ALAMO - A movement looking to end Mexico's drug war is set to arrive here in an effort to raise awareness to that country's rising death toll. On Thursday, Javier Sicilia's Caravan for Peace is scheduled to make a pit stop in Alamo for a day of events and personal testimonies related to Mexico's ongoing cartel violence, which has produced more than 60,000 deaths and 10,000 disappearances. Group organizers claim that drug prohibition has failed. The war on drugs has produced painful consequences in both Mexico and the United States, leaving a trail of death, pain and corruption in its path, the group's news release states. [continues 288 words]
Prompted by victims of violence in Mexico, the City Council on Tuesday approved - not without debate - a resolution calling for the endorsement of a voluntary code of conduct for firearm sales. The resolution, which also called for a discussion on the country's drug policies and prioritizing human rights in U.S.-Mexico collaborations, was a gesture of solidarity with the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity. The group of about 110 people is traveling through the U.S. to create awareness about the U.S.'s link to drug violence in Mexico among policy makers and the general public. [continues 741 words]
Re: "Building police trust, protection - Brown wants more outreach, guidance for officers after shootings," Thursday news story. Your neighborhood has drug dealers operating openly out of one of its houses. A drug dealer is shot and killed by the police while fleeing from arrest and fighting with the arresting officer. Your neighborhood blames the police for this death and is on the verge of rioting because of false information that is widespread. In reaction to this incident, the police chief enacts additional restrictions on his police offers in dealing with those who flee from the police and requires additional training for his officers relative to enforcing the law. [continues 59 words]
Re: "Why should police change?" by Don Skaggs, Friday Letters. Skaggs' moral premise that the criminalization of personal drug use is a legitimate use of police powers is in fact totally contrary to the well-settled philosophical mandate of social contract theory. A monopoly of force should never be used to enforce legislated morality that infringes on individual liberty of conscience where no compelling state interest could possibly sustain a morally defensible counterargument. The War on Drugs has been used to virtually void the Constitutional protections of the Fourth Amendment. The fact that thousands of police officers themselves have formed an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition should tell Skaggs that instead of condoning abusive drug laws, he should be deeply concerned as an American patriot about out-of-control government tyranny that lacks the ability to self-correct when its public policies are clearly destructive. Drug addiction should have been a public health issue from day one and never a criminal justice issue. Not a single person should have had to ever die for a misguided war on drugs, cop or dealer. John Williamson, Plano [end]
Politicians who use the, "they don't want to be considered soft on crime" argument for continuing DWII are ignorant of science and history or have minds like concrete: totally mixed up and permanently set. Most of the unconscionable warmongers of the world are the ones who are profiting, probably under the table, on the suffering of others with this demented, irrational policy. The carnage and crime associated with illicit drugs are triggered by our idiotic, punitive policy. Notice alcohol distributors no longer kill off the competition! The people believe in self-government and self-medication. [continues 190 words]
Can we please, finally, end the debate over legalization of drugs? Don't get me wrong. I'm dead against the drug war in its current form. By some calculations, it's cost the U.S. taxpayer $1 trillion since 1971 to fight a war that has resulted in more than 40 million arrests and only slight dips in the consumption of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. If someone produces the drugs, Americans and Europeans will use them. If someone uses them, someone - - more than 50,000 people in Mexico since December 2006, in this case - - will die in the process. [continues 704 words]
Over the past few decades, America has locked up more and more people. Our prison population has tripled. Now we jail a higher percentage of people than even the most repressive countries: China locks up 121 out of every 100,000 people; Russia 511. In America? 730. "Never in the civilized world have so many been locked up for so little," The Economist says. Yet we keep adding more laws and longer jail terms. Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin's secret police in the old Soviet Union, supposedly said, "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime." Stalin executed anyone he considered a threat, and it didn't take much to be considered a threat. Beria could always find some law the targeted person had broken. That's easy to do when there are tons of vague laws on the books. Stalin "legally" executed nearly a million people that way. [continues 568 words]
