Pubdate: Wed, 23 Sep 2015
Source: Daily Local, The (PA)
Copyright: 2015 Daily Local News - a Journal Register Property
Contact:  http://www.dailylocal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4704
Author: John Stossel
Note: John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on Fox News and author of 
"No, They Can't! Why Government Fails -- But Individuals Succeed."

WHY DO WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT A WAR WE CAN'T WIN?

How many wars can we fight?

Our presidential candidates demand "stronger action" against both 
illegal immigration and illegal drugs. But those goals conflict. The 
War on Drugs makes border enforcement much harder!

America's 44-year-long Drug War hasn't made a dent in American drug 
use or the supply of illegal drugs. If it had some positive effect, 
prices of drugs would have increased, but they haven't. American 
authorities say drugs are more available than ever.

Drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition, creates fat profits that 
invite law-breaking.

Cato's Ted Galen Carpenter says, "Economists estimate that about 90 
percent of the retail price of illicit drugs is due to this black 
market premium." Ninety-percent profits inspire lots of criminal risk-taking.

"Washington's policy empowers the most ruthless traffickers - those 
willing to use violence, intimidation and exploitation of the 
vulnerable to gain market share." Continues Carpenter: "When drugs 
are outlawed, only outlaws will sell drugs."

Since the drug gangs can't settle disputes in court, they settle them 
with guns. In Latin America, they've killed thousands of people.

Our crazy, failed policy turns our neighbors to the south into a deadly menace.

"Coyotes," who help impoverished refugees escape, often require even 
the children to become drug mules - to smuggle small amounts of 
drugs. The children obey, since many fled places where they'd be shot 
at or tortured by gangs. They know the drug gangs and coyotes are 
their only hope for reaching a better life.

Drug profits give smugglers the money to do what povertystricken 
immigrants can't: dig long, high-tech tunnels with lighting and 
ventilation systems. A border fence doesn't secure the border when 
immigrants - and criminals - can tunnel underneath it.

U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy recently bragged to reporters about "the 
fifth super-tunnel we've intercepted."

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent Derek Benner claimed that 
the interception dealt "a stunning blow to the Mexican cartel who built it."

But that's absurd. Benner admitted they'd done the same thing two 
years before "in virtually the same scenario." They found five of how 
many? Hundreds? With a border almost 2,000 miles long, they're 
unlikely to find them all.

Drug prohibition, by making drug cartels rich, enables them to build 
a literal underground railroad to the north. The whole process - dig, 
build, raid, destroy, repeat - is just one more pointless activity 
that happens when government tries to suppress popular activities 
such as drug use.

Other countries are wising up. Argentina, Peru, Mexico and Portugal 
decriminalized small amounts of drugs. Uruguay legalized marijuana 
entirely, as have Colorado and Washington State. This is crazy. We 
keep trying to do things the hard way - spending over $1 trillion on 
the Drug War. If there were a clear benefit, you might say it was 
worth it. Instead, it yields death, dislocation of populations and 
enrichment of murderous cartels, without reducing drug abuse. Why do 
we put up with this?

Government's attempts to prohibit what people want tend to fail. The 
wars on immigration and drugs are two more wars we won't win.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom