Pubdate: Fri, 30 Dec 2005
Source: Santa Maria Times (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Pulitzer Central Coast Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.santamariatimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/396
Author: James Murr
Note: James Murr is a local resident. Looking Forward runs every 
Friday, providing a progressive viewpoint on local issues.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)

Looking Forward

AMERICA'S FAILED WAR ON DRUGS

The Santa Maria Times continually reports on law enforcement making
arrests for possession of controlled substances.

While the U.S. major media sensationalizes the war on drugs,
prosecutors and judges sentence addicts to long prison terms where
there is little or no rehabilitation. Lawmakers everywhere don't want
to appear soft on crime, so draconian laws are written and rewritten.

The war on drugs is another failed war in our time. This war was
declared in 1971 by President Nixon and is the most expensive social
experiment in history. It's historical cost would include all
federal, state and local law enforcement, the prosecutors, defending
attorneys and prisons.

The failed war on drugs is out of control. There exists a complete
disconnect between the realities of drug traffickers, and those who
enforce the drug laws. We associate drug running with gangs and
cartels. However, gangs have major competition from the U.S.
government. Basically, the CIA traffics drugs while the DEA and local
law enforcement arrest all non-government smugglers.

In 1950, the CIA began trafficking opium from the Golden Triangle of
Southeast Asia to the Corsican Mafia. The exchange for food and
weapons was flown to indigenous locals and anti-Communist Chinese
attacking targets in Southern China. For decades the CIA's "Air
America" used drug trafficking to carry out clandestine Southeast
Asian wars, and Corsican heroin was smuggled into Europe and the U.S.
A very good book on the topic is Alfred McCoy's "Politics of Heroin."

The CIA was cut off from the Golden Triangle when Saigon fell in
1975. The CIA turned to flying opium from Pakistan to Hong Kong. This
became the principal pipeline to purchase weapons for the warlords
and Al-Qaeda, who were fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
from December 1979 to February 1989.

President Reagan launched an illegal clandestine war in Central
America, which violated the Boland Amendment in force from 1984 to
1986. A Marine named Oliver North was one architect of the illegal
war funded by drug trafficking. He recruited what became known as
"Contras" from Nicaragua.

The CIA used Southern Air Transport for trafficking cocaine into the
U.S. They supported the Contras who operated their own CIA protected
drug pipelines directly into the U.S.

"The Iran-Contra Final Report" identified the cocaine trafficking by
the CIA and the Contras under presidents Reagan and Bush. Many
indictments and convictions occurred. On Dec. 24, 1992, President
Bush pardoned all administrative staff, CIA agents and military
officers who were indicted or convicted in the illegal Contra war and
drug trafficking.

In the early 1980s, the CIA drug money-laundering bank, Nugan-Hand,
was exposed in Australia. The bank was owned and controlled by the
CIA. A former U.S. general was the branch manager in Hong Kong, and
William Colby, former chief of the CIA, was the bank's general counsel.

The CIA switched to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International for
money laundering from their drug trafficking. The CIA, under Richard
Helms, was exposed in 1988 when the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International was investigated by prosecutors as a major criminal
enterprise. The CIA was caught using the bank. Crimes committed by
our government are hidden as classified secrets, and the war on drugs
is reduced to a case study in hypocrisy.

This U.S. Gulag is a dumping ground for the lower classes. Prison is
social control that enforces class warfare upon the lower classes.
Rarely do the elite rich like Rush Limbaugh go to jail for using and
trafficking narcotics, whereas locals in Santa Maria are regularly
sentenced to hard time.

We must end the cynicism, hypocrisy and the war on drugs by
decriminalizing substances. Shutting off supply has failed, so it is
time to switch to cutting off demand. We must separate money from
international gangs by having pharmaceutical companies make the
drugs. Drugs must always be dispensed by pharmacists. With money out
of the equation, the underground drug trafficking would not be
financially sustainable.

Education and treatment have proven extremely effective in reducing
the use of the drug tobacco, and should be used for all harmful drug
abuse. Medical and mental-health communities can work with the
physical and mental problems of the individual. The medical community
will effectively treat substance abusers, and the government has no
right to review these doctor-patient relationships.

The current experiment on the supply side has been a colossal failure.

Local Santa Maria substance abusers need treatment and compassion,
not incarceration.

- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom