cannabisnews.com: The Delusional Drug War The Delusional Drug War Posted by FoM on May 04, 2001 at 07:46:57 PT By William Raspberry Source: Washington Post If America's war on drugs reminds Ethan Nadelmann of the war in Vietnam, maybe it's because the latter has been much in the news, thanks to Bob Kerrey's agonizing reappraisal of his behavior during that ill-fated conflict.Or maybe it's because everything reminds Nadelmann of the war on drugs. Nadelmann heads the Lindesmith Center, a New York-based drug policy foundation funded by billionaire George Soros. A major part of Nadelmann's mission is to debunk what he takes to be the myths behind our current drug policy. Still, the Vietnam analogy turns out to be an interesting point to start thinking about the drug wars."Just as the who-lost-China question made it difficult to think rationally about our China policy for so long, the fear of having to face the who-lost-Vietnam question did the same thing about our Southeast Asia policy," Nadelmann said during a recent phone conversation. "And in just the same way, the fear that someone will have to answer the who-lost-the-drug-war question keeps people from giving serious consideration to alternative approaches to dealing with drugs."Just listen to the language. We must go on doing what we're doing because the alternative is 'abandonment,' a 'surrender' that will 'open the floodgates.' "The enduring paradigm, he says, is that the only two things worth talking about are reducing supply and reducing demand. That's been the paradigm since the 1940s, he says, even though drug policy officials are inclined to mention demand-reduction as a sort of conceptual breakthrough."The key point to make," says Nadelmann, "is, just as with Vietnam, there is someplace else this debate can go -- and that is the basic notion of harm reduction."I know I get accused of favoring legalization, which is not true. What I advocate is that we recognize that this has never been a drug-free society and never will be, so let's stop pretending. Let's even stop trying to get closer to a drug-free society and instead just accept that drugs are here to stay. Then we can focus on reducing the harm both of drug use and of drug prohibition. An ideal strategy would reduce the negative consequences of both."That formulation recognizes what Americans find it so difficult to see: that much of the harm we attribute to drugs -- including gang warfare, police corruption and murder -- results not from the drugs themselves but from our efforts to prohibit drugs."It took Bob McNamara 30 years to say Vietnam was a mistake," Nadelmann said. "How long will it take us to recognize that the drug war is also a mistake -- and, like Vietnam, a mistake that ultimately involves and subverts other governments? I know a lot of organizations are opposed to our intervention in places like Colombia and think we should just get out. But I am not totally convinced that just withdrawing wouldn't result in the 'Cambodiazation' of Colombia, leaving it worse off, not better."If Nadelmann sees so clearly the harm wrought by our national effort to eliminate drug use, why don't the people in charge see it, too?"That's one of the problems of the way we've been doing drug policy," he told me. "You get a bunch of smart, thoughtful people who spend a few years doing drug policy and come to comprehend the utter futility of the approach and the political impossibility of an alternative strategy. Then they leave the arena, to be replaced by a new set of people who have to start all over again. It's like planned obsolescence of understanding."In fact, he believes, the American people are ahead of their government. People may not like legalization because they can't see what comes after that, he said, but they do see that our present policy is a failure. Attempts to interdict foreign supplies, like the efforts to jail Americans into abstinence, are doing a good deal of harm. Nadelmann thinks public support for present drug policy is eroding as surely as did support for the Vietnam War a generation ago.So does he expect there'll come a time when it will be as hard to find an American who remembers supporting the drug war as it is to find one today who remembers supporting Vietnam?"There are only two such people left now," he says, "and President Bush found both of them. One is attorney general, and the other will be drug czar."Source: Washington Post (DC) Author: William RaspberryPublished: Friday, May 4, 2001; Page A25 Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company Contact: letterstoed washpost.comWebsite: http://www.washingtonpost.comRelated Articles & Web Site:TLC - DPFhttp://www.lindesmith.org/An Unwinnable War on Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9505.shtmlA Draco of Drugs http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9548.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #11 posted by lookinside on May 04, 2001 at 18:43:54 PT: bad times acomin..OR...sanity? hmmm...do i feel the winds changing? is it possible themainstream press might catch on?the politicians DO read newspapers, and ARE swayed by whatthey read...i hope this continues...i'd love to see thingsactually become more rational...the trend has been theopposite for too long... [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by dddd on May 04, 2001 at 12:04:08 PT Yes FoM That's what we want...That's all we ask...That's what we need.....someone who is nice...like most of the people who post here..Nice....Nice is goodNice is healthyNice is the bestI like Nice.....how could something so simple,be so rare?May JAH shine Niceness on one and all.........dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by FoM on May 04, 2001 at 11:46:32 PT A Nice Drug Czar Wouldn't that be great dddd. I nice drug czar. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by dddd on May 04, 2001 at 11:44:33 PT nice and sneaky I've read other stuff by the Raz that I thought was kinda cool.I think this particular article was nicely done.....It seems to me,likeMr. Raspberry did a nice job of coming in under the radar of the Posts'overlords....Like Sudaca pointed out,the article begins with a sortahostile flavor,but ends up leaving a sympathetic overtone.Raspberry aint no spring chicken,and I think he did a graceful job ofdelicately exposing the insanity,yet not stepping on the toes of theinsane..........William Raspberry would make a nice drug czar......,,,,,......ddddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Dan B on May 04, 2001 at 11:43:39 PT: Washington Post: A Least 2 Are For Us Remember that Judy Mann has also written some impressive articles for the Washington Post about the war on some drugs. She and Raspberry make a great team, I think. As they continue to receive support from people like us who agree with them, perhaps others will begin to come around to the fact that America really doesn't believe in the drug war--and that they, as reporters, can become part of the solution, rather than the problem.Richard Cowan (of NORML, Marijuana News, and POT-TV fame) has said numerous times that (I paraphrase) there are two words that explain the existence of the war on drugs today: bad jornalism. I'm thankful for journalists who stand above the propaganda-mongers and write the truth: William Raspberry, Judy Mann, everyone on Kaptinemo's list, and more.Dan B [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by kaptinemo on May 04, 2001 at 11:07:17 PT: They smell the blood in the water for sure, now The problem is, the water's had plenty of blood in it before the Bowers Incident. But the media has largely been too craven to have a taste. A veritable smorgasboard has awaited The Press; tales of graft, corruption, skullduggery in literally as well as figuratively high places, strange bedfellows of Mafiosi, US and foreign intelligence agents, branches of government,et al, and events so seemingly fantastic they would appear gleaned from spy novels, but all true.I've repeated their names so often they've become a mantra, and many of you are probably understandably sick of seeing them.The Innocents. The victims of government's efforts to protect you from the 'scourge of illicit drugs'...by killing you. Literally sacrificed upon the altar of an ideal, by idealogues, who loudly profess their touching concern for your welfare...as they direct Peruvian fighter planes to gun you down. Allow policeman to fire shotguns at point-blank range into the backs of defenseless, immobilized children. Smirkingly deny the desperately ill the medicine they need under color of law...and then assininely bray that they are not responsible for the resulting death because they are carrying out the letter of the law.And then take great umbrage with you when you point out that that was exactly the same defense made by certain Teutonic 'gentlemen' in 1946 Children, can you say "Nuremburg"? Sure you can!But the media has been strangely silent. Until now. Now, it's suddenly become 'fashionable' for the media to be critical of those whom they once fawned over and short stroked out of fear of their being slapped with the career-destroying epithets of 'pro-drug' or 'liberal' or (gasp! 'radical'.There's a few real journalists who have my respect, even if we differ on things: Joel Miller, Joseph Farah, Thom Marshall, Dan Forbes, Dan Gardner of Canada...to name a very few. But the rest?I'm glad people recycle newspapers. It gives me great comfort that I might be wiping my bum with the supposed best efforts of these people who were so wilfully blind and sold their credibility for a mess of DrugWarrior pottage. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by Imprint on May 04, 2001 at 11:01:15 PT: Conclusions I think there are some important points in this article.1. Use of drugs in one form or another has always been part of our society. It won’t go away, no matter how may people are imprisoned. 2. A focus of “Harm Reduction” is a much better direction to take than killing and imprisoning non-violent people. 3. It was hard for our politicians to admit the Vietnam War was a loss for America and they are having a hard time admitting the War on Drugs is also a loss. 4. Just as the people that frequent this web site, there are many Americans that understand the War on Drugs is lost but government is slow to react. We are faced with a continued recycling of policy makers that want to retrace the steps of their predecessors, thus keeping us stuck in a “research before changing” mode and the polices never change. I’m coming to the conclusion that the War on Drugs will never end util a number of non-drug using folks come to the realization that the war is lost. For me (a pot smoker) the fact that I should be able to do as I please as long as I don’t harm anyone else won’t cut it for them. For these people the reasoning will be purely economic and government corruption. Case in point, for the first time it is found that a majority of Americans think the death penalty is a bad idea. There reason, overwhelming government corruption and it has become more costly to execute someone than to imprison him or her for life. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Kevin Hebert on May 04, 2001 at 10:06:56 PT: Amazing Now, is this Mr. Raspberry's regular column or is this special to the Post? Either way, I am glad that this article will be printed in the Post. The Post is a pretty good paper, but its views on the drug war are pretty backwards. Either way, I have to say I think William Raspberry is a fantastic columnist. I've been reading what he has to say for years now, on a variety of subjects, and I've found that he and I are of like mind on a multitude of subjects. Now what we need to do is keep the pressure on, till the whole thing boils over once and for all. Things are coming to a head, and we need to be on alert to make sure we aren't bamboozled again. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by observer on May 04, 2001 at 09:31:12 PT Drugs Harm From ''Efforts to Prohibit Drugs'' That formulation recognizes what Americans find it so difficult to see: that much of the harm we attribute to drugs -- including gang warfare, police corruption and murder -- results not from the drugs themselves but from our efforts to prohibit drugs.A small ray of sunshine pierces the Post's cloudy thinking on this issue. (I noticed that William Raspberry has a widely reprinted article on the new drug czar that appeared last week, also.)I expect a full-court press from the Ministry of Truth (ONDCP et al.) to attempt to counter this tiny outbreak of sanity. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by sudaca on May 04, 2001 at 08:43:04 PT Whatsup with the Post? ho ho howhy was this article written? I don't understand. It sounds hostile at the beginning but this is a better summation that Mr. Nadelmanns typical articles which tend to be too apologetic IMHO [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: