out of ideas for action movies.

The CIA sold stingers to the mujahedin and UNITA and then tried to buy them all back later. They say the ones still out there have dead batteries so can't be fired. Raytheon made.

I guess my point is that there is policy and there is the law. All that Afghan heroin I smoked in Europe helped get the Russians out of Kabul and who knows maybe that diamond on the wife's finger kept Castro out of Africa. Certainly the Golden Triangle jump started Taiwan's economy through Kai-Shek's cronies. As a free market guy Hivoltage, you might want to track down Nick Tosche's little book on Michele Sindona called "Power on Earth" that breaks down the gray market... currency exchange etc. They say the Fortune 500 benefits greatly from all those dollars floating around that wind up importing SUV's , flat screen TV's. and the like down south. Let's keep the party going!