First, I offer sincere thanks for all that the anti-prohibition movement has given society to date. You are all working hard, and positive results reflect that.

Drug prohibition defies the God-given unalienable Right to Liberty as clearly specified in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, a cornerstone of our nation.

Liberty is the condition of being free from restriction and control.

Prohibition is restriction and control.

In other words, drug prohibition defies the "Creator" (e.g. God) and our founding forefathers, people who risked their lives to give birth to our nation.

Drug prohibition was never legitimately authorized.

If that doesn't persuade you for some reason, alcohol prohibition required a federal constitutional amendment. Drug prohibition does too.

Drug prohibition was never legitimately authorized.

We must all firmly engage in unwaivering opposition against prohibition itself as there is no just authority for its existence.

At every turn, we must publicly demand that prohibitionists first share with "We the people" exactly who authorized drug prohibition, if not our founding forefathers in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

What politician will publicly stand against God and our founding forefathers?

What American will publicly stand against God and our founding forefathers?

When we defend legalization, decriminalization, or do anything besides pointing out their complete lack of authority, we ironically legitimize drug prohibition's existence, giving our opponent strength from a general public perspective, making anti-prohibition efforts needlessly difficult.

Without this authority, prohibitionists have no legs to stand on. Everything they say (truth or otherwise) is irrelevant, from an American perspective. Prohibitionists are extremely vulnerable here.

It is time for us to go on the offensive.

I have started the Liberators movement (selling t-shirts to bring in much-needed funds). We will use our resources to implement a perpetual public relations campaign to inform the public of this complete lack of authority, this campaign being perhaps the best tool against the tyranny of the uninformed majority.

Ending drug prohibition should be a slam dunk, not some gradual process taking decades.

Our country is born on the resolute opposition against government abuse. Our country can only survive on the resolute opposition against government abuse.

"JOIN, or DIE." - Benjamin Franklin

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‘We're just a different kind of country. We have higher drug use rates, a higher crime rate, many things that go with a highly free and mobile society.’

So ONDCP spokesman Tom Riley thinks this is ‘just a different kind of country’?  And he thinks a free and mobile society is conducive to crime?

Free speech and guns are the freedom highlights for the U.S.  Other than that, there are a dozen or so countries I can think of that give their citizens more freedom than the United States gives to its own.  None of the freer countries’ crime rates even approach those of the U.S.  High crime rates and arrest statistics are proof of a law enforcement failure, not efficiency, or even necessity.

There are better alternatives to running a country.  The French philosopher Baron d’Holbach (1723-1789) argued that morals would be a pointless issue if they didn’t somehow convince people that their well being lies in being moral.  He also recommended that all societies work toward achieving a ‘healthier public opinion which an intelligent individual would hesitate to offend’.

Current U.S. drug policy offends its people with its lies about drugs, who in turn are driven to offend society by rebelling against the drug laws and whatever else the drug laws symbolize to these various individuals.  The United States drug war contributes to making it the least healthy industrialized society on the planet.

At the moment, this is a country of government for the government.  Americans have been duped by the drug warriors.  An appropriate response would be to remember the words of the late, great Abbie Hoffmann who said, ‘Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you.’  One thing it can do is end the drug war.

Giordano

sicntired@mac.com,Vancouver,B.C.Canada I just received a letter from the Canadian justice minister informing me that the government was going full speed ahead with an all out effort to purge our country from the scourge of drugs.I hope we have an election soon so we can purge our country of this dogma driven neocon disaster of a government.

("Drug Czar's Office Admits that Drug Enforcement Can't Be Proven to Work" but it can be absolutely proven to have failed. All manner of crime from a majority of street crime to global terrorism and the continued spread of deadly communicable diseases can all be traced to the enforcement imposed prohibition economy created and supported by the war on drugs.)

There is an absolute and direct "link between drug use and drug enforcement", it is the black market economic paradigm created by the drug war and this connection causes the proliferation of both addictive drugs and the crime that is common to any black market economy.

As long as the morals and ethics of drug sales is left, by the prohibition policy, in the hands of addicted dealers and predator gangsters the sales of addictive drugs to new potential young customers will be driven by the values of self-serving addicts and criminally predatory gangsters. And it is in the best interest of addict dealers and their predator distributors to grow the market as much and as fast as they can just in case they become one of that rare 5% or so that get busted for dealing.

When police succeed at interdicting a large supply of an addictive drug in a community there are specific economic effects that ripple out from the bust because the demand still exist in the community. The addict customers do not go away. Take away their best and cheapest dealers and the addicts adapt. They will be forced to find a new supply that can cost more and be less pure. The addicts need more pocket money to get the same high so they commit more street crime. They pass the government imposed price increase on to their innocent crime victims.

Addicts who sell drugs to friends and neighbors to sustain themselves do two things when their primary source is busted. Once they inevitably find a new source they 1. pass along any price increase to the robber/mugger/street thief customers who in turn pass the price increase along to their innocent crime victims in the form of increased street crime. 2. The addict dealers, like any business challenged by cost increases and supply problems, look to broaden their customer base by finding and enticing more young people into using their drugs.

Another aspect of this is that when police bust one supplier usually two or three others move in to take over the market. This often results in move gang violence. My local police came right out and admitted that out record homicide rate in 2006 was a direct result of their "success" at breaking up a couple of gangs which sparked a deadly turf war.

The proliferation of cheap and easy to get hand guns on America's streets is a direct result of the war on drugs policy. The volume of guns available is a result of the demand for guns by the drug gangsters who need them to self-regulate and empower their business. The demand by the gangsters is so high that it throws off excess supply into the community in the form of cheap and easy to get hand guns for all sorts of street criminals. The outcome of this drug black market driven gun demand is more and more violent street crime in America and around the world.

I have seen this play out in my community and across America countless times.

And then there is terrorism. The ultimate political crime and most of it is funded by the black market economy CREATED BY THE WAR ON DRUGS. See my essay of yesterday: Traitors:Bush, Walters, McCain & Obama

If we didn't have freedom we would not have all of this drug use and crime? So if the drug warriors could only get rid of all of this freedom, with more incarceration and enforcement, it would reduce crime?

The drug war is imposing the only actual freedom, the unregulated anarchic free market of the drug black market created by the war on drugs. The black market is absolute unregulated, unlicensed and untaxed freedom to proliferate and grow. And do so in whatever predatory ways are necessary to circumvent any and all enforcement efforts.

Barnett R. Rubin, Council on Foreign Relation and NYU Afghan policy expert to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
September 2006

SEE: Traitors:Bush, Walters, McCain & Obama
"The international drug control regime, which criminalizes narcotics, does not reduce drug use, but it does produce huge profits for criminals and the armed groups and corrupt officials who protect them. Our drug policy grants huge subsidies to our enemies."

Conservative economists tell us that regulation, licensing and taxation stifle the growth of profitable markets and products. The black market for drugs proves this. The black market for drugs is totally lawless free market anarchy and it is growing exponentially. Its sales force has no democratically regulated constraints that prevent other markets from preying on consumers.

It is appropriate that the drug warriors now resort to disparaging freