The U.S. jail population is five times the world average - one in every 31 adult Americans is either in prison or on parole The world's tallest building is now in Dubai rather than New York. Its largest shopping mall is in Beijing, and its biggest Ferris wheel in Singapore. Once-mighty General Motors is suspended in a limbo between bailout and bankruptcy; and the "war on terror" has demonstrated the limits of American military might. But in one area the United States is going from strength to strength - the incarceration of its population. [continues 859 words]
I recently visited Vancouver with my wife and two-year-old son from Ireland and, while we found the hospitality welcoming, we were shocked at what we saw. Having wandered (as tourists do) into Chinatown, we ended up by accident on Hastings Street. The site of scores of shuffling homeless, vacant and rambling mentally ill and drug addicts reminded me of a scene from a George A. Romero zombie film. My wife was immediately fearful and we fled the area. For a city boasting the Winter Olympics, might I suggest that you take a few million out of the kitty and use it to assist these poor unfortunates? I have lived and worked in India and South Africa, so the sight of human misery is not new to me. Unfortunately, this is the lasting image I end up discussing with friends and colleagues here in Ireland when they ask me about Vancouver. Owen Lydon Spiddal Ireland [end]
To The Editor: The war on certain drugs was never meant to be won, it was meant to be continuous. It was designed specifically to reduce the civil rights and liberties of the general population, accustom them to an ongoing and ever-growing police and military presence in their daily lives, drain taxpayers' dollars and to keep lawyers rich, cops busy and jails full. In that regard, it has been a huge success. In the future, this war will be used to justify all manner of suppression of privacy and civil rights and civil liberties. You think Soviet Russia was bad? Or Nazi Germany? Those totalitarian prison states will seem like summer camp in comparison to what is coming for North America. Cameras everywhere, ID checks and sniffer dogs on every street corner, drug testing, forced military service, your iPod and laptops being scanned, zero privacy, internment camps (most of which are already built). Everything is almost in place -- both the laws and the technology -- and all Obama needs is one "emergency" to declare martial law. A war (caused by U.S. drug policy) on its southern border should do nicely. Russell Barth Nepean, Ontario Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis [end]
To The Editor: It is curious that Susan Lane never considers the one thing that would really solve the drug problem in Mexico - legalization. Decriminalization is a dead end street because it reduces penalties for drug users while leaving the drug business in the hands of outlaws. The decriminalization model being discussed is identical to the way alcohol prohibition worked - when Eliot Ness raided a speakeasy, the operators went to jail and the customers went home. This system enabled Al Capone and his ilk to violently control the bootleg booze market, the same way decriminalizing drugs will leave the drug cartels in control. The solution is to follow the pattern set after alcohol prohibition had proved to be a disaster - repeal and regulation. Repeal put the bootleggers out of business and we haven't had a bombing or a shoot out over a beer route since 1933. Ralph Givens Daly City, Calif. [end]
Finally, a little honesty. Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland, and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out of control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy. It started with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating an embarrassingly obvious truth that politicians almost never discuss. In a speech about rising violence in Mexico, she said, "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," and then added that "we have co-responsibility" for the cartel-driven carnage plaguing our southern border. [continues 518 words]
For years, proponents of legalizing marijuana tended to be easy-to-ignore cranks like me ... although the support of people like William F. Buckley Jr. did give the movement gravitas. Today it has growing momentum. Over the last month it has gotten boosts from columnists as disparate as the PNJ's Reginald Dogan and Time magazine's Joe Klein. Even the normally staid Economist editorialized recently for legalization, writing that "the war on drugs has been a disaster. ... By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless." [continues 564 words]
A year ago, a drug policy activist I was interviewing turned the tables on me. "What do you think it would take to get Americans to start talking seriously about legalizing pot?" he asked. I said maybe if some high profile celebrity got caught smoking marijuana, someone you never would have suspected - preferably a Republican. Catch Nancy Reagan with a joint, I said, and the national conversation about drug prohibition would change. Michael Phelps is no Nancy Reagan. But the conversation seemed to shift a little when photos surfaced of him hitting on a bong at a party on a South Carolina campus in February. There was the usual faux outrage to begin with, with commentators clucking about role models and talk of Phelps' endorsement contracts going up in smoke. There were the usual hippie-dippy jokes, with dated Cheech-and-Chong references. Phelps made the ritual apologies and promised never to do it again. [continues 1077 words]
Mexican traffickers control market. Arrests, abuse are up. Mexican drug traffickers have turned Charlotte into a key distribution point for "black tar" heroin in North Carolina. Heroin-related arrests here have jumped. And while officials have not seen an increase in drug-related violence, they worry that could change. Thousands have died in Mexico as drug cartels fight for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States - and the violence is starting to spill across the border. Other U.S. cities where cartels have toeholds have seen a rash of murders and kidnappings. [continues 1498 words]
Josh Anderson had just finished four homework assignments. He did his laundry. He watched TV with his mother -- "House," which he had Tivo'd for viewing that night. He played with the dogs. Then, at his mom's urging, he went up to bed. It was 12:30, and the next day, March 19, was a big one: Josh was scheduled for a hearing that probably would end with his expulsion from the Fairfax County school system. The Andersons weren't blind to what got Josh into this pickle. He had been caught leaving campus, going to Taco Bell with a friend. When the boys returned to South Lakes High in Reston, an assistant principal confronted them in the parking lot, smelled marijuana and had the car searched. This was the second time in two years that Josh, a junior, had been found with pot. [continues 993 words]
