cannabisnews.com: Time To Repeal Drug Prohibition Time To Repeal Drug Prohibition Posted by FoM on November 01, 2001 at 08:33:13 PT By Michael Hess Source: Japan Today Isn't it about time we cut off the international criminal trade in some popular yet illicit drugs and stopping it virtually overnight? This would end any funding of terrorist organizations or other types of criminal syndicates with the swipe of a few pens.We have seen in the U.S. that just overtaxing cigarettes, a drug more addictive and deadly than heroin, creates a black market that has had ties to Hezzbollah in a case that stretched from North Carolina to Michigan in the U.S. Canada learned that overtaxing cigarettes would produce a lawless criminal black market trade in tobacco and rescinded the punitive tax having learned it's lesson. During hearings in the U.S. about the Tobacco industry, the Bliley Committee heard testimony about the very fine line in taxing tobacco just enough to extract revenue from tobacco companies yet not too much that would touch off a black market just like we have already created with other recreational drugs through our massively failed and counter-productive, harmful "drug" prohibition.Heroin and opium have no regulation. As with all prohibitions outlawing addictive or popular substances it has only strengthened criminal elements and handed them a golden goose. Terrorists indeed may be financing their operations in part from the sale of currently illicit drugs (just like they may have in the case of the cigarette smugglers) but the real profit happens during all the "hand offs" between middlemen smugglers. Those charged with keeping the drug flowing to those consumers who want or have to have it.There is some hope however. European countries are seeing the folly of equating cannabis with heroin and cocaine. The U.K. is moving to no longer arrest those who use cannabis. A move long overdue and one that prompts me to ask many news outlets in the U.S., "how many terrorists or other violent thugs got away while the police spend precious resources arresting more than 700,000 Americans each year, with nine out of ten of them for mere possession" of the plant material; a weed after all?With security and freedom more precious than ever why would America squander important resources going after what the entire body of medical literature has found to be a useful and relatively harmless plant substance with no known human acute overdose? The FDA approved Delta-9-THC and the DEA downgraded it's illegal drug status in pill form delivered in sesame oil because of its safety, efficacy and low diversion potential.Switzerland embarked on a plan some years ago to provide heroin maintenance to a segment of its addict population with great success. They bought the heroin legally from Tasmania in Australia. The U.S. had reportedly put pressure on those involved because of its unreasoned and unyielding position that heroin use is criminal as opposed to the reality, that heroin use is a medical problem.Yet the Swiss are very happy with the success of their program. By providing addicts with clean heroin and injecting equipment and facilities for about $10 per day, the addicts overwhelmingly responded positively with a lowering of petty criminal activity, increased employment, better access to health professionals and an end to the addict being on the prohibition enforced treadmill of drug acquisition.Most Swiss addicts however still get heroin from the black market. Their program needs to be vastly expanded to cover all addicts. Switzerland could then be content that their heroin addicts were not unwittingly putting money in the coffers of terrorists or any other violent thugs.Policing suddenly becomes much easier with a legal trade, lawful business addresses, more enthusiastic help in other types of real criminal cases from the public and solid regulation ending the 24/7 black market trade in heroin that sells to children.In the U.K., in addition to welcome cannabis law reform, home secretary David Blunkett is also calling for a return to the time Britain treated their addicts with dignity and making prescribing hard drugs such as heroin a priority.It is simply good common sense on a host of fronts to finally admit the wrong-headedness and outright danger to world security that the $400 billion currently illicit drug prohibition has had on the world.Alcohol prohibition created organized crime in the U.S. World drug prohibition has created a huge successor and enhancement to criminal activity such as the world has never seen.It has to be admitted that some portion of the worlds population will want to consume some currently politically incorrect substances, because they do, they are and they are spending billions of dollars to have them in spite of the most dire Draconian consequences dreamt up by either the U.S. or even Singapore.A pragmatic approach would simply follow the successful Dutch model yet expand on it and regulate trade in all currently illicit drugs, taking the profit right out of the criminals hands.I am instilled by fear when I hear American politicians compare the war on terrorism to the failed war on drugs. They actually claim drug war success in the face of drug interdiction rates between ten and fifteen percent (and likely less according to some sources.) It does not compute. In the U.S. heroin purity is higher than ever and the price is lower. The high profile busts of major cocaine cartels, instead of crippling the cocaine trade splintered the market into many hundreds of distributors. And now Colombia grows the opium poppy.It does not inspire confidence in me or for my family that our leaders are planning to win the war on terrorism like they are losing the failed war on some drugs. I do not wish for this conflict to be termed as the "war on some thugs" with most of the terrorism raging on while we ignore root causes and eight of ten of the terrorists get through.I would much prefer dismantling the organized money machine that is world drug prohibition and divorcing it forever from organized crime. Thereby stopping an unparalleled source of criminal funding and replacing current prohibition with full and sensible regulation.This would be the greatest of boons for law enforcement. Just like alcohol regulation crippled the income of organized crime.It also would for the first time mean for the currently illicit drugs trade: Tariffs, taxes, bills of lading, proper labeling, strength and purity control, legal dispute resolution, neighborhood zoning laws, ID checks of children, easy to locate addresses of distributors like with alcohol and cigarettes, better health intervention, the check of diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS and a much improved relationship between police and minority or low income folks who traditionally distrust the police because of unfair treatment during world drug prohibition.The enormous amount of resources that will be saved from repeal of world drug prohibition should be redirected towards the vastly more urgent problem of security and rooting out violent terrorists and thugs.To do otherwise is to hand to the violent thugs the keys to our futures.The writer is the editor of BBSNews -- http://bbsnews.net -- in North Carolina.Source: Japan Today (Japan)Author: Michael HessPublished: November 1, 2001Copyright: 2001 Japan TodayContact: editor japantoday.comWebsite: http://www.japantoday.com/Related Articles:Easing Drugs Law Wins Support http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11224.shtmlCampaigners Applaud Cannabis Reform http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11177.shtmlWhy Britain is Going Dutch http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11175.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #4 posted by xxdr_zombiexx on November 01, 2001 at 14:40:43 PT The Trojan Horse The "War on certain drugs whose names and facts change with the highly fluid media-based hysteria" IS A TROJAN HORSE.The Federal Government would have you believe that their oppressive actions towards the cannabis community are based on thier infinite wisdom that "mary-ju-wanna" is a dangerous and addictive drug. (the same morons who claim to not be able to tell "mary-ju-wanna" from a hemp plant.)Since we KNOW cannabis is NOT a dangerous and addictive drug, we can safely assert that the government is aware of this , too. They are lying.Why? What do they hope to accomplish by having the "citizenry" believe something most people know is not true?Answer: they are up to something that they do not want people to know about.We can know a good deal about what they want by looking at when they decide to tell lies about stuff - example: The lie about cannabis's dangerousness is trotted out in response to why cannabis is kept illegal.The end result of cannabis prohibition has been the total suppression of any industrial use of cannabis, as well as the medical use, though we know that changed notably inthe 1990's. The only thing that cannabis prohibition doesn't stop, is the recreational use - the very reason they attempt to prohibit it. That is very interesting and I never see articles ddwelling on that.It's the dynamic...the Law of prohibition that the thing that is prohibited, if valued by people, will be more valued once it becomes hard to get. THis article ,mentions the law of prohibition as sxperienced by the disasterous prohibition of alcohol. It notes that even heavy taxation creats a black market for tobacco (must be the heavy-duty addictiveness of tobacco).No... the Federal Government likes the situation just the way it is. Any legal outlet for cannabis -medical/industrial/or recrerational - is a threat to capitalism and a threat to the profits of the organized crime syndicates (ie: Federal Government agencies) who profit from the subsidization of all illegal drugs. The world trade in drugs is asserted to be roughly equivalent to Oil.Every raid on medical establishments, every political candidate harrasssed and detained for cannabis, every door kicked in by SWAT-Teams for cannabis, every member of cannabis cultrure murdered for thier beliefs and their property keeps cannbis selling at a ridiculous price. Legal, many people would grow and trade, and the profits would be gone. The networks would be gone. The soapbox of pious morality would have to find another sub-group to denigrate and exhort amerikans to hate, so that politicians would have something to look tough about.Law Enforcement would have a lot less to do, little to steal anymore - forfiture is best used aginst persons with stuff: hard drug users are often poor. They aren't any fun to rob. But us "potheads" work, achieve, and remain gainfully employed. We can be stolen from. Arresting 750,000 pot smokers a year is better odds than lobbying Congress for funds to build thier little private armies - and a lot more fun. Cannabis raids - especially the one where they killed Tom Crosslin are fun: it replaces the lynching of minorities. It IS the same thing, really, given that any law against cannabis is simply wrong.So, folks, abandon you concepts of fairness and logic. This is the Government and they want what they want, but the Constitution stands in their way.... They are hiding their plans to suspend the Constitution inside their fraudulent "war". If you beleive what they tell you, you are stupid and you are doomed: take a good long look at the next herd of cattle you see in a truck, on their way to market - it's a good metaphor. Think For yourself.FREEDOM ENDURES [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by freedom fighter on November 01, 2001 at 10:14:32 PT Just one answer, Mr. Bush and Grandma aka Joycie...Please try to answer this question posed in the article above: "how many terrorists or other violent thugs got away while the police spend precious resources arresting more than 700,000 Americans each year, with nine out of ten of them for mere possession" of the plant material; a weed after all?"No doubt, they refuse to even listen to the question.On side note, this sunday, there will be a movie called "The Uprising". Based on a true story about small band of jews who rebelled against Nazis in late 43's. Should be an interesting show.ff [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Ethan Russo MD on November 01, 2001 at 09:54:07 PT: A Nice Treatise This is a sane and eminently defensible blueprint for change and a better world. It is merely too bad that it will be ignored by those in power. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Morgan on November 01, 2001 at 09:49:50 PT Mobsters "Alcohol prohibition created organized crime in the U.S.. World drug prohibition has created a huge successor and enhancement to criminal activity such as the world has never seen."Mobsters during alcohol prohibition called that era 'The Big Gift."Maybe now they're calling this era "The Huge Gift."Fugetaboutit. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment