we have been thought this before, the "contra" connection and all the nonsense of the SOA, CIA aiding and abetting is quote mining and a whole load of supposition.

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

Well, Im so sorry to have bothered Your Royal Highness!

__________________

It all comes down to this on election day: Are you a racist, or do you look down on spastics?

ahoy mateys!!!!

*takes off his pirate hat and his eye patch and removes his peg leg*

ahh, good to relax belowdecks fer a bit. i been reading this thread and have enjoyed the spirited debate. readin' up on the links the mighty silver surfer provided was intrestin'...i didn't know that stuffs.

i just wanted to add two personal observations to all 'o this, aye.

1) around 1/2 of the folks i work with and have been friends with over the past few years make use 'o herb in the same manner others might unwind with a beer or a glass of wine. none 'o them have ever been arrested or have had any trouble with the law.
all of me friends are white, and all had the basics of life (all have good white teeth, due to orthodontics, all have homes in good neighborhoods, all of them have computers with high speed internet, and all have bachelors degrees). the most debilitating effect i seen meself from too much smokin' of the fine herb, i think, is lethargy. the same effect could be produced by eatin' ten cheeseburgers.

2) if the local police here in charlotte, north carolina, wanted to arrest lots folks without too much fuss, it would be easy. just wait outside of any of the many, many country clubs this fine city seems to have, on any busy saturday night, and you could fill several airplane hangers with rich folk who be DWI. never seen it happen though.


yarrrr.

-meadhallpirate

Apology accepted.

That's cool. In my opinion it is very relevant when we are spending 50 billion a year, when police and DEA agents are risking their lives trying to bust drug dealers, yet our own CIA was involved in bringing in possibly half of the cocaine into this country for AT LEAST a shirt time period. I say that is pretty relevant.

Of course thinking people also look at how it is US occupied Afghanistan which is producing the poppies which supply over 90% of world's heroin. Yes, thinking people would ask how we can have a war on drugs, yet a country WE occupy is the source of over 90% of the world's heroin.

But I guess this irrelevant too.

Has it evered occured to you that the police and DEA agents who you are sooooo concerned about, not only do not appreciate your concern, but are opposed to it?


We have a military presence in Afghanistan, it is utterly misleading in any historical perpective to call it an "occupation"

Funny how you never hear about the U.S. "occupation" of:
- Europe (100,000 troops)
- Japan (35,000 troops)
- South Korea (32,000 troops)

But we are "occupying" afghanistan with 22,000 troops.

Out troop presence in South Korea is approximately the same as a proportion of the population as Afghanistan, and substantially higher based on total area of the country. Geographically we have a higher troop density in both Japan and S. Koreo than Afghanistan.

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Alcoholism is socially accepted and promoted by the public as using a legal drug. Selling and smoking weed is illegal and a Christian sin that will send you straight to their hell after serving your prison time. Critical thinking not required.

Was that a bag of Krystal Burgers?

When is the last time that our soldiers attacked people, or were attacked in Afghanistan? Do we have ongoing operations there? What is our goal in Afghanistan?

When is the last time we had any of our soldiers attacked in Japan, S. Korea, or Europe?

Do we control any roads in S. Korea, or Japan, or the EU?

This next piece is from the CFR..........

Afghanistan shares borders with six countries, but the approximate 1500-mile-long Durand Line along Pakistan remains the most dangerous. Kabul has never recognized the line as an international border, instead claiming the Pashtun territories in Pakistan that comprise the Federally Administered Tribal Lands (FATA) and parts of North West Frontier Province along the border. Incidents of violence have increased on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the last year. Various reports in late 2007 showed militants gaining ground inside Pakistan and their influence has now spread to areas beyond the FATA. Similarly, in Afghanistan, violence has peaked since the ouster of the Taliban six years ago with a worrisome increase in suicide attacks.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest cultivator and supplier of opium (93 percent of the global opiates market). According to the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, opium cultivation in the country is no longer associated with poverty. In fact, quite the opposite. The report says opium is now closely linked to the insurgency and the Taliban are again using it to get “resources for arms, logistics and militia pay,” despite a foreign military presence.
The War on Terror

Since 9/11, “there is a large asymmetry of interests between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” according to Carnegie’s Grare. For Islamabad, Afghanistan is only one element in a larger game involving its policy toward India as well as its global standing, writes Grare. The relationship is mainly a bilateral issue for Afghanistan.

After 9/11, Pakistan allied itself with the United States in its war on terror. This created a dilemma for Pakistan, as it now had to hunt down the Taliban and the Islamic militant organizations it reportedly helped create in the first place. It also had to send its troops into the tribal lands where the Pakistani military has never been welcome. Incidents of Pakistani soldiers surrendering without a fight to militant organizations became common during 2007.

The Troubled Afghan-Pakistani Border - Council on Foreign Relations

In Colombia, we don't have even close to 22,000 troops, yet we spend a billion dollars a year trying to eradicate coca plants. We have created a mess so ugly there, that it has the highest murder and kidnapping rate in the world, per capita. Government officials are assassinated so often it is not even news anymore.

Now, how did all of this start?

Well, it started in NAM.......

For American military intelligence, the Vietnam War, to a very large extent, was a drug war, and, just as in Cuba, we were the dealers. Oil and other mineral wealth, of course, played a major role, as did the great defense contractor boondoggle. The Vietnam War was worth $240 billion to defense contractors in overt appropriations, and at least another $300 billion in covert and indirect appropriations. The artificial value of the opium from Laos, Burma and Thailand became, therefore, a major factor in the Indochinese military equation - the means by which our clients could pay for our arms. Drug Prohibition has made the illegal drug trade the economic basis of military power - that is, the legitimate business of military intelligence - throughout much of the world.

Drug War: CIA/Syndicate

You see, this is why former DEA agent used the words "FOR DECADES."

THE CIA has been DIRECTLY involved in the drug trade for decades. They have used the profits to help fund their overt and covert operations. They have also indirectly helped by looking the other way while drugs were being produced and sold so that those groups could then buy US weapons and do some of our dirty work for us.

If you have no problem with such hypocricy, then I will never be able to show you why it is wrong, simply because the problem lies within you.

I am curious where the drug conection is the the Vietnam war. I know nothing of this.

As far as the drug war in Columbia that was started when they asked for our help. The killing of government officials and all the blood shed was there long before we were. The only thing the American people did to help that was get addicted to cocaine. The so called "drug war" is in this country. We don't go after the countries producing the drugs we stop the ones here distributing them.

I see there is a discussion about making drugs legal to cut down on crime and jail population. Thats pretty obvious. Making any crime legal would cut down on jail population. I'm curios how many people in this discusion have been addicted to any drug, knwon someone who was, or knows the affects that different drugs have on the abilities of a person first hand.

It is?

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

Alchoholism isn't any more socialy excepted than the addiction to any other drug. Alchohol itself is. As far as being addicted to it that is the most second most known addiction in the country to nicotine. Being that alchohol is legal doesn't make being an alchoholic socialy acceptable it just makes it a bigger problem being that it is easy. Anyone can be an alchoholic and support their habit with ease. Doesn't make it less of a problem. Any drug in moderation isn't all that bad but to the extreme all caues major problems for the user and all around them.

While personal experiences are valuable, they alone are a terrible way to look at the drug problem. Yes, almost all of us have seen the effect of drugs on a person's life. They have destroyed many people and many families. Of course so has tobacco and alcohol. While tobacco usually doesn't directly effect a family even close to hard drugs, or alcohol, their are indirect effects. Alcohol, on the other hand, often times effects all those around the alcoholic. Alcohol causes more pain and suffering than ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS COMBINED. JUst ask any well seasoned cop from any US city. Are drugs bad? Duh. OF COURSE THEY ARE BAD, but so is too much junk food.

You see, one of the biggest problems with the drug issue is people want to look at all the harm drugs do, but they almost never are willing to ask themselves how much of that harm is made worse from the prohibition of drugs. No, it is much simpler to look at all the strung out drug addicts and all the horror stories from drugs and let our emotions take hold. How can we legalize drugs, look at what they did to this person, or that family, or whatever, all these examples serve to stir people's emotions, therefore they are unable to look at the problem logically.

The war on drugs has not stopped people from doing drugs. Drug use has been pretty stable for the last 25 years when the drug war was heated up. We have spent over a trillion dollars to overcrowd our prisons and jails, to support ruthless cartels who place no value on human life, to help support drug dealers and gangs who also place no value on human life, to pervert our justice system, to corrupt police, judges and elected officials, to make drugs MORE dangerous because of the impurities, to make the price so high that many people have to resort to crime to support a habit, to increase all types of crime and all types of violence, for what?

Can you name a single accomplishment of the war on drugs?

What problem associated with drug use has improved?

What are the statisitcs on teen drug use? Do you know them? I do.

How many kids die a year from huffing? How many kids get offered drugs at school every year?

The war on drugs has made EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM associated with drug use worse.

Did you ever even wonder why the USA is the only industrialized country in the world without a hemp crop? Did you ever look at the drug problem without using your emotions? Did you ever wonder how it makes sense to keep drugs illegal when we can't even keep them out of our schools and our prisons?

So maybe you are right. The drug war hasen't been very affective. So make drugs legal and easier to access. Alchohol does effect everyone around the addict but to say more than any drugs is rediculous. Would you rather have you brother be an alchoholic or a crack head. Making drugs legal will increase the number of users 10 fold. Making it more affordable also makes it much easier to overdose. Tell me how many people overdose on cocaine every year if you want to throw statistics at me.

I'm not saying that the so called war on drugs is very effective. I just want to know how legalizing drugs would solve the problem.

Did you ever look into the reason why drugs are illegal in this country. In case you didn't know at one point in time they were. You could even order morphine from a catologe. Do you have the statistics from that time. How many people were addicted and what problems did that cause in this country? I'm sure things would be much different if drugs were legal today especially since there are 5 times as many drugs now as there were then.

I do not believe there are reliable statistics from when drugs were legal, at least I have never seen them. If drugs were legalized, I do not believe drug use would increase 10 fold, or even 5 fold. For marijuana, almost half of all kids try pot before they graduate high school, so it would be impossible for use to go up 10 fold for pot.

As to drug overdose deaths, have you never looked for those statistics?

Should we count suicides in the overdose deaths?

Should we count the abuse of prescription drugs?

Here is a good piece from the state of Mew Mexico on the topic, from 2003....

http://www.health.state.nm.us/documents/ODER080603.pdf

There were 1123 unintentional drug overdoses, 221 suicides by overdose, 2 homicides by overdose and 41 overdose deaths of undetermined intent by prescription or illicit drugs in NM from 1998 through 2002. This report focuses on the 1123 unintentional overdose deaths.

There were 846 illicit drug overdose deaths and 277 overdose deaths due to prescription drugs. Heroin was the most common drug reported. Multiple drugs were identified for 636 (57%) decedents from all drug overdoses, or 57% (n=485) of illicit and 55% (n=151) of prescription drug deaths. Compared to those who died from prescription drugs, decedents from illicit drugs were likely to be younger

Now, how man y of these overdose deaths from illegal drugs were because of impurities in the drug, or because of drastic changes in quality, both of which are a result of the prohibition of drugs?

There is no way to know, but tainted heroin has killed many people.

Here is a chart on National deaths.........

Tobacco 435,0001
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,0001
Alcohol 85,000 1
Microbial Agents 75,0001
Toxic Agents 55,0001
Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,3471
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,0002
Suicide 30,6223
Incidents Involving Firearms 29,0001
Homicide 20,3084
Sexual Behaviors 20,0001
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,0001, 5
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,6006
Marijuana 07

Drug War Facts: Annual Causes of Death in the United States

EVER DO A SEARCH ON TAINTED HEROIN?

CHICAGO -- Police believe heroin dealers are cutting their product with a powerful drug that is having deadly results.

Two more deaths over the weekend were attributed to the tainted heroin -- bringing the total to 24, NBC5's Amy Jacobson reported.

The synthetic drug is called Fentanyl -- and it's 100 times stronger than heroin, according to officials.


Deaths From Bad Heroin Increasing - News Story - WMAQ | Chicago

Officials from Philadelphia to Chicago have reported deaths from the drug, called fentanyl and considered 80 times more powerful than morphine. In the Detroit area - the apparent hub of the problem with more than 100 confirmed cases since last fall and as many as 41 possible deaths in the past eight days - officials from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating and community organizations are scrambling to get the word out to users.

The CDC says it has no national statistics on fentanyl deaths. But individual reports from a scattering of states indicate the drug mixture is widespread.

Philadelphia has had 20 confirmed deaths from heroin mixed with fentanyl since April 17, and test results are pending in eight suspected cases, the city health department said.

In New Jersey, where officials first raised the alarm about the drug in April, there have been about 10 confirmed fentanyl deaths and 10 to 20 suspected cases since last month, according to the state's poison control center.

In Chicago, 30 people died from fentanyl or fentanyl-laced heroin from September 2005 to March 2006, said Christopher Hoyt, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in that city. In addition, 23 suspected cases were reported in April and May.

"This is a huge, huge problem," said Stephen Marcus, medical director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center.

In Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Medical Examiner Carl J. Schmidt said he began noticing a rise in fentanyl-related deaths in September. In total, medical examiners found 63 people who died in Wayne County with fentanyl in their blood last year. From the beginning of 2006 to mid-April, there were 70 such cases.

13abc.com: Tainted Heroin 5/27/06

WHEN LOOKING AT STATISITICS IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THE METHODOLOGY, for instance..........

[i]Trends in Mortality Rates: 1990-98

During most of the 1990s, the categorization of drug poisoning deaths did not allow easy distinction between deaths caused by prescription drugs and deaths caused by street drugs. Major data categories included opiates, cocaine, other drugs, and unspecified drugs. During this time period, rates rose in all major categories, including opiates and cocaine. The label “opiates” did not distinguish between heroin and prescription opiates (also known as opioid analgesics) so it was difficult to determine how much of the change in opiate deaths was attributed to heroin and how much to prescription opioid analgesics. Prescription drugs used for psychotherapeutic purposes (including sedatives and antipsychotic drugs) also caused an increasing number of deaths during the 1990s, but such deaths represented a much smaller share of the total than deaths attributed to opiates.

The new coding protocol also allowed researchers to determine specifically which drugs were involved in these deaths by allowing disaggregation of the “narcotics” and “other/unspecified” categories into their 3 largest components: opioid analgesics, cocaine, and heroin. Opioid analgesics include derivatives from opium, such as oxycodone or hydrocodone, as well as synthetic drugs with similar action, such as methadone. Analysis of these data, published last year, showed that the slow increase in cocaine-related mortality seen earlier continued after 1999, while the number of deaths involving heroin stabilized. In contrast, the number of deaths involving prescription opioid analgesics increased from roughly 2,900 in 1999 to 7,500 in 2004, an increase of 160% in just 5 years.[1] By 2004, opioid painkiller deaths numbered more than the total of deaths involving heroin and cocaine. For the first time, it became apparent that prescribed controlled substances were driving the upward trend in drug poisoning mortality.

Trends in Unintentional Drug Poisoning Deaths

See those stats? Cocaine deaths increased slowly, heroin deaths were stable and PRESCRIPTION OPIATE DRUG OVERDOSES INCREASED 160% IN 5 YEARS.

Oxycontin is likely the number one reason for this increase.

From 2003 to 2004, illegal drug use was down among teens, but......

The survey noted some areas that raise concern. For example, while the rates of Vicodin abuse did not change significantly from 2003 to 2004, Vicodin was used by 9.3% of 12th graders, 6.2% of 10th graders and 2.5% of 8th graders in the past year. OxyContin was used in the past year by 5% of 12th graders, 3.5% of 10th graders and 1.7% of 8th graders in 2004. These rates were not significantly different from the rates in 2003; however, when all three grades were combined, there was a significant increase in past year OxyContin use between 2002 and 2004.

"We're pleased that the survey indicates that overall drug use is continuing to decline. However, it does show an increase in the use of painkillers.

The 2004 data also show that lifetime inhalant use for 8th-graders increased significantly. Inhalants are easily accessible in the form of household and office products. Commonly abused inhalants include glue, shoe polish, and gasoline.

"We are concerned about the increasing number of 8th graders using inhalants. Research has found that even a single session of repeated inhalant abuse can disrupt heart rhythms and cause death from cardiac arrest or lower oxygen levels enough to cause suffocation. Regular abuse of these substances can result in serious harm to vital organs including the brain, heart, kidneys, and liver," said NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow.

NIDA - Newsroom - 2004 Monitoring the Future Survey on Teen Drug Use

FOR MORE RECENT INFO, FROM 2006, SEE....

Teen drug use continues down in 2006, particularly among older teens; but
use of prescription-type drugs remains high


Teen drug use continues down in 2006, particularly among older teens; but <b style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99">use</b> of prescription-type drugs remains high

HUFFING STATS ALSO REMAIN HIGH AND HUFFING CAN KILL EVEN THE FIRST TIME USER. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find many statistics on national drug deaths from huffing.

Here is one official stat...........

According to Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) Medical Examiner data, inhalants were a factor in over 500 deaths in the United States from 1996 to 1999. Medical examiner data provided by DAWN cover only 40 metropolitan areas in the United States; thus, many inhalant-related deaths across the country are not reflected in DAWN data.

Intelligence Brief: Huffing--The Abuse of Inhalants

You see, you will NEVER, EVER, stop drug use in the USA. People who wish to get high will do so, even if they have to steal prescription drugs, or huff dangerous chemicals, when there is a will, there is a way.

It's time to stop trying to LEGISLATE MORALITY, it has never worked and never will.