Re: July 8 article, "Dems' leader looks to turnout." Leaders should really educate themselves. Possession of small amounts of marijuana is already a misdemeanor, and people in Texas, like Americans elsewhere, are tired of the whole "drug war." Cannabis is not a drug; nor a mistake. People who use it are not wayward youths. The drug war, a bipartisan tragedy, costs millions their freedoms, and because of increasing cartel violence, costs innocent lives. Cannabis, an infinitely renewable, nontoxic, biodegradable source of nutritious food, fuel, fiber for paper, fabric and industry, and valuable medicine, was given to humanity by God. Capitalist greed, nothing more, keeps it illegal. I won't vote anymore for any candidate of any party for any office who won't work to legalize it. Mariann Garner-Wizard Austin [end]
Dear Editor, It's time the Texan and American people woke up to what's happening in our state and country. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court has sold out our country to the highest bidder. The Texas Legislature, like others around the country, is trying to suppress a woman's right to abortion by enforcing invasive procedures to discourage her from exercising a constitutional right. These people, including the Republican governors, are also trying to suppress the voting rights of the minorities, including the poor. If the state governments are saying our citizens can't vote without photo IDs, then the states, not the poor, should be forced to pay for them. This should be done before the election, or the laws should be repealed until the states have provided every citizen who needs it with a free voter's ID. If not, our government should stop calling itself a democracy and end this farce. Past dictators would be happy with the way we are trying to end what's left of the freedoms we have. [continues 149 words]
Feds' Sweep Includes N.M. Track, Balch Springs Property Federal agents raided a property in Balch Springs on Tuesday as part of a multistate investigation into money laundering operations carried out by Mexico's notorious Zeta drug cartel, including funneling millions of dollars into breeding and racing horses, according to a U.S. law enforcement official and a federal indictment unsealed in Austin. The investigation underscores the reach of the Zetas in North Texas, including some connections previously reported in The Dallas Morning News. The Zeta gang, once the paramilitary wing of the Gulf cartel, is now among one of the most violent groups in Mexico, with a growing presence in Central America and several U.S. communities, particularly in Texas. [continues 876 words]
FORT WORTH -- Calling America's war on drugs a campaign that has spread violence worldwide, created distrust in law enforcement and wasted billions of tax dollars, a former federal investigator called for the legalization of drugs. Sean Dunagan said Saturday that because drugs are illegal, people involved in dealing drugs turn to violence to settle disputes. "There are no arbiters, there are no courts, there are no contracts, so necessarily all disputes get settled by violence," said Dunagan, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration. [continues 281 words]
The suicide rate among veterans is an American tragedy. It's unconscionable not to use every treatment that may help these young people cope with their physical and mental pain. Drs. D. Mark Anderson, Daniel Rees and Joseph Sabia conducted a study titled "Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicide." They found that "... the legalization of medical marijuana is associated with a 5 percent decrease in the total suicide rate, an 11 percent decrease ... [among] 20- to 29-year-old males and a 9 percent decrease ... [among] 30- to 39-year-old males." [continues 137 words]
Beto O'Rourke, the newly minted Democratic congressional nominee in El Paso, has a bit of a balancing act to pull off between now and November. He still must beat Republican Barbara Carrasco in the general election, but that result in Democratic-dominant El Paso is a foregone conclusion. No Republican congressional candidate has exceeded 37 percent of the vote in the past 14 years, and the GOP's high-water mark in a presidential election year in that time is 31 percent. [continues 521 words]
For years, I have been happy with the El Paso Times. However, lately, the newspaper has demonstrated a disregard for the seriousness of marijuana and its use in today's society. In one article, the author wrote that Mr. O'Rourke endorses the legalization of only marijuana. I am at odds with the nonchalant attitude of the Times toward the legalization of this drug. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), marijuana is an addictive drug that adversely impacts our children. Research has shown that marijuana users in middle school are more likely to drop out of school than non-users and are more likely to experiment with other illegal drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and crack. [continues 89 words]
War On Drugs Or On Minority Communities? Alan Bean couldn't miss the headline splashed across the top of his hometown paper one summer morning in 1999. It spoke of big news for the 5,000-person burg in West Texas: a big drug bust that landed a sizable portion of the town's black community behind bars. "Tulia streets cleared of garbage," the banner headline read. Like many aspects of the American war on drugs, the wording smacked of insidious racism. [continues 1291 words]
Consider our war on drugs from a historical perspective: We no longer put distributors of wine, beer and hard liquor in jail. Alcoholism is treated as a health issue, not a criminal offense. We've come a long way from Prohibition, the days in which alcohol consumption was demonized as strongly as marijuana is today. Did Prohibition work? A resounding "no" because unenforceable drug laws became the cure that was worse than the disease. Today, Mexico has become a 1920s surrogate of the United States, only more violent. As long as demand for an illegal drug exists, a seller will be there to make a profit. How, then, do we eliminate the money flowing to cartels, drug gangs and mafia-like syndicates in Mexico? We could begin by legalizing marijuana, a substance which many Americans view as no more dangerous than a legal and socially acceptable round of drinks. [continues 70 words]
Houstonian, Who Has No Secrets to Trade, Is Doing More Time Than Drug Lords FORT WORTH - The U.S. government didn't offer a reward for the capture of Houston grandmother Elisa Castillo, nor did it accuse her of touching drugs, ordering killings, or getting rich off crime. But three years after a jury convicted her in a conspiracy to smuggle at least a ton of cocaine on tour buses from Mexico to Houston, the 56-year-old first-time offender is locked up for life - without parole. [continues 729 words]
I've been here long enough to have seen every type of Capitol rally more than twice. I like them because most involve law-abiding people who care deeply about something, be it schools or health care or pollution or injustice or some other important issue. On Saturday, I went to a rally that included lawbreakers who care deeply about themselves. Specifically, they care about illegally making themselves comfortably numb. (Free tip: Fifteen minutes at a Texas House committee hearing induces that same "Twilight Zone"-y feeling legally and at no charge.) [continues 802 words]
Re: "Man forgotten in cell gets DEA apology -- His lawyers seek $20M after he spent 4 days with no food or water," Thursday news story. When the story first broke about Daniel Chong, a 24-year-old engineering student at the University of California, San Diego, my first reaction was, "This couldn't be." Chong was detained on April 21 when agents raided the home of a drug dealer. And yes, 18,000 ecstasy pills, along with other drugs and guns, were found. And yes, Chong was there. [continues 108 words]
Re: "Obama isn't loony to oppose drug legalization - Strategies that strike a middle ground are best" by Kevin Sabet, Monday Viewpoints. Don't be fooled by Sabet's vision of a kinder, gentler drug war. The vast majority of illicit drug users are marijuana smokers, many of whom have turned their lives around by putting down the bottle and picking up the marijuana pipe. These former alcoholics no longer wake up with debilitating hangovers. They are no longer at risk of drinking themselves to death. Because they have chosen a safer alternative to alcohol, they now lead productive lives. [continues 68 words]
Bill King says investing in research may be the best approach to finding a way to rid our society of the bane of addiction and illegal drug abuse. In everything I have read about U.S. drug policy over the last several months, with the exception of a few people who make a living from the War on Drugs, virtually no one thinks what we are currently doing is working. Polling consistently shows that about 70 percent of Americans agree. It seems that it is only a matter of time before we try a different approach. [continues 679 words]
Towards the beginning of the cult classic "Dazed & Confused," a high school senior named Slater, inquires of baby-faced freshman Mitch, "are you cool?" What Slater is really asking--in this ode to 1970s youth and the counterculture--is do you smoke pot? Ahh the 70s. Back before the likeness on Grover Norquist's Bedtime With Bonzo night light (some guy named Reagan), kicked the kooky, corrupt and thoroughly counterproductive War On Drugs into high gear. And poof, this country suddenly lost its collective mind, suffering a lapse in judgment that vaunted well past ill-advised and just beyond "they have weapons of mass destruction" to what might best be labeled "the mind of Ted Nugent." [continues 587 words]
Strategies That Strike a Middle Ground Are Best, Say Kevin Sabet "I personally, and my administration's position, is that [drug] legalization is not the answer." Which U.S. president uttered these words about our nation's drug policy? Was it Woodrow Wilson, a progressive leader who urged the country to unite against drugs? Perhaps it was FDR, who signed the first federal law banning marijuana? Or maybe it was the guy who everyone thinks started the war on drugs (he didn't), Richard Nixon? [continues 578 words]
Latin American Leaders Prod U.S. on Drug Policy The recent Summit of the Americas, if remembered at all, will go down as the place where Secret Service agents and U.S. soldiers overindulged in legal alcohol and legal prostitution. Not an inconsequential scandal, obviously, but it's unfortunate that off-the-field distractions overshadowed what could have been far more substantive issues. One was the perceptible shift among Latin American leaders to persuade President Barack Obama to rethink, at the very least, his nation's increasingly failed war on drugs. [continues 554 words]
President Makes a Specious Case Against Legalization, Says Leonard Pitts If President Barack Obama had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. So the president famously said. And the president's son would thereby find himself at significantly greater risk of running afoul of the so-called War on Drugs than, say, a son of George W. Bush. Depending on what state he lived in, a Trayvon Obama might be 57 times more likely than a Trayvon Bush to be imprisoned on drug charges. [continues 567 words]
That drug addiction is one of the great plagues of our times cannot be denied. Hardly anyone in our country has not been touched by the tragic consequences of this scourge. And that we, as a society, should have policies in place to reduce addiction and mitigate the effects of illegal drugs on individuals and society cannot be reasonably challenged. However, as Einstein is famously said to have quipped, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. For more than 40 years, we have been following the strategy of attempting to control the supply of drugs by interdiction. At best, the strategy has had mixed results and many make a compelling argument that it has been a disaster. A doctor who has worked with drug abusers for more than 40 years told me last week that the war on drugs was one of our generation's greatest moral failures because it had not substantially reduced addiction while doing incalculable collateral damage to young people. And, of course, it has been astronomically expensive. [continues 504 words]
Re: "Legal drugs as bargain? - It's not unreasonable to consider modified policy" by George Will, Thursday Viewpoints. George Will rightly points out how our drug prohibition laws create opportunities for violent gangs and cartels to make billions of dollars in tax-free profits by filling the seemingly insatiable demand for drugs. But Will is wrong to assume that legalization would cause a sharp rise in drug problems. As a former U.S. border agent who participated in many anti-drug operations, Ib [continues 122 words]
Though performance-enhancing drug scandals have hogged sports headlines for the past decade, administrators, athletic directors and college coaches have shifted their focus to street drugs. "We've talked with coaches, and they have a new worst nightmare," said Andrea Wickerham, vice president for the National Center for Drug Free Sport. "That is their pain almost on a daily basis." On Feb. 15, four TCU football players were charged with selling marijuana. After hearing of drug use on the team from a recruit, coach Gary Patterson called for a surprise drug test of the whole team on Feb. 1. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that five players failed the test. Another 11 players had trace amounts within the margin of error, and 86 players passed the test. Marijuana was the only drug detected. [continues 1967 words]
Beto O'Rourke wants open discussion to give us a better-informed public. Drug war defenders routinely oppose this. In 1973, our only national commission on the drug war cited this as the single biggest source of drug-war failure, noting that "sound bites fit for media consumption" have filled the public mind with "incorrect assumptions." Billions spent annually by the National Institutes of Health on drug abuse produces reams of data unknown to most because many politicians regularly hide or distort the findings. [continues 122 words]
Seven felony drug charges and 72 misdemeanor drug charges total have been handed out to Ector County Independent School District students this school year, a district official reported. The arrest of four Permian students Feb. 16 on felony and prescription drug charges on a Crime Stoppers tip received widespread attention. But at the same time and on the same day, ECISD police arrested an Odessa High School student on a class A marijuana charge. [name redacted], 17, was arrested at around 11 a.m. Feb. 16 at Odessa High School after Ector County Independent School District police received a Crime Stoppers tip that she had marijuana, an ECISD case report stated. [continues 298 words]
A retired narcotics detective led students in a brief Q-and-A following a speech on America's "failed" drug war Thursday night. Russ Jones, ex-narcotics detective, speaks Feb. 23 at the Students for Liberty meeting regarding the United States' "failed" drug war. Russ Jones has been employed across the world as a drug expert. After fighting against drugs for the majority of his career, he now speaks against their prohibition. Jones said after being honorably discharged from the military in 1970, he became a police officer. [continues 570 words]
Marijuana activists look to carve out a spot in Academic Plaza to hold a voting booth checking the pulse of Aggie decriminalization advocates on Thursday. The Aggie Cannabis Reform and Education Society, ACRES, is an on-campus organization that promotes the legalization of hemp and medical marijuana, and pushes for decriminalization of recreational use. "We want to educate people about the facts of marijuana," said Mostafa Selim, ACRES president and junior university studies major. "We know there's a large cannabis-friendly community at Texas A&M, so we want to organize everyone into a serious formal movement." [continues 392 words]
Re: "Seeds of a big bust -- Small pot deal led to series of undercover buys, arrests," Sunday news story. Your front page of pictures of TCU students has convinced me. Too many of our laws, particularly those in regard to drug use, are too often unnecessarily making criminals out of too many of our young people. If we cannot persuade our legislators the best way to win the war on drugs is to legalize marijuana, then as jurors, when we vote "not guilty," we can vote "not guilty" and disable a foolish law that is costing America way too many lives and way too much money. [continues 99 words]
We innocents, constantly alert to the depredations of hoodlum gangs, are grateful for your publication of the rogues' gallery of hardened criminals on the front page of your Feb. 19 issue. Now we can recognize these miscreants on sight and hasten to protect our children from looming evil. Seriously, your gleeful celebration of the arrests of TCU students for marijuana offenses was worthy of a major FBI roundup of Mafioso capos and professional assassins instead of an easy and risk-free bust of college students dealing in the "devil's weed." But then, it does make great copy, and the cops can chalk up another journalistically hyped victory over the underworld. Ronald Wade Rockwall [end]
Let's Treat Alcohol As the Danger It Is and Make It Pay Its Way With Higher Taxes "Crack is wack." I heard many people repeat that phrase last week as they appraised the waste of Whitney Houston's later years and flashed back to her 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer, when she uttered those immortal words. Sawyer wanted to know what Houston was on. Everyone wanted to know what Houston was on, and news reports after her death took unconfirmed inventory of the pills in her hotel suite, wondering if they represented the extent of her indulgences. [continues 576 words]
TCU's Zero Tolerance Hurts Students A six-month investigation of drug trafficking at TCU ended last week with 22 arrests. Considering the prevalence of drugs throughout society, one wonders whether any campus, community or profession could withstand the hot light of such scrutiny and emerge unscathed. The Fort Worth story also chips away at the spectacular myth that white students must drive to the seamy side of town to buy their drugs from thuggish black or brown drug dealers. Although this stereotype is regularly reinforced by the media, the truth is that all races use illegal drugs at similar rates. In fact, young white males are somewhat more likely to sell and use drugs than their counterparts. [continues 295 words]
The TCU stories illustrate one thing I learned during my 30-year career as a federal agent: Cracking down on these young adults will have no lasting effect and will only drive them further underground and increase market share for those not caught up in this sting. You can't keep drugs off campus when you cannot even keep them out of our prisons. These arrests will make no difference in the insatiable demand for drugs on college campuses anywhere. It may instead cause the students to seek drugs from far more dangerous venues. [continues 95 words]
Drug testing is useless except as a money making scheme. Peter Bensinger, former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and former drug czars Robert L. Dupont and Carlton Turner shamelessly promoted drug testing as the solution to drug problems while they held office. Bensinger, Dupont & Associates is now the world's largest drug testing company. This group formed by these big drug warriors is reaping a fortune on the drug testing laws they wrote. The only beneficiaries of drug testing are the makers of the tests. Tests are notoriously unreliable, often giving false positives. Performance and productivity are the best tests for employers to insure workplace safety and increase their bottom line. Colleen McCool, Stephenville [end]
Re: "Drug test needed to get benefits - Unemployed should always be ready to return to work, says Bill Hammond," Tuesday Viewpoints. As a small-business owner who has had the privilege to have an outstanding group of employees, I am outraged at the idea of adding insult to injury to workers who have lost their jobs by forcing them to submit to drug testing to get unemployment benefits. Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment and probable cause? The actions proposed in Hammond's column are an insult to working people everywhere. While I am not familiar with the Texas Association of Business or Hammond's position with them, I assure you he does not speak for me or any other Texas employers who appreciate and respect their employees. Paul Pedigo, Dallas [end]
Unemployed Should Always Be Ready to Return to Work, Employers are the folks who pay for 100 percent of unemployment insurance costs, and most agree that when someone loses a job, through no fault of his or her own, there should be a safety net. While providing that safety net is a covenant that employers make with employees, there is also a covenant made by people who get those unemployment benefits. Those people should be ready and available for work when it is offered. Someone who is on drugs is neither ready nor available. [continues 485 words]
Some Supreme Court decisions hit like bombs, taking casualties and creating vibrations for years. Citizens United was one; the expected ruling this year on the Obama administration's health care reform should be another. Others creep past on cat's paws, content to curl up and wait for someone to come by and rub their belly. Last week's U.S. vs. Jones decision is a creeper. While billed as the most important Fourth Amendment test in a decade, it mostly came and went fairly quietly, with legal analysts left to sort out what happened and what it meant. [continues 535 words]
As part of legislation to extend federal unemployment insurance benefits through 2012, Congress is considering a very bad policy idea: encouraging states to drug test every applicant for unemployment insurance and deny compensation to any who fail. It's such a bad idea that it has twice failed to make it through the Texas House, which is as conservative a legislative body as they come. The whole thing is really a ploy. The proponents of drug testing are trying to undermine public support for unemployment benefits by associating these applicants with drug users. They want the public to think about unemployment insurance like it does welfare, blaming the unemployed - rather than the economy - for their plight. [continues 515 words]
Re: "Of laced muffins and being a mother," by Steve Blow, Sunday Metro column. It is good to know that a stupid teenage prank, delivering marijuana-laced muffins to the teachers' lounge at Lake Highlands High School, will not ruin "Niall's" chances of reaching his potential in life. The outcome very likely would not have been the same had Niall been African-American. According to "And Justice for Some" by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, "Throughout the [criminal justice] system, youth of color - especially African-American youth - receive different and harsher treatment." [continues 70 words]
Student Athletes Allegedly Involved in Recent Incident The number of drug-related incidents reported on the UTEP campus has seen a dramatic increase over the last few years. Most of the incidents have occurred at Miner Village or Miner Heights, UTEP's student residential areas and involve possession of marijuana or narcotics paraphernalia. The most recent incident, according to the UTEP Police crime log, occurred at 6:42 p.m. on Jan. 20. Officers responded to an apartment in Hueco Hall at Miner Village in reference to an odor of marijuana where narcotic paraphernalia was located. The crime log also states that the case resulted in an arrest. No other major details were released. [continues 1284 words]
One of the most important things the Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul said as a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno recently was what he said during his backstage interview after the show was over. The first thing Representative Paul was asked was a question submitted by a Jay Leno Facebook fan: "Are you gonna legalize marijuana?" His answer was that he was "not going to enforce any federal laws against marijuana." He went on to say that there was "no authority in the Constitution to regulate anything a person puts in their body." [continues 1093 words]
Joy Strickland realized her vision of a new day for Mothers Against Teen Violence when the nonprofit sponsored what its leaders said was the first-ever Texas Conference on Drug Policy last week. The conference at Fair Park's Hall of State drew national experts who have studied how drugs affect the body, law enforcement officials who have witnessed what many say is the failure of drug prohibition laws, politicians listening to the debate about how to better fight the war on drugs, and people who have been wounded by drug use or the violence associated with it. [continues 349 words]
Re: =93A Courageous Stand on Guns =AD Obama likely to include long-needed provisions,=94 Wednesday Editorials. I'm a liberal who also hunts and shoots. I support most of your proposals, including universal background checks. However, your proposal to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines may not be very well thought out and doesn't seem to reflect a cost-benefit analysis. The FBI reports that 323 persons of all ages were murdered with rifles of all types in 2011, while 728 were beaten to death. These numbers are too high, but given a population of 300 million, they put the issue in perspective. [continues 115 words]
"The drug war is not to protect the children, save the babies, shield the neighborhoods, or preserve the rain forests. The drug war is a violent campaign against black men and by extension the black family, among many others."- Wilton D. Alston, "How Can Anyone Not Realize the War on (Some) Drugs Is Racist?" LewRockwell.com (June 24, 2011) After more than 40 years and at least $1 trillion, America's so-called "war on drugs" ranks as the longest-running, most expensive and least effective war effort by the American government. Four decades after Richard Nixon declared that "America's public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse," drug use continues unabated, the prison population has increased six fold to over two million inmates (half a million of whom are there for nonviolent drug offenses), SWAT team raids for minor drug offenses have become more common, and in the process, billions of tax dollars have been squandered. [continues 1701 words]
Prohibition Is Extreme ... Re: "Extremists hijack drug abuse debate, getting us nowhere - Listen to centrists on treatment, prevention, says Kevin Sabet," Sunday Points. For decades, Sabet and his colleagues at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have been misinforming the public in defense of a radical drug policy. Alcohol Prohibition is the blueprint for today's extremist policy disasters. Sabet praises National Drug Control Policy director R. Gil Kerlikowske for being sensible. In a July 2010 guest column in The Dallas Morning News, Kerlikowske justified the drug war because "23 million suffer from substance abuse or dependency." Not mentioned was that 19 million of those abuse or are addicted to alcohol, and nearly all the rest have a previous alcohol problem. The word alcohol never appeared once. [continues 193 words]
As the joke goes, overuse of marijuana can harm short-term memory and long-term memory, and also short-term memory. But while the fight continues over marijuana's possible medical benefits, there is one area where the harm from marijuana use is clear: jobs that mandate drug tests. With retiring baby boomers and a slowly recovering economy, the demand for skilled workers - such as mechanics, pipe fitters and commercial truckers - is on the rise. But companies in Texas are facing a shortage of these skilled laborers. Part of the problem is that workers simply do not have the vocational training to fill these well-paying positions. Another problem is that otherwise acceptable job appli-cants cannot pass mandatory drug tests. [continues 166 words]
Inside Texas
