Rethinking the Drug War in the Americas

Rethinking the Drug War in the Americas: Since Richard Nixon started the war on drugs 40 years ago, both the demand for narcotics and the violence surrounding the drug trade have risen dramatically, and the United States alone has spent more than $1 trillion losing the fight.

After decades of failed strategy, Latin American heads of state are now boldly pressuring the United States for a change of policy across the Americas.
Over the past few years, a movement in favor of decriminalization, legal regulation and various alternatives to the war on drugs has been gaining steam from Mexico all the way down to Argentina, but it has really caught fire in the last couple of months. This is a decidedly good thing.

Report: 'The Drug War Has Failed'

Any way you look at it the world realizes the war on drugs is lost and the war on drugs has been a war of choice. You have to wonder why we are really fighting this so called war on drugs in the first place. The world says drug war lost end it so the US increases drug war spending. Duh!

I want to say something different for me. When I think of the war on drugs I think illegal drugs but at the link above I learned something I never gave a thought and that is that over 50,000 Americans are killed a year from prescription drugs. That is a growing problem and where we should be concentrating our efforts.

Our 100 year drug war is tearing Mexico apart but unlike us I think they can win it! After 40 years the front line is now the entire US covering every State and all of Mexico. It has now engulfed and is endangering the very being of Mexico as a country and safe for its citizens. However this is not Nixon's 40 year drug war but the US 100 year drug war and we are losing!

With our 100 year drug war and guns being purchased here and sent to Mexico then drugs being sent here feeding this drug war. This has not spilled over from Mexico it has spilled over from the US.

I reiterate: eastern California, southern Arizona and New Mexico are clamping down and National Guard troops are now involved! Phoenix has become the kidnap capitol of the US! The cartels now operate in every State in America.With a reported 100,000 foot soldiers many of them trained military soldiers who have deserted to fight on the more lucrative side this is a formidable force! What about the Mexico mafia?

We keep hearing that Mexico's war on drugs is spilling over into the US. Now Congress is meeting about it. We are hearing of National Guard troops being called to help because Mexico's drug war has endangered Border States. Weapons are being purchased from gun dealers around the United States and being smuggled into Mexico to be used by the Drug cartels to fight Mexico's military in fighting Mexico's drug war. I have a few questions for our brain dead Politicians as they are once again in denial!

First I want to say when you work with the US you are taking on a lot of trouble. Anyway if I remember correctly our authorities have bragged for years that they are fighting a war against drugs! America can not afford a war on Drugs end it!

Of course there are big fears of our drug war that spilled South to Mexico now spilling back to our side of the Border as violence and it is happening The violence is only there and fed by our insatiable hunger for marijuana and other drugs. We can end this! We can control the border as we still are not and put our military on the border. That is where they should be not on 733 US bases around the world.

Forget poor Mexico, forget Nixon's 40 year war on drugs, end America's Own 100 Year Failed War on Drugs!

We have been fighting a self professed war on Drugs for one hundred years! I wish someone would be able to figure out at what cost. It seems to me that the drug war has spilled over the Border with Mexico. However it went north to south. It is our drug war that has spilled into Mexico. It is us that have made Mexico the narco State it is. I do believe we should at least put American military on the border and do not really understand why it is not. That would go a long way in stopping the problem so I do not understand why they are not on the Border unless it is because a certain political interest still does not want the border secured to enable illegal immigration? Why else? A desire to keep this war going? For gain? of what?

Legalize marijuana at least then if it works follow with the rest! That would kill much of the incentive for Cartels to be waging a war on drugs. Yes there is cocaine heroine and other drugs but marijuana is America's number one cash crop! That blew me away. According to official Government figures The value of the annual harvest exceeds that of corn, soybeans, or hay, the country's top three legal cash crops with an annual crop value of $35 Billion. There have been an estimated 100 million pot plants destroyed between 1981 and 2006 yet production has still increased 10 fold to 22 million pounds!

Legalize it, secure the border! Just imagine what it would be if it was legalized. Regulate it like alcohol, sell it in package stores! Tax it! Look at the potential revenue. Legalizing marijuana would end a hell of a lot of problems and create exactly zero! Think about it! The number one abused drug in the world is legal, Alcohol! It destroys numerous lives!

What sane argument is there against legalization? None, none whatsoever! All we are doing with this insane war on drugs is driving people and not just kids to experiment and find a legal way to get high with common household products. We are only making the problem exponentially worse. END IT! LEGALIZE! We have enough problems with over the counter drugs. That is where our efforts should be concentrated.

James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com