10 Signs The Failed Drug War Is Finally Ending
From Alternet
"2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of the United States drug war. I have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance promoting alternatives to the war on drugs for 10 years, and I can say without a doubt that there was more debate and movement toward sensible drug policies this year than in the last 9 years combined! Here are 10 stories that contributed to the unprecedented momentum to end America's longest running war.
1) Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February)"
2) Michael Phelps and the Bong Hit Heard Around the World (February)
The photo of Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Michael Phelps taking a "bong hit" at a party in South Carolina was plastered across the front pages of newspapers around the world in February. The image of Phelps inhaling marijuana, just a few months after setting a record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics, dealt a powerful blow to the lazy, "couch potato" stereotype of pot users. Kellogg's promptly dropped Phelps as a spokesperson, badly misreading public sentiment. Dozens of columnists slammed Kellogg's for this decision, and a major AP story reported on groups calling for consumers to "Drop Kellogg's" for dumping Phelps. A few weeks later, the advertising trade magazine Ad Age reported that Kellogg's brand favorability had tanked since it dropped Phelps - even more than when the company instituted a massive recall due to a problem with salmonella in its peanut butter." rest of article
All valid points and I'd add one more. We don't look at the decades long "drug war" like our overseers do. We see it as a spectacular failure, they see it as a magnificent triumph. There are more drugs on the streets than ever before. How can that be a success?
They won because the drug war was never about fighting drugs but was all about instituting a prison state and it succeeded wildly. Drugs were and are an excuse to transfer massive amounts of public funds to set up their fascist network of electronic surveillance, militarized police forces and gulags. They won in other ways too. Spook agencies are the biggest traffickers of illegal drugs into the country, after knocking off the cartels, ensuring trillions more for their black ops agenda. They won in South America by allying with the biggest narco state, Columbia, and now have a massive military presence down there to expand empire's ambitions. I'd say they've pretty much accomplished their goals.
But there's one more thing. To us drug abuse is a health problem, to our would be masters it's social control. This country is about to come apart at the seams; the social fabric is going to shred beyond any body's wildest imagination. I think the facade of normality is artificially propped up just to get us through the holidays and then all bets are off. I'm just guessing here but now would be the perfect time for our overlords to legalize any number of drugs to try to anesthetize the american population. After all, the goal of neo-fascism is to make us lick our chains, not try to get rid of them.
It's probably a very good time to reread Huxley's Brave New World:
"Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug soma. (The name is probably an allusion to a mythical drink of the same name consumed by ancient Indo-Aryans) Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "vacations", and it was developed expressly for this purpose. It is also stated that it replicates religious experiences, obviating the need for religion."
And while we're at it, let's bring back tobacco.
Report: States Slash Anti-Tobacco Funding
"(AP) States cut funding for tobacco prevention programs more than 15 percent this year, pushing it further than ever below federally recommended levels, according to a report that a coalition of public health groups is releasing Wednesday.
The states will spend $567.5 million of their own money and $62 million in federal grants on programs to prevent tobacco use - about 17 percent as much as the $3.7 billion the federal Centers for Disease Control recommends, the report says."
"2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of the United States drug war. I have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance promoting alternatives to the war on drugs for 10 years, and I can say without a doubt that there was more debate and movement toward sensible drug policies this year than in the last 9 years combined! Here are 10 stories that contributed to the unprecedented momentum to end America's longest running war.
1) Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February)"
2) Michael Phelps and the Bong Hit Heard Around the World (February)
The photo of Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer Michael Phelps taking a "bong hit" at a party in South Carolina was plastered across the front pages of newspapers around the world in February. The image of Phelps inhaling marijuana, just a few months after setting a record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics, dealt a powerful blow to the lazy, "couch potato" stereotype of pot users. Kellogg's promptly dropped Phelps as a spokesperson, badly misreading public sentiment. Dozens of columnists slammed Kellogg's for this decision, and a major AP story reported on groups calling for consumers to "Drop Kellogg's" for dumping Phelps. A few weeks later, the advertising trade magazine Ad Age reported that Kellogg's brand favorability had tanked since it dropped Phelps - even more than when the company instituted a massive recall due to a problem with salmonella in its peanut butter." rest of article
All valid points and I'd add one more. We don't look at the decades long "drug war" like our overseers do. We see it as a spectacular failure, they see it as a magnificent triumph. There are more drugs on the streets than ever before. How can that be a success?
They won because the drug war was never about fighting drugs but was all about instituting a prison state and it succeeded wildly. Drugs were and are an excuse to transfer massive amounts of public funds to set up their fascist network of electronic surveillance, militarized police forces and gulags. They won in other ways too. Spook agencies are the biggest traffickers of illegal drugs into the country, after knocking off the cartels, ensuring trillions more for their black ops agenda. They won in South America by allying with the biggest narco state, Columbia, and now have a massive military presence down there to expand empire's ambitions. I'd say they've pretty much accomplished their goals.
But there's one more thing. To us drug abuse is a health problem, to our would be masters it's social control. This country is about to come apart at the seams; the social fabric is going to shred beyond any body's wildest imagination. I think the facade of normality is artificially propped up just to get us through the holidays and then all bets are off. I'm just guessing here but now would be the perfect time for our overlords to legalize any number of drugs to try to anesthetize the american population. After all, the goal of neo-fascism is to make us lick our chains, not try to get rid of them.
It's probably a very good time to reread Huxley's Brave New World:
"Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug soma. (The name is probably an allusion to a mythical drink of the same name consumed by ancient Indo-Aryans) Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "vacations", and it was developed expressly for this purpose. It is also stated that it replicates religious experiences, obviating the need for religion."
And while we're at it, let's bring back tobacco.
Report: States Slash Anti-Tobacco Funding
"(AP) States cut funding for tobacco prevention programs more than 15 percent this year, pushing it further than ever below federally recommended levels, according to a report that a coalition of public health groups is releasing Wednesday.
The states will spend $567.5 million of their own money and $62 million in federal grants on programs to prevent tobacco use - about 17 percent as much as the $3.7 billion the federal Centers for Disease Control recommends, the report says."
posted by nolocontendere at 11:30 PM
3 Comments:
Drugs were and are an excuse to transfer massive amounts of public funds to set up their fascist network of electronic surveillance, militarized police forces and gulags.
Exactly! This is why the extreme right-wing (fascist capitalists and war-profiteers) love Nixon and Reagan so much. Nixon gave them the excuse to build their "empire" and Reagan extended that privilege. The idea that something so inert and mundane as "drugs" could be used as an excuse for conducting violent military ops and mass-murder is, to any truly sane and humanitarian American, completely ABSURD.
Yet they got away with it for 30 years now (80 counting Anslinger's original reefer madness campaign) and have managed to build an empire on it. Many people have suggested that the "war on drugs" not only caused 9/11 and the "war on terror", but actually helped to finance those operations.
If it is coming to an end, all the credit cannot go to a right-wing think-tank that believes it can use legal drugs to anesthetize Americans. Anyone who believes that hasn't been very active with drug policy reform and fails to see the economical side of the issue.
It is smart to suspect some kind of "Brave New World" scenario in the prime, but it may also be a sign that the ruling-class is willing to make some compromises to save an economy that took an unforeseen wrong turn on them after they lost money on their last huge investment (war on terror).
My bet is on the "Brave New World" scenario.
For the simple fact that Aldous Huxley's brother Julian was a member of the British Eugenics Society (Galton Institute) which advocates genocide of certain human stock, mainly in Third World countries.
Also prescription drugs figured prominently in population/meme control in Aldous' novel.
I think we may differ on the soma bit nick, but no doubt they'll profit handsomely yet again by legalization and taxation.
Actually the fascists are following what they did with the Volstead act to the letter. Depression 1 was started well into alcohol prohibition, D.2 started well into drug prohibition. Alcohol was legalized about 3 1/2 years after D.1 started Oct 1929, drugs will be legalized 3 1/2 years after the slide started in 2007.
The Volstead act grew organized crime and enabled fed agencies like the FBI, the drug war enabled massive govt profits and set up the police state apparatus. In both cases they obtained desired ends by making things illegal, and now, just like in 1933 they'll make them legal to make money and help pacify the restive depression era rabble.
Now comes world war.
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