The decades-long global war on drugs has failed and it's time to shift the focus from mass incarceration to public health and human rights, according to a new report endorsed by five Nobel Prize-winning economists. The report, titled "Ending the Drug Wars" and put together by the London School of Economics' IDEAS center, looks at the high costs and unintended consequences of drug prohibitions on public health and safety, national security and law enforcement. "The pursuit of a militarized and enforcement-led global ‘war on drugs' strategy has produced enormous negative outcomes and collateral damage," says the 82-page report. "These include mass incarceration in the US, highly repressive policies in Asia, vast corruption and political destabilization in Afghanistan and West Africa, immense violence in Latin America, an HIV epidemic in Russia, an acute global shortage of pain medication and the propagation of systematic human rights abuses around the world." The report urges the world's governments to reframe their drug policies around treatment and harm reduction rather than prosecution and prison. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/06/end-drug-war_n_5275078.html
And?? Citizens can still be highly abused in many ways under proposed "health" initiatives. Another version of prohibition. What do you THINK about this, rather than just copying and pasting Huff Post fodder?
I think it's a step In the right direction. Obviously users will still be discriminated against, but not to the degree they are now. Coloured people are still discriminated against, but not as much as before the civil rights movement.
Prison data would tend to disagree with your assessment of race relations. How do you KNOW that users won't be discriminated against as badly as they are now? You really don't. When there is fully the potential for it to go either way, you have to look to your most recent experiences and data on hand. That would show increases in the drug war, year after year. If it looked like they were easing the drug war, it might give cause for more hope in the face of such ideas. Prohibition causes all the woes we have before us, and this version of "health agendas" doesn't do a thing to end prohibition. It just moves the goal posts again, and hopefully SOUNDS better than saying they'll lock everyone up. But that doesn't go away under such proposed health agendas. In fact, it could get much worse. And recent trends suggest it would.
You sound like you know alot on the subject I've heard about medical marijuana users being denied or being put on the bottom of the list for organ transplants and such, but please educate me on the other ways the health agendas are going to affect cannabis or drug users.
It's a health agenda by NAME only. It's a "two strikes and you're out" system, essentially. First offense, the drug courts try to deem if you have a "drug problem." Given the absolute funnel the law enforcement community has made pot into for treatment centers, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that most will be deemed to have a "problem" and made to go to treatment. Treatment is the "health agenda." Now, with all prohibitionist laws, strike two is where the shit really hits the fan. You get strike two and they can pretty well do whatever they please to you at that point. You'll be spending a lot of time pissing in cups, going to your "treatment professional" for checkups, etc. Slip up and they'll throw the book at you. Add to this: Obamacare. Have pot in your system and no big pharma prescription for it? You'll be paying dearly for health insurance. It will be a "health penalty." So many ways they can just keep throwing the book at you, fining you, wasting your time, etc. Try holding down a JOB throughout all this. Good luck. Different form of prison without walls.
That seems like something they would do, but what about where its legal? I live in Canada and the liberal leader said he would legalize for recreational use if he was elected and there are more and more stated moving towards legalizing too?
You're getting the same lines of B.S. that we did here in the states. Don't believe a word of it. Look in your own backyard at the big pharma distribution system they're setting up. "Legalization" means legal for some to profit. It's only going to be "legal" if you have a prescription for it in big pharma form. Under universal health care, they'll test everyone for pot and if its in your system, and you haven't a prescription, you will be fined (aka, higher health premiums.) Schedule II won't change the drug war. RAW cannabis would be illegal, and the drug war most assuredly continues.
I hope the fuck not I've been waiting a LOOONG time for legalization. I'm working on getting my prescription anyways, I fucking really hope were not getting the run around
I have a mirror image of your system going on just across the border in our state. ONE provider to be chosen to grow all the weed to only be VAPORIZED as part of CLINICAL TRIALS. I suspect the entity awarded the ONE license will be one in the same as the one in Canada. Any time I have doubts if I've been following all this correctly, they come out with new horrid laws that just confirm my suspicions.