October 24, 2008
Budget cutting? Take a hatchet to the war on drugs
Joe Conason has a good piece in Salon about the war on drugs. Want to cut waste and abuse? How about starting with the $50 billion we spend every year on the war on drugs. And why aren't either McCain or Obama talking it?
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4 comments:
yeah, no shit....
Such a topic would be politically difficult for either candidate.
Perhaps it would be more politically palatable for them to dismantle with drug war without much fanfare?
There are things we can do to improve matters before we even get around to legalization. Most importantly, we can treat the fourth amendment like it still matters. This would entail doing away with so-called "consent searches." I just signed a petition dealing with this issue that was sent to my state's governor. We could also do away with no-knock raids, which are terribly dangerous for police and citizens alike. At the same time we can push for marijuana de-criminalization measures on the state level while pressuring the feds to butt out of these issues. In fact, handing the drug issue over to the states might be the best way to fight for a sane drug policy.
In New York State drugs found during a Terry Frisk cannot be used against that person in charging them with a drug crime (though they will be confiscated). Of course from the police perspective there are sketchy ways of getting around that, but it's still a good start.
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