More Republican perfidy, as Henry Hyde inserts vague measures into the House version of the Patriot Act that would create massive mandatory minimums for ‘narco-terrorism.’ TalkLeft has the details.
And the War on Drugs War on Your Neighbor® continues in earnest.
Otto Man
Narco-terrorism? Is that where the suicide bombers fall asleep on their way to the target?
TallDave
That seems very unhelpful.
All the drug laws have accomplished so far is to create billionaire drug dealers and fund a hellish narcoguerrilla substate in S America.
Sigh. Will our policymakers ever figure that creating 100,000% profit margins for drug dealers isn’t in anyone’s interest?
james richardson
I think this is good. All the GOP congressmen keep telling me the teenager down the street selling weed to fund his XBOX addiction is a terrorist and a threat to the core values we mainstream Americans hold to. It’s about time the Government made new laws, and the murkier the better. Why should they take a realistic and compassionate look at drugs when they can persecute misinform with much more ease?
KC
Good for Hyde. It’s time to ramp up the war on drugs anyway. I know just the way to start the war too: federal raids on all the dorm rooms and frat houses that are occupied by members of Congress’s college aged children. That kind of show of power will surely disencourage the everyday steet dealer from continuing his/her occupation.
TallDave
See, this is somewhere I think the Dems culd make real inroads by adopting libertarian ideals. The GOP’s base is too so-con; it’s unlikely they’ll ever see the light on this issue.
Unfortunately, this is also an issue the Dems never seem to want to create any separation on. Which is too bad, because if it were discussed intelligently I think a lot of people would realize how much more harm than good our drug laws are doing.
KCinDC
TallDave, I’d like to think the Dems could make progress by taking that tack, but I have real doubts that there are enough voters who are capable of thinking sanely about the war on drugs. It’s a very emotional issue for some people, which is what’s gotten us into our current mess.
Maybe there is a huge reservoir of libertarians (as opposed to the people who call themselves libertarians but don’t care about anything other than tax cuts) whose votes might be winnable, but I’m not betting on it.
KC
KCinDC, I think you’re right. If the Dem party platform included something to decriminalize pot or lower the sentencing rate for growing or selling it, the Republicans would go crazy with the tough on crime stuff. The Dems would get beat so bad that they wouldn’t be able to see straight for years. There are just too many people who have been indoctrinated with anti-drug paranoia for anything other than the tough on crime platform to win right now nationally, I think.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Ahh and so it begins. I KNEW that it wouldn’t be long until these corrupt fucks in Washington started abusing the Patriot act to target drug offenders. What bullshit.
And so it begins.
Bob
An interesting development in the drug wars out here in California. Friday a drug agent was shot and a marijuana grower was killed, this in Los Gatos. Los Gatos is just a few miles from San Jose. There were acres and acres of marijuana growing, the cops said 40 million bucks worth. Apparently, Mexican gangs are taking over the business of growing grass here in Cali because the independent growers were either getting arrested or it got too hot.
But it’s never too hot when money is there to be made. You see, this is how it works. You make it illegal, it makes it an attractive area to make money. You put people in jail, more people buy it. You make large swards of people criminals and fewer people respect the law.
Considering how the CIA was known for flying in special products out of the Golden Triangle on ol’ Air America, how during the Reagan years the CIA was known as the Cocaine Importation Agency (while on the other side of Iran-contra Monser al-Kassar, a weapons procurer for the U.S., was also the biggest heroin supplier to America in the late eighties), I would not be surprised that somewhere in the bowels of the ruling class that this was a very important part of the program.
ppGaz
“We are winning the war on drugs.” — Richard Nixon
james richardson
we’d have to start by explaining the financial gains of reshaping the war on drugs. it costs X to keep this person in prison for a crime, and Y to send them to rehabilitation. Get the stats that show the difference between a guy doing weed and a guy doing heroin: how they impact society, chances for recovery, expectation of future crimes. If we paint it as less taxpayer money spent to the DEA and less on prisons, and throw in some real-life stories on what the drug war has done to some basically decent people’s lives, we could start this process.
I love Michael Douglas’s line at the end of Traffic (paraphrasing): “This is in our homes, in our families. I don’t know how you declare war on your own family.”