The domestic “war on drugs” may someday come to a ceasefire if the United States implements the laissez-faire policy of other countries, said a legal policy analyst said in Barristers Hall to an audience of Boston University students.
In a discussion hosted by the BU Federalist Society, David Rittgers, a member of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the United States has been funding a war on drug abuse and narcotics trafficking since Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in 1919, spending billions of dollars in effort to end drug-related crimes and imprison offenders.
“There would be significant cost savings if we ended the war on drugs,” Rittgers said. “If we tax drug revenues at rates comparable to those of alcohol and tobacco, we’d save about $46.7 billion annually in marijuana [enforcement].”
Americans are more involved in issues with narcotics than any other civilized country, he said.
“The United States is the lynch-man,” Rittgers said. “The United States has both the highest per capita drug use and the highest per capita level criminalization of drug use in the first world.”
Rittgers said the high rate of crimes associated with drugs could be due to the accessibility of narcotics trafficking.
“The allure of the drug trade is that you don’t need an education to do it,” Rittgers said. “You can drop out of school at 15 and make money off it.”
Rittgers said advisors would have to thoroughly consider laws before enacting them if they want the regulations to be enforced.
“There are drugs that we aren’t comfortable legalizing, but marijuana would be a good start,” Rittgers said. “I think it’s less dangerous than alcohol in terms of health. I don’t think that crystal meth is something that we’ll ever be comfortable legalizing.”
Rittgers said he served three tours as an Army and Special Forces officer in Afghanistan, where he gained insight into U.S. drug enforcement policy in the Middle East, specifically concerning Afghanistan’s poppy industry, which produces most of the world’s opium.
“What we have right now is madness in Afghanistan with regards to drug eradication policy.”
Since poppy crops are such an enormous industry in Afghanistan, Rittgers said expulsion of this drug would be detrimental to the country’s economy.
Rittgers also discussed the effects of drug decriminalization in Portugal, which has experienced a significant drop in its rate of drug abuse.
“The bottom line is that drug use went down in the category that they worried most about, the eighth-grade demographic.”
Rittgers said drug cartels south of the border are also a growing issue for domestic policy on drugs.
Not only are illegal cartels capable of transporting narcotics, they also have the power to transport potentially dangerous cargo-like weapons.
“They have $1 million submarines that they use to get across the maritime boundaries,” Rittgers said.
Daniel Suraci, president of the Federalist Society and second-year student in the BU School of Law, said that Rittgers’ opinions align with those of the Federalist Society.
“I had Mr. Rittgers come because the Federalist Society embraces an original view of the Constitution,” Suraci said.
“They get good speakers and this is a topic that interests me. I think they should make everything legal,” said Kevin Gregg, a first-year School of Law student.
Some students in the audience are skeptical about drug legalization.
“I think legalization is a good idea, but it’s legally impossible,” said first-year LAW student Bert Forsyth.
Many students at the discussion said they believe that too much money is being put into drug eradication.
“I think throwing money at the problem isn’t doing anything unless interventions are more effective and preventative,” said School of Education freshman Esther Marsden.
“I think that a lot of money that could be used elsewhere goes to punishing people who are involved with drugs instead of helping them in some way,” said SED freshman Julian Haller.
Haller said he thinks that current U.S. drug policy creates a permanent lower class.
“It definitely creates a cycle where you are punished, go to jail and are prevented from getting a job when you get out,” Haller said.
SED freshman Victoria Bado said confronting drug use is hopeless.
“Obviously it’s a growing problem, but there’s really no way to stop it,” Bado said.
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Alcohol prohibition in the US run from 1919 to 1933 – Now google ‘The Great Wall Street Crash’ and see when that happened!
During alcohol prohibition, all profits went to enrich thugs and criminals. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on education etc. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?
http://1929crash.com/
China has recently been in negotiation with a number of countries, asking them to replace the Dollar with the Chinese Yuan as their reserve currency. This, when it happens, will remove the Federal Government’s ability to keep printing cash to cover the trillions it costs to fund prohibition. It’ll mean true freedom but the transition period may well bring consequences that are far more horrific than a slasher movie. — It never had to be this way; we should have learned our lesson from studying the mayhem that alcohol prohibition wreaked on us.
We all have our victories and defeats as regards fear, but most of us strive not to let fear rule our hearts or our minds. Being free means being free to live and love as if death and fear had no power over us. Freedom also means that we have an ethical and moral responsibility to expose blind hate, lies and ignorance by shining eternal light, truth and love, sending such dark forces fleeing to the shadows from whence they came.
We explore outer space with various forms of space craft, but many choose to explore inner space via nature’s abundant chemistry – an infinite journey into the heart of God. Whatever, we are here to explore this glorious universe. The Prohibitionist’s brand of hateful, choking pseudo-Conservatism is the antithesis of all that. Like a lion who cannot grasp that he can do more than walk in a circle the size of the cage he’s recently been freed from, the prohibitionist is incapable of exploration beyond the boundaries of his own fear, prejudice and loathing. We are all free to choose how we walk our own path, but when we choose to go beyond this by supporting drug-war demagoguery, to the point of even threatening others with imprisonment, we loose the right to expect any form of respect from the once free and prosperous society that we are helping to totally destroy.
Thanks to prohibition we’re about to lose all semblance of that once ordered, prosperous and safe society. Myself, along with many others, have been debating prohibitionists on this for many years. We have shown what destruction prohibition has wrought on all the civil institutions of this once great nation, -we’ve always provided facts and statistics – they, the prohibitionists, have countered with either lies, personal abuse or even serious threats of violence.
Ending the insanity of drug prohibition by legalized regulation, respecting the rights of the responsible users and focusing on addiction as a sickness, like we do with alcohol and tobacco, may save what remains of our economy and civil institutions along with countless lives and livelihoods. Prohibition continues unabated for shameful political reasons. It cannot, and never will, reduce drug use or addiction.
Prohibition has permanently scarred our national character as well as our individual psyches. Our national policies and cultural practices have become pervaded by the fascistic, prohibitionist mind-set which has turned our domestic police force into a bunch of paramilitary thugs who often commit extra-judicial beatings and executions while running roughshod over our rights in order to “protect us from ourselves”.
When we eventually manage to put the horrors of this toxic moronothon behind us, we’ll need to engage in some very deep and honest soul-searching as to what we want to be as a nation. Many of our freedoms have been severely circumscribed or lost altogether, our economy has been trashed and our international reputation for being “free and fair” has been dragged through a putrid sewer by vicious narrow-minded drug warrior zealots who are ignorant of abstract concepts such as truth, justice and decency. We’ll need to make sure that such a catastrophe is never ever repeated. This may mean that public hearings or tribunals will be held where those who have been the instigators and cheerleaders of this abomination will have to answer for their serious crimes against our once prosperous and proud nation.
Each day you remain silent, you help to destroy the Constitution, fill the prisons with our children, and empower terrorists and criminals worldwide while wasting hundreds of billions of your own tax dollars. Prohibition bears many strong and startling similarities to Torquemada’s inquisition, it’s supporters are servants of tyranny and hate. If you’re aware of but not enraged by it’s shear waste and cruel atrocities then both your heart and soul must surely be dead.
Prohibition engendered black market profits are obscenely huge. Remove this and you remove the ability to bribe or threaten any government official or even whole governments. The argument that legalized regulation won’t severely cripple organized crime is truly bizarre. Of course, the bad guys won’t just disappear, but if you severely diminish their income, you also severely diminish their power. The proceeds from theft, extortion, pirated goods etc. are a drop in the ocean compared to what can be earned by selling prohibited/unregulated drugs in a black market estimated to be worth 400,000 million dollars. Without the lure and power of so much easy capital, it’s also very unlikely that new criminal enterprises will ever fill the void left by those you successfully disrupt or entirely eradicate.
Millions of fearless North Africans have recently shown us that recognizing oppression also carries the weight of responsibility to act upon and oppose that oppression. Prohibition is a vicious anti-constitutional assault on ALL American citizens by a criminally insane and dysfunctional government, which left unchallenged will end with the destruction of the entire nation.
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
– Abraham Lincoln, November 12, 1864
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…”
– The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776