Arianna Huffington: Drug War a 'War on Our Own People'

• Drugs don't kill people - people do
• Alcohol doesn't kill people- people do
• Guns don't kill people - people do

v

I'm showing my naievete here but I cannot for the life of me figure out how the legalization of any drug would be better for this country because a lot of people want the legalization of marijuana so it can be taxed and sold to the masses.. Well the masses are already growing it and selling it "under the table" so to speak without having to pay tax on it, etc. so I guess I fail to see where a guy is making tax free money would go along with this plan to have it legalized so that the government can go in and take their share of his "profit". Makes no sense - if anything the problem will get worse because these people will be selling these goods on a black market and the gov't will spend loads of cash going after these people to get their cut.

And you are right cowboy, making these drugs readily available to Ms. Houston would keep her alive? Makes NO sense whatsoever because she wanted lots and lots of drugs. Whether they are legal or illegal, would not stop her from taking the "recommended dosage" and furthermore she could still take these drugs with alcohol - which if you look at any prescribed medication it tells you "do not mix with alcohol". So unless a person modifies their own behavior - the result would still be the same. You can't regulate a person's behavior no matter how hard you try. The end result would still be the same. By all accounts - well depending on who you speak to - one person's "upbeat and happy Whitney" is another's "erratic Whitney" - she smelled of alcohol. Combine that with prescribed medication the combination is bound to be fatal.

There is a drug war going on and it's being waged against the users of all drugs, both legal and illegal. If this wasn't the case then the abusers of these drugs would be more inclined to seek help. Just wait till you need adequate pain-medication then you'll understand what I mean.

Secondly, when was the last time you heard of a shoot-out between alcohol bootleggers? have any of you neighbors been poisoned (or gone blind) from drinking black-market hooch lately?

If you support prohibition then you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history.

If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.

If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons.

If you support prohibition you've helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging.

If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.

If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent.

If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets.

If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Murder, Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.

If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.

If you support prohibition you've helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others.

If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.

If you support prohibition then you are guilty of turning the federal, state and local governments into a gargantuan organized crime syndicate, interested only in protecting it's own corrupt interests. -- The very acts for which we initially created governments to protect us from, have become institutionalized. Thanks to prohibition, government now provides 'services' at the barrel of a gun.

Prohibition has triggered the worst crime wave in history, escalating gang warfare even beyond what was experienced in the dark-days of alcohol bootlegging.

* It has created a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike.

* It has put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on our streets.

* It has made these substances widely available even in schools and prisons.

* It has created a prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.

* It has helped remove many important civil liberties from the very citizens it falsely claims to represent.

* It has grossly inflated the number of people on welfare who can't find employment due to their felony status.

* It has grossly escalated Murder, Kidnapping, Extortion, Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.

* It has diverted scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.

* It has overcrowded the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others.

* It has evolved local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, helping them control vast swaths of territory while gifting them with significant social and military resources.

Imagine if we were to chop down every single tree on the planet as a response to our failure to prevent tree-climbing accidents. That's what our misguided drug policy looks like.

Exactly. Essentially, drugs are as if they were legal in the entertainment industry and the music business. If you want to see what would happen to the general population under drug legalization, just look at those two industries.

If you support the Kool-Aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, tortured corpses, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, economic tribulation, unemployment and the complete loss of the rule of law.

The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Legalized Regulation would mean the opposite!

Prohibition is nothing less than a grotesque dystopian nightmare; if you support it you must be either ignorant, stupid, brainwashed, insane or corrupt.

"A man with conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."
-- Leon Festinger

Nowadays, since the research comparing the effectiveness of Vicodin versus Ibuprofen after tooth extraction, you may just get Ibuprofen after root canal.

I still shake my head that the FDA removes certain narcotics that are popularly abused only to replace them with equivalent or greater potency narcotics that become popular for abuse. Newer is not necessarily better and addicts figure out what's good without the FDA.

There is only talk of banning certain nationalities from visiting coffee-shops or hash-bars, so what are you hoping to gain by posting an outright lie?

While bullets fly into El Paso and bodies pile up in the streets of Juarez, and thugs with gold-plated AK-47s and albino tiger pens are beheading federal officials and dissolving their torsos in vats of acid, here are some facts concerning the peaceful situation in Holland. --Please save a copy and use it as a reference when debating prohibitionists who claim the exact opposite concerning reality as presented here below:

Cannabis-coffee-shops are not only restricted to the Capital of Holland, Amsterdam. They can be found in more than 50 cities and towns across the country. At present, only the retail sale of five grams is tolerated, so production remains criminalized. The mayors of a majority of the cities with coffeeshops have long urged the national government to also decriminalize the supply side.

A poll taken last year indicated that some 50% of the Dutch population thinks cannabis should be fully legalized while only 25% wanted a complete ban. Even though 62% of the voters said they had never taken cannabis. An earlier poll also indicated 80% opposing coffee shop closures.

It is true that the number of coffee shops has fallen from its peak of around 2,500 throughout the country to around 700 now. The problems, if any, concern mostly marijuana-tourists and are largely confined to cities and small towns near the borders with Germany and Belgium. These problems, mostly involve traffic jams, and are the result of cannabis prohibition in neighboring countries. Public nuisance problems with the coffee shops are minimal when compared with bars, as is demonstrated by the rarity of calls for the police for problems at coffee shops.

While it is true that lifetime and past-month use rates did increase back in the seventies and eighties, the critics shamefully fail to report that there were comparable and larger increases in cannabis use in most, if not all, neighboring countries which continued complete prohibition.

According to the World Health Organization only 19.8 percent of the Dutch have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.
In Holland 9.7% of young adults (aged 15 to 24) consume soft drugs once a month, comparable to the level in Italy (10.9%) and Germany (9.9%) and less than in the UK (15.8%) and Spain (16.4%). Few transcend to becoming problem drug users (0.44%), well below the average (0.52%) of the compared countries.

The WHO survey of 17 countries finds that the United States has the highest usage rates for nearly all illegal substances.

In the U.S. 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the U.S. again leading the world by a large margin.

Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the U.S. led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in Holland, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 -- roughly one-third of the U.S. figure.

In 1998, the US Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey claimed that the U.S. had less than half the murder rate of the Netherlands. That’s drugs, he explained. The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics immediately issued a special press release explaining that the actual Dutch murder rate is 1.8 per 100,000 people, or less than one-quarter the U.S. murder rate.

Here’s a very recent article by a psychiatrist from Amsterdam, exposing Drug Czar misinformation. Just put the following sentence in GOOGLE: "Amsterdam Psychiatrist Blasts US Drug Czars for Distortions, Fear-Mongering"

The Netherlands also provides heroin on prescription under tight regulation to about 1500 long-term heroin addicts for whom methadone maintenance treatment has failed.

The Dutch justice ministry announced, in May 2009, the closure of eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty. There's simply not enough criminals.

The following facts are indisputable:

* Our heavily militarized Police force is effectively laying siege to black neighborhoods. This is not happening with the same force and zeal in predominantly white neighborhoods.

* (2009) Afro-Americans do not use drugs at a perceivable higher rate (9.6%) than white Americans (8.8%)

* Afro-Americans are being stopped and searched at a far higher frequency than white Americans.

* Afro-Americans represent just 12.2 % of the population but are 37% of those arrested for drug offenses.

* Afro-Americans comprise 53% of drug convictions but are just 12.2% of the population.

* Afro-Americans comprise 67 percent of all people imprisoned for drug offenses but are just 12.2% of the population.

* One out of three young African American (ages 18 to 35) men are in prison or on some form of supervised release.

* There are more African American men in prison than in college. That's a four times higher percentage of Black men in prison than South Africa at the height of apartheid. 

In July 2011 The NAACP passed an "historic" resolution, calling for an end to drug prohibition. Very soon, many other civic organizations, the entire faith community and all persons of good conscience will join the many who are already demanding that this horrific assault on the African-American community be halted immediately. What about YOU?

Whatever the exact dynamics involved, these racial disparities are a direct result of drug-prohibition and are quite clearly unacceptable. This dangerous and costly moronothon has done nothing but result in generations of incarcerated and disenfranchised Afro Americans. Any citizen not doing their utmost to help reverse this perverse injustice may duly hang their head in shame.

"The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice"
- Martin Luther King Jr

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
- Desmond Tutu

You fail!

The only people that believe prohibition is working are the ones making a living by enforcing laws in it's name, or those amassing huge fortunes on the black market profits. This situation is wholly unsustainable, and as history has shown us, conditions will continue to deteriorate until we all finally (just like our forefathers) see sense and revert back to tried and tested methods of regulation. - None of these substances, legal or illegal, are ever going to go away, but we CAN decide to implement policies that do far more good than harm.

During alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, 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 treatment. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?

So should the safety and freedom of the rest of us be compromised because of the few who cannot control themselves?

Many of us no longer think it should!

You want to legalize drugs, make the argument. Not these non sequiturs that because war on X has failed, we should now legalize X. We have a war on cancer. We ain't won that one yet. Should we stop trying? We have the Global War on Terrorism. We have no elimated every terrorist. Should we simply stop trying?

casual pot smokers. While most states have penalties of a year or more for possession of marijuana, they're almost never enforced. Ask the next 1 million casual pot smokers if they've ever had their home raided and 999,999 will say no. It just doesn't happen. Why? Because law enforcement is not actually going after marijuana. Now, it is true that there are people in prison on marijuana convictions but the vast majority are actually lesser included charges or plea bargains down from distribution and/or possession of other-than-marijuana CDS or weapons violations. This is what the advocates like to ignore in their statistics. You bust a dealer of cocaine in his home and 99% of the time you'll find marijuana and paraphernalia along with cash and weapons.

I can tell you (and some may have already surmised) that the illegal drug issue is very dear to my heart as a family member has been struggling with it for several years. I can also tell you that I've sat through multiple court proceedings in Baltimore City District Court where nearly every single case is drug related. And I can honestly say that in the literally dozens of cases I witnessed in court, NOT ONE, not a single one was for marijuana. Most were heroin or crack cocaine. Several included weapons charges. And almost all of the possession-only charges resulted in a nolle prosequi by the State. I've watched as defendant after defendant was brought before the judge -in restraints as they're being held on other, more significant charges- only to have the DA nulle pros the possession charges and let them return to their cell to await prosecution on the distribution and weapons charges at a later date. One after another. I'd guess fully 10% of the docket. The truth that advocates don't want to admit is that States Attorneys are simply not interested in users with judges preferring to order treatment over incarceration; it's the dealers that draw the focus.

I can also tell you that there is a game being played here. It's easy to arrest users, especially when they're making a purchase. Often times they're out-of-place in the surroundings and easy to spot. Police will observe and then roll up before the purchaser can evacuate the area. Most times the seller is not even bothered even though police know who they are. Why? Because most often a single charge of distribution isn't enough to even detain someone overnight and unless they've got violent priors; they're often released OR within hours. The police don't catch the dealer with drugs on his person because the deal is arranged ahead of time and only the amount agreed upon is brought by the dealer. So, they arrest the buyer who has the drugs on him. It's a sure-fire conviction-worthy arrest -even if there's a likelihood the DA will nulle pros when the case is called. But- and here's the game- conviction isn't the goal for the police; not for the buyer, anyway. The arrest is step one in trying to get the buyer to roll over on the seller. They plea bargain with the buyer a nulle prosequi on the possession charge in exchange for a certain number of buys on a dealer(s). They use this evidence to build a larger case on the dealer(s) with the hope of securing a warrant for search and seizure of a residence. This is the prize. This is how they take down the neighborhood distributors. They're the people populating the prison cells.

