When he assumed office in 2009, President Obama inherited a drug policy success of unprecedented dimensions. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and misused opiate prescriptions were all under control or declining. The drug threat, especially for youth, was substantially smaller. That tide of achievement is now reversing.
At the end of the Bush years, youth use of marijuana had declined 25 percent, aided by an effective national media campaign. Youth use of cocaine and heroin had also declined, while psychedelics had plummeted even further, as Ecstasy and LSD collapsed. These achievements, measured by surveys, were corroborated by nationwide workforce drug testing, where rates of positives were in decline.
Nationally, prescription opiate misuse peaked in 2006, and the Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005 resulted in steep declines in not only meth use but in the number of toxic labs that produced it.
Internationally, the major source of U.S. heroin and cocaine had been brought under control. Heroin produced in Colombia had dropped so low that U.S. government observations had difficulty finding it.
Significantly, Colombian cocaine production, trafficked through Mexico and funding insurgents and criminal cartels, declined in an unprecedented achievement by nearly 75 percent through partnership programs of eradication, alternative development, and the provision of government security.
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3 comments:
A doped up society is easier to control.
Mr. Choom Gang - What else would you expect?
The war on drugs is a war on free will. Supply and demand. It is just an excuse to lock people up so government officials can pay some of their friends to house, feed and cloth them. Then they have the prisoners do work for some of their other friends (i.e. prisoners make McDonalds uniforms and coca-cola packaging for a few cents an hour). Do you see a problem when 1 in 10 black men find themselves in this system often times for victimless crimes (selling drugs to someone who wants drugs)? Did you know that statistics on drug use are equal among Blacks and Whites? Why are the police arresting one race at a much higher number than another? If the police were mainly in black neighborhoods wouldn't that make them safer than white neighborhoods?
Mexico is run by the cartels now. You see pictures all the time of overkill executions. How quickly do you think these cartels would go under if you could buy an 8 ball of coke at CVS instead of having to get it from a member of MS-13? Don't use cocaine? Would you start if it were sold at CVS? Yeah, neither would I.
How much money/cars/jewelry do you think this country has taken under forfeiture laws? Where do you think it went? Did you see the video of the pot shop raid where the cops joked about beating the handicapped while the consumed the drugs in the shop? Seems like cops are arresting people for things they, their friends and their family do. Is there a protectionist culture in the police where they won't speak out against each other no matter how bad one officer may have messed up?
Do you think a plant (created by God) should be illegal but a pill that makes your eyelashes longer with a side effect of possible blindness should be pushed on TV all day. Do you think that we should have our doctors writing prescriptions for opioids at such a rate that there is now a generation so addicted we need to hand out free needles just to keep the diseases under control?
Why did I write my comment like this?
Because the more you question the war on drugs the less sence it makes.
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