The resources used to fight the Drug War could be better put to use policing real criminals and dealing with real criminal problems. Think of how much money and resources it took in 2007 to arrest, incarcerate and process the 800,000 citizens arrested for marijuana related offenses alone! It’s truly mind boggling! A total waste of tax dollars!

Illegal drug use continues to rise, no matter how many resources we throw at it. It’s time to try a different approach, one which focuses more on helping drug abusers to find ways of living without drugs. See the source link for a supporting report by the Brookings Institution and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedilla.

That’s it, I have had it. There comes a time when the scale finally tips and you come down on one side or the other of an issue. Today is the day. I can no longer support the war. Too many people have died. It costs too much. It’s hypocritical and politically motivated. And if that were not enough, it has gone on for too long with inadequate results.
Please see link for the entire post. Thx.

The very act of criminalizing drug use has been the catalyst for creating the actual criminals who cash in on the illegal markets.

End the drug war, treat it as a health problem in order to sort out those who are really the criminals and end their monopoly… street gangs, mafias and drug cartels would be greatly reduced if not completely extinguished!

to being a free citizen. So long as Alcohol and Tobacco are legal, making any substance illegal is hypocrisy. Instead, focus on actions taken under the influence of any substance. For example you have a right to drink, but you cannot endanger others by drinking and driving. The same analogy applies to drugs. If you wish to pop pills, go for it. But, do not let pill popping endanger my kids.

I strongly believe that the Drug War is the catalyst for much of the violence and crime associated with drugs. Just like the days of alcohol prohibition when we had huge crime waves and lots of violence, mainly because the illegal status of alcohol had made it extremely valuable and what’s worse is that it kept honest and regulated businesses from controlling the market.

“Founded on March 16, 2002, LEAP is made up of current and former members of law enforcement who believe the existing drug policies have failed in their intended goals of addressing the problems of crime, drug abuse, addiction, juvenile drug use, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into this country and the internal sale and use of illegal drugs.”

Glenn Greenwald: “In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs. Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category […] far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offense.”

the fact that people think its ok to destroy lives and families to keep the prison population full just because someone who is a grown adult decides to smoke a joint in the privacy of their own home is down-right disgusting. By the way i dont even smoke and havn’t for about 7 years now.

Obama can’t & won’t “End the drug war,” but he could:
*Legalize medical marijuana.
*Take over/eliminate the pharmaceutical industry’s influence in Partnership for a Drug Free America.
*Effectively decriminalize possession of small amounts, move savings to treatment.
*Legalize industrial hemp production.
*End Federal punishments to states that do one of the above.

We’ve bullied other countries into toeing the line on our unscientific position in this debate for too long now. Maybe the current administration will actually look at the success of harm reduction in western Europe and stop strong-arming nations of the Americas that wish to take similar steps. Let’s use our clout for better ends and stop our aggressive ignorance on this front.

Jack Cafferty (CNN) says:.

“One senior Harvard economist estimates we spend $44 billion a year fighting the war on drugs. He says if they were legal, governments would realize about $33 billion a year in tax revenue. Net swing of $77 billion. … Plus the cartels would be out of business. … we could empty out a lot of our prison cells.”

And that doesn’t include revenues from hemp farming.

When I was in highschool marijuana was ten times easier to get than beer or hard spirits. The reason why? Because beer and hard spirits are regulated and controlled by the government. You needed to be of age to buy them. Drug dealers do not care how old their customers are! Legalization, regulation, and education are the best way to protect our children.

Its been proven many times over that rehabilitation works much better (and cheeper) than legal penalization on those who USE drugs. Now, if you legalize drugs you can: Tax them and make more money for rehab programs, make a safer less adictive drug in laboratories than on the street, reduce the price of drugs to the point that it is not profitable to sell drugs on the street, this emlinates crime.

President Obama, you pledged to govern based on science rather than ideology. How can you justify excluding this enormous set of government programs and policies from consideration based on that principle? Establish a commision to study our program and others around the world to determine which policy best promotes the general welfare.