But if you'd like to see what makes your clock tick:

http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

* In 2010, 52.1% of the 1,638,846 total arrests for prohibition violations were for marijuana -- making a calculated total of 853,839.

* Of those, an estimated 750,591 people (45.8%) were arrested for marijuana possession alone.

* By contrast, in 2000, a total of 734,497 Americans were arrested for marijuana "violations", of which 646,042 (40.9%) were for possession alone.

* From 1996-2010, there were 10.1 million arrests for marijuana possession and 1.4 million arrests for the sales and distribution of marijuana, equaling a total of 11.5 million marijuana arrests during that fifteen year time frame.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Marijuana#Total

* Marijuana "violation" arrests were 39.9% of total prohibition arrests in 1995 increasing to 52.1% of such arrests in 2010.

* During this same period, arrests for marijuana sales and distribution fluctuated between 5-6% of total prohibition arrests, while those for simple possession increased from 34.1% in 1995 to 45.8% in 2010.

* Arrests for marijuana possession have risen from about a third to about a half of all prohibition violation arrests over the fifteen year 1995-2010 period.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Marijuana#Share

Hi aca,
Maybe we should send all the druggies to Australia. That would pretty much clear out the civilized areas around the world and place all the undesirables on one continent surrounded by water. This might save AA from bankruptcy(a bonus) and at the same time free up all the drug warriors for more productive duties like giving $1000 tickets to frisbee throwers on beaches.

That's their choice, I hope everyone can wake up and admit that we lost the drug war. Millions are addicted and we have armies of bureaucrats (with guns) trying to 'fix it'. Doesn't sound like a strategy based on liberty to me.

I would also urge anyone that drinks to put down the glass before talking badly about the effects of marijuana. That would be refreshing.

nearly all of the most dangerously abused drugs did not exist 150 years ago, or even 98 years ago when the first narcotics taxation legislation went into effect. Heroin and other highly potent opioids are the precise reason that narcotic taxation was introduced, as it is a time-tested and heavily reliable form of controlling access and demand in most cases. It is true that we cannot stop addiction, nor can we stop the massive amounts of diversion of legitimate prescription drugs from being acquired or abused. It is also true that most of the people who are addicted to these opioids were not heroin addicts, but rather had access to it from some legitimate prescribing at some point. The more potent semi-synthetic opioids did not start to appear until the 40s and 50s when drugs like fentanyl and its derivaties, hydrocodone, oxycodone and hydromorphone were approved by the FDA. Methadone dates from the late 30s and saw use as a pain medication in German soldiers during World War II, but it was not until after the war that researchers found that had a very serious side-effect profile.

The discovery of other commonly abused drugs date primarily from the 1940s/1950s onward. The benzodiazepine sedative/hypnotic class dates from the late 1950s when the first of the class chlordiazepoxide (Librium) and diazepam (Valium) were first marketed. After that came a virtual slew of other compounds which quickly became abused. The problem has been exacerbated recently by the massive increase in oral high-potency opioid products commercially available and used in legitmate pain management. The major issue is improper prescribing and dispensing by less than reputable professionals in the pill mill industry. If you live in Florida or Texas, you know what I am talking about.

Society is also fundamentally different now than it was in the era when the 1914 narcotics taxation legislation was passed. Morphine, laudanum (a form of raw opium) and semi-synthetic opioids were rampant and abused to the point where it truly was a national epidemic. There were some controls on these drugs already at the state level, so it was not just as easy as going to a drug store and picking up a few hundred morphine sulfate tablets and having a backyard drug party.

While I can see some people may consider this to be a simple matter of legalization, those countries that have tried this route learned a painful lesson that allowing unfettered access to any potential drug of abuse is not a good idea. In the end, it only increases costs on an already overly burdened health care system.

