Drug war thrad
 

I haven't seen a thrad related to the drug war in quite some time and I'm too lazy to look for one, so the news that as of 2010, the drug war is now killing more people than the war in Afghanistan seems like a nice time to start a new one. Unsurprisingly, thousands in Mexico have been taking to the streets to protest, but it is also not particularly surprising that the same is not happening here. It seems rather unlikely that matters will change until widespread protests begin to occur.

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To be honest the whole thing is an hour long (it's divided into several parts) and I didn't watch most of it, and not all of it is about the drug war, but it may be of interest to people here.

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Vancouver's safe injection site has helped to reduce the number of fatal overdoses by over thirty-five percent.

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A senior citizen has been sentenced to jail for growing medicinal pot for his wife, who has cancer.

There are no words.

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The War on Drugs is Important. It diverts attention from the War on Terror when that isn't going well. It is used to justify the War on Poor People.

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I was thinking today about your link to the drug war in Mexico having more casualties that the war in Afghanistan, because I saw an article in the newspaper that the Mexican drug war has a pretty huge number of deaths since 2006.

So for a comparison, I pulled up casualty figures for Afghanistan 2006 to present. I divided it roughly between any kind of Afghan deaths (civilian, security forces, anti-government forces) and Coalition deaths, because that's how the numbers come mostly; the Afghan figures a more difficult to get, and not always grouped neatly. Anyway: Afghanistan, mostly sourced from here and here:
2006: 4,400 +191
2007: 7,700 +232
2008: 8,748 +295
2009: 2,412 +521
2010: 2,777 +711
2011: ?(I'm pulling out of my ass 900)+167
29,054 rough total, 2006 to present. This number is probably quite low-end estimates.

Al Jazeera April 25, 2011:
I probably should not have counted all of 2006 in Afghanistan for numbers comparisons, and I know population-wise the numbers become even less comparable (Afghanistan has a population of 29.8 million, and Mexico is 113.7 million), but yeah. That's startling.

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I haven't watched or read through all of this yet, but I wanted to hurry up and post it first for FF credit:

The Exile Nation Project: An Oral History of the War on Drugs & The American Criminal Justice System | openDemocracy

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One of the results of the drug war, as has been pointed out above, is the massive increase in imprisonment in the US. Related to this is the decision by the Supreme Court that California's massively overcrowded prisons have to reduce inmate population because the conditions of overcrowding are unconstitutional.
Here's an article which mentions some of the pictures that were used to illustrate to the court the conditions. Here's a gallery of those photos.

http://www.freethought-forum.com/for...im-03-dorm.jpg

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Avaaz started a campaign: Avaaz - End the War on Drugs!Â*

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drug laws keep authorities employed and fill prisons with product.

oh and it keeps COPS on the air.

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Jesus Christ, that's in California?! :stunned: I was reading the page from the bottom up and when I saw the pic I assumed it was another country.

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:fixed:

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well yeah...but that's what prisons sell. slaves.


well...rent them out.

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lol, sorta.

Dumb Drug War Propagandist To Tommy Chong: ‘My Heart Goes Out To You … You’ve Got a Marijuana Addiction’

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What a condescending dubmass.

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Another huge victory in the war on drugs!!!

:runbunny:

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Oh, God, this is just a lose all the way around. The dad's fucked, and those kids have got to be crippled with guilt by now.

12 And 13-Year-Old Kids Turn In Dad For Marijuana Possession Say Police

Best part: It was a misdemeanor possession charge, with two felony child endangerment charges added on.

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How does having marijuana endanger children? :chin:

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It gets their parents arrested!

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:rimshot:

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I was annoyed when I found out the feds are hassling legal medical marijuana growers in California, and now a bit pissed to find out it's actually 4 US attorneys from California who are crusading against marijuana using federal laws. Just another fuck you to states and their rights. US Attorney Haag does not represent my views and was sadly appointed by Obama right around the time he claimed he would ease off the medical pot raids. While I would be quite happy if Obama reeled her back in, I expect he will play dumb and act like he didn't see anything.

Overall I assume someone somewhere is getting a lot of money because otherwise I'm dumbfounded as to why the government keeps attacking such a safe drug. California has a budding industry just waiting to explode and bring in tons of tax dollars while reducing money to gangs, but until then it has a medical marijuana program supported by the majority of Californians and groups like the AMA (doctors, phft what do they know about health). Hopefully this is the spark needed to legalize marijuana partly as a fuck you back to the feds.

Of course legalized pot would reduce the sale of opiates, barbiturates, THC and amphetamines, in brand name form. While the government demonizes pot the DEA keeps OKing larger and larger production quantities of pharmaceutical drugs including a synthetic version of the main active chemical in Marijuana, a drug with "no currently accepted medical use in treatment."
:pimp:

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LOL at "budding industry". :bonghit: