drugs legislation: 'when, not if'

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drugs legislation: ‘when, not if’

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January 12, 2005 at 12:04 pm

#687713
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globalloon

@globalloon

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/4152375.stm

[HTML]The chances are that most of us will live to see drugs prohibition replaced with a system of regulation and control.

By 2020, if Transform’s timeline is right, the criminal market will have been forced to relinquish its control of the drug trade and government regulation will be the norm.[/HTML]

can we really wait this long?

[HTML]With regard to tobacco, gambling and drinking, both John Reid and Tessa Jowell have clearly stated recently that prohibition doesn’t work.

A useful question to ask is: what are the successful commodity prohibitions of the last hundred years?

If you are struggling to remember any successful prohibitions, it may be because there are none.[/HTML]

[HTML]US and UK domestic and foreign policy are now intimately intertwined with prohibition.

With regard to domestic policy, prohibition identifies convenient scapegoats and drug-war enemies to rally the electorate around.

Many law enforcement agencies have an investment in prohibition.

Prison builders, police, customs, CIA, MI5, and the FBI are funded to a great extent to fight the war on drugs

The drug war is also enormously useful to the US in continuing its adventures in foreign countries in which it has an interest – see Latin America, Afghanistan, the Middle East, south east Asia and the Caribbean.

Global prohibition is enforced through the UN (for which read US). It is supported by more than 150 UN member states, many of whom – including the UK – do not wish to fall foul of the US.[/HTML]

it’s going to be a long road if we have to wait for the US administration to start acting in the interests of it’s own citizens, let alone those of the rest of the world.
January 12, 2005 at 2:25 pm

#852257
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General Lighting

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even taking a very cynical market-orientated approach, the authorities in Britain need not fear for their jobs or positions in society even if drugs were legal.

there would need to be a tax recovery to offset increased NHS costs, and a purging of the criminal element from dealing networks. No doubt there would be those who would want to sell the commodity but not pay tax, something that happens with any commodity. HM Customs & Revenue would still need to keep an eye on things…

many “hard men” who backed up dealers would now be “redundant”; some would certainly turn to other forms of violent crime.

Amongst an increased user population, some would invariably not be able to regulate their use, and would commit acts of domestic violence, or attempt to drive motor vehicles under the influence.

Crime would happen anyway whether drugs were legal or not, and cops would still be required to deal with all this, there is plenty of non-drug related violent crime (particularly in the home and within communities) which goes unpunished as cops are dealing with pointless arrests for small posession and low-level dealing…

and if we (perhaps the EU as a whole 25-nation bloc) actually went against American interests, we can guarantee the US would launch some kind of punitive action. Of course not an overt war, but there certainly would be attempts at economic sanctions and trying to destabilise Europe by various means. We’d definitely need the security services and perhaps even the military to deal with the potential effects of this!
January 13, 2005 at 9:43 am

#852255
[deleted]

@[deleted]

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how does america benifit from the illegal drugs trade? why the “war on drugs”

is it to do with the dollar being the standard international currency or something?
January 13, 2005 at 9:55 am

#852258
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

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Unregistered wrote:

how does america benifit from the illegal drugs trade? why the “war on drugs”

is it to do with the dollar being the standard international currency or something?

IMO a couple of reasons –

1. war is a big earner for the military-industrial complex in America (and to a lesser extent Britain) the more conflict there is in the world the more business there is!

2. the paranoia over the “global drugs trade/links to “trrrsm” ” can be used by the current US administration to justify its surveilliance, disruption of elected governments and military action against other countries. Even Britain, one of the US’s allies, is listed by the CIA as a “major drug trafficking nation!”
January 13, 2005 at 11:28 am

#852260
1

globalloon

@globalloon

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Conflict means profit (arms trade) and poverty means power and yet more wealth for the richest and most powerful nations (by maintaining the stranglehold debts and imposing western ecomonic models on endebtted developing nations we are able to bleed them dry of their natural resources while their impossible debt repayments mean that their infrastuctures crumble). 😮

Bolivia is one good example of where the US have used the coca production as an excuse to wage war on a country while propping up a massively corrupt government. The US sanctioned govt in this supposedly democratic country were shaken up by a popular uprising last year, which led to he prime minister fleeing the country and finally an indigineous prime minister took office.

over one hundred civilians were shot dead by police for taking part in demonstrations.

demonstrators were calling for the govt not to sell off the massive natral gas and mineral resources to US companies.

Coca production, however, has incresed as a direct result of US intervention in Bolivian affairs. :confused:

.*-/

By the end of the 1980’s it was calculated that the illegal use of drugs in the United States now netted its controllers over $110 billion a year. (Modern Times, p.782.)

When the world’s traditional inebriative herbs become illegal commodities, they become worth as much as precious metal and they can be farmed. … Illegal drugs, solely because of the artificial value given them by Prohibition, have become the basis of military power anywhere they can be grown and delivered in quantity. … To this day American defense contractors (and to a lesser extent British arms dealers) are the biggest drug-money launderers in the world. 🙁

The British colonialists were just as guilty in their day…using the opium trade to maintain their hold over Hong Kong.

It’s not a new technique
January 13, 2005 at 11:30 am

#852261
1

globalloon

@globalloon

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General Lighting wrote:

Even Britain, one of the US’s allies, is listed by the CIA as a “major drug trafficking nation!”

this makes me laugh (an uneasy laugh mind you) when you consider the CIA’s own record of drug trafficking
January 13, 2005 at 11:37 am

#852259
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

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globalloon wrote:

The British colonialists were just as guilty in their day…using the opium trade to maintain their hold over Hong Kong.

this explains the harsh anti-drugs laws in SE Asia and other countries which were formerly British colonies – the generation currently in power is the one which lived under colonial rule and remember this..
January 14, 2005 at 2:56 pm

#852256
[deleted]

@[deleted]

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listen to the loon. 😉

The cia love shipping drugs, i wonder how much of their funding comes from drug trafficing themselves. i sincerly dont beleive that the cia are trying to damage the drug industry, just monopolise it. this doesnt mean theyre selling them selves, but offering protection to the drug cartels in exchange for the whereabouts of minor shipments. this info is from a columbian freind of mine who’s unkle sold. the cia and the military run his country for the benefit of the international drugs trade. proper crazyness, totally missing from our “world news”. why?

i seriously think that invading afghanistan had more to do with dominace of the drug trade, which, as the loon says, is politically usefull for many reasons. the afghan poppy crop was the largest in the world, and destroying it would seriously affect prices of skag throughout the world. this results in turf war, escalated crime etc, all the things that keep the third world in its place and junkies out of favour.

this may seem far fetched, but only a hundred and fifty years ago, we brits declared war on the chinese for not accepting our opium – twice!( the opium wars- how cool does that sound? [not to americans – 150 yrs isnt that long for anyone else])

at the end of the day, is it likely that the powers that be are not gonna be interested in making profit from one of the three most lucrative buisnessnes in the world?
January 14, 2005 at 8:46 pm

#852262
1

globalloon

@globalloon

Member
@USE]listen to the loon. )[/QUOTE wrote:

i don’t want to make people think I’m David Icke or anything. These aren’t ‘conspiracy theories’

it’s good economics and power attaining strategies. gotta give ’em that 🙁
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