There is a simple solution to the drug problem. Just like floride for your teeth, put something in the water that makes you sick when you use drugs or drink booze. Problem solved! I leave it to the docs and dictators to provide the details.

could work ....

Speaking as someone who deals with drug addicts on a daily basis...

Given that drug use is so "illegal" after billions have been spent on their eradication since the Nixon years, why are you still dealing with them on a daily basis?

BTW: Have you dealt with anyone whose innocent family members were killed by drug dealers?

Have you dealt with anyone who whose innocent family member was killed when the cops kicked in the wrong door?

Have you dealt with anyone who had their property confiscated because of a random accusation that later proved to be false, yet their seized property was never returned to them, regardless of what the Constitution says?

Have you ever dealt with a landlord who had their property snatched because they had a tenant that stored their stash in the freezer?

Hmm?

-Dave

I really don't understand how this got so off the track...

Pickle didn't do it....we don't need to cannibalize each other.

Please re-read, and if you went off, prematurely, apologize!

Let's stay all together now, Conservatives!

Alcohol is a factor in the following:

* 73% of all felonies * 73% of child beating cases * 41% of rape cases * 80% of wife battering cases * 72% of stabbings * 83% of homicides.

According to the Australian National Drug Research Institute (2003): "Tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs are prematurely killing around seven million people worldwide each year, and robbing tens of millions more of a healthy life. The research into the global burden of disease attributable to alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs found that in 2000, tobacco use was responsible for 4.9 million deaths worldwide, equating to 71 percent of all drug-related deaths. Around 1.8 million deaths were attributable to the use of alcohol (26 percent of all drug-related deaths), and illicit drugs (heroin, cocaine and amphetamines) caused approximately 223,000 deaths (3 percent of all drug-related deaths)."

According to DrugRehabs.Org, national mortality figures for 2009 were: tobacco 435,000; poor diet and physical inactivity 365,000; alcohol 85,000; microbial agents 75,000; toxic agents 55,000; motor vehicle crashes 26,347; adverse reactions to prescription drugs 32,000; suicide 30,622; incidents involving firearms 29,000; homicide 20,308; sexual behaviors 20,000; all illicit drug use, direct and indirect 17,000; and marijuana 0.

Researchers led by Professor David Nutt, a former chief drugs adviser to the British government, asked drug-harm experts to rank 20 drugs (legal and illegal) on 16 measures of harm to the user and to wider society, such as damage to health, drug dependency, economic costs and crime. Alcohol scored 72 out of a possible 100, far more damaging than heroin (55) or crack cocaine (54). It is the most harmful to others by a wide margin, and is ranked fourth behind heroin, crack, and methamphetamine (crystal meth) for harm to the individual.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that in the U.S. alone, an estimated 79,000 lives are lost annually due to "excessive" drinking. The study estimates that the overall cost of excessive drinking by Americans is $223.5 billion each year.

http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(11)00538-1/abstract

Health-related costs per user are eight times higher for those who drink alcohol when compared to those who use marijuana, and are more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers, according to a 2009 review published in the British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Journal.
It states, "In terms of [health-related] costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user."

http://www.heretohelp.bc.ca/publications/cannabis/bck/7

Having three or more alcoholic drinks a day increased lung cancer risk by 30 percent.
“Heavy drinking has multiple harmful effects, including cardiovascular complications and increased risk for lung cancer,”
- lead researcher Stanton Siu, MD, of Kaiser Permanente

http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/alcohol/heavy-alcohol-consumption-...

Apart from the fact that legal drugs kill far more people than all the illegal drugs combined, debating whether a particular drug is harmless or not is missing the whole point. Are drugs like Heroin, Meth or Alcohol dangerous? It simply doesn't matter, because if we prohibit them then we sure as hell know that it makes a bad situation far worse. If someone wants to attempt to enhance or destroy their lives with particular medicines or poisons, that should be their business, not anybody else's. Their lives aren't ours to direct. And anyway, who wants to give criminals, terrorists and corrupt law enforcement agents a huge un-taxed, endless revenue stream?

Absolutely and demonstrably untrue.

"The objective of this screening (process) is to ensure that no threat items are being hidden on the person. These additional searches may take many forms, including pat-downs and use of explosives trace detection."

http://www.tsa.gov/

Whatever you may have imagined with regards to TSA "pat downs" the "War on Drugs" is demonstrably NOT on of the "main reasons" for their implementation.

Further evidence that these "pat downs" had little to do with the illegal drug interdiction is the TSA's continuing efforts to move away from physical pat downs as the norm and move toward tech based detection solutions via AIT or Advanced Imaging Technology.

While I agree that these pat downs were a gross violation of the peoples rights to be secure in their person from unlawful search and seizure their implementation had little or nothing to do with drug interdiction.

No one is after you...you're just paranoid.

If you ever decide to surface then check this out : http://www.ciadrugs.com/

The DEA is the CIA’s way of eliminating the competition!

William F. Buckley was for legalized regulation of all drugs - do you honestly think he was scum?

Here is a short excerpt from a statement he gave In 1995, to the New York Bar Association:

"I HAVE spared you, even as I spared myself, an arithmetical consummation of my inquiry, but the data here cited instruct us that the cost of the drug war is many times more painful, in all its manifestations, than would be the licensing of drugs combined with intensive education of non-users and intensive education designed to warn those who experiment with drugs. We have seen a substantial reduction in the use of tobacco over the last thirty years, and this is not because tobacco became illegal but because a sentient community began, in substantial numbers, to apprehend the high cost of tobacco to human health, even as, we can assume, a growing number of Americans desist from practicing unsafe sex and using polluted needles in this age of AIDS. If 80 million Americans can experiment with drugs and resist addiction using information publicly available, we can reasonably hope that approximately the same number would resist the temptation to purchase such drugs even if they were available at a federal drugstore at the mere cost of production."

William F. Buckley - Why Drugs Should Be Legal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3OH6SDGqcM

Your first link is from a nutcase 9/11 Truther and the second linke doesn't work.

You're pathetic.

Really, you've sat in mom's basement now for a year and 32 weeks and the best you can come up with is a Troofer and some video on youtube?Or the UN or South Americans who profit from drug trafficking?  And the CIA was responsible for Lockerbie?

You're a clown, malky, why don't you just toodle on back down to mom's basement and suck on that bong.  Or take up the challenge that one of the posters gave you, and go mainline that heroin. 

The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada recently reviewed 15 studies that evaluated the association between violence and drug law enforcement. "Our findings suggest that increasing drug law enforcement is unlikely to reduce drug market violence. Instead, the existing evidence base suggests that gun violence and high homicide rates may be an inevitable consequence of drug prohibition and that disrupting drug markets can paradoxically increase violence."

http://tinyurl.com/c4uyecn

Stephen Anderson, a former New York Police Department (NYPD) narcotics detective, recently testified that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way for officers to meet arrest quotas. This practice has cost New York city $1.2 million to settle cases of false arrests. In Anderson's own words: "The corruption I observed ... was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators," -- Anderson was busted back in 2008 for planting cocaine on four men in a Queens bar.

“This has been going on for forty years. These corruptions are emerging all over the country. It’s not systemic to a police department, per se, but it is systemic to the War on Drugs in the context that the federal government is basically corrupting local government with their funds and the helter-skelter way of putting these task forces together and diverting local police from their basic public safety duties to the priorities of the federal government in terms of the War on Drugs.” -- Former Deputy Chief Stephen Downing, a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), who was in charge of implementing Nixon's War on Drugs in Los Angeles.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...............

You're cutting and pasting from your OWN posts now??

Or is that when you fly back north after the winter? Whatever. Clean up the loon vomit you left all over this page before you go.

.