The Moral Incoherence of Drug Prohibition | Mises Wire

The Moral Incoherence of Drug Prohibition

Ryan McMaken

The state of Rhode Island is considering the legalization of recreational marijuana, and some opponents of legalization have jumped in to demand the status quo continues. 

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday for example, that Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has come out forcefully against the legalization of marijuana claiming that marijuana turns people into "zombie-like individuals." 

Tobin's implied support for breaking up families and jailing fathers, wives, mothers, and husbands — for the "crime" of using a plant that Tobin dislikes — is illustrative. Tobin's positions provide us with a helpful and high-profile example of the flaws in attempts to make moral arguments claiming that non-violent activities should be regulated and punished by states. 

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State-Sanctioned Theft - The Failed War On Drugs And Cops' Abuse Of Civil Forfeiture | Zero Hedge

State-Sanctioned Theft - The Failed War On Drugs And Cops' Abuse Of Civil Forfeiture

Submitted by Lorelei McFly via CopBlock.org,

One of the biggest lies our government tells us is that it wages the War on Drugs to keep us safe. More than 40 years after it was started, we know that it has been a colossally-expensive epic failure on its stated goals, was intentionally designed to further disenfranchise marginalized groups, and has become a full-fledged assault on our civil liberties.

Even with all the billions of tax dollars it spends each year, and all the flashy photo ops of seized drugs stacked on tables, the Drug Enforcement Agency only stops 1% of the illegal drug supply from being distributed in America, according to the video below. Not only is law enforcement pathetically inept at stemming the flow of drugs, they are active participants in the illicit drug trade at both the federal and local level:

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America’s Caribbean Drug War Isn’t Making Much of a Dent | War Is Boring

America’s Caribbean Drug War Isn’t Making Much of a Dent

This article originally appeared at InSight Crime.

The U.S.-backed anti-drug initiative Operation Martillo has been hammering away at drug traffic in Central American waters for over four years, but it is unclear how much of a dent its reported successes have made in organized crime.

Operation Martillo (Spanish for “Hammer”) has been targeting maritime drug trafficking routes along Central America’s coasts since Jan. 15, 2012.

It has contributed to the seizure of 693 metric tons of cocaine, $25 million in cash, 581 vessels and aircraft, and has facilitated the arrest of 1,863 people, according to a press release from U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) — the U.S. military’s Combatant Command responsible for Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

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Here’s The New Research That Finally Tells The Truth About The War On Drugs | The Daily Sheeple

Here’s The New Research That Finally Tells The Truth About The War On Drugs

By Claire Bernish

A crucial new study says the ubiquitous and dubious war on drugs has, in actuality, been detrimental to public health — and should be laid to rest in favor of decriminalization.

Laws and policies criminalizing drugs have had “no measurable impact on supply or use,” according to the study as noted by the Independent, and serve no purpose either scientifically or in terms of public health.

Commissioned by Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet, a British medical journal, the study found mass decriminalization programs undertaken by Portugal and the Czech Republic have had enormously constructive results, including “public health benefits, cost savings, lower incarceration [rates], and no significant increase in problematic drug use.”

Portugal’s model recently became an official subject for consideration by the State of Hawai`i in its search for solutions to drug addiction and mounting costs of the criminalization of minor drug offenses. The Lancetstudy authors strongly encourage action by influential countries, including the U.S. and U.K., to consider national “regulated markets” for cannabis — such as the policies adopted by Uruguay and several U.S. states.

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Nixon Advisor Admitted War on Drugs Invented to Crush Anti-War and Black Movements | The Daily Sheeple

Nixon Advisor Admitted War on Drugs Invented to Crush Anti-War and Black Movements

In 1994, a former Nixon policy adviser admitted the War on Drugs was waged not to keep Americans safe, but to crush dissent. According to John Ehrlichman, who served time in prison for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, the Drug War was intended to disempower anti-war and black rights movements in the 1970s.

Author Dan Baum wrote in the April edition of Harper’s Magazine that in 1994, he spoke with now-deceased Ehrlichman, who frankly explained why President Nixon pushed prohibition:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

This approach was, in fact, not new in American government. Henry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics — a precursor to the DEA — saw drugs and marijuana as a race-based threat. He often perpetuated bigoted notions not about about African-Americans and heroin, but weed:

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Legalizing Weed Has Done What 1 Trillion Dollars And A 40 Year War Couldn't | Zero Hedge

Legalizing Weed Has Done What 1 Trillion Dollars And A 40 Year War Couldn't

Submitted by Nick Bernabe via TheAntiMedia.org,

The Mexican drug cartels are finally meeting their match as a wave of cannabis legalization efforts drastically reshapes the drug trafficking landscape in the United States. It turns out that as states legalize cannabis use and cultivation, the volume of weed brought across the border by Mexican drug cartels dramatically decreases — and is putting a dent in their cash flow.

A newly-released statistical report from the U.S. Border Patrol shows a sharp drop-off in cannabis captured at the border between the United States and Mexico. The reduction in weed trafficking coincides with dozens of states embracing cannabis use for both medical and recreational purposes.

In fact, as the Washington Post reports, cannabis confiscations at the southern border have stumbled to the lowest point in over a decade — to only 1.5 million pounds. That’s down from a peak of four million pounds in 2009.

Speaking to Anti-Media, Amir Zendehnam, host of the popular cannabis show, “In the Clear with Amir” on Z420.tv, told us what he thinks of these new statistics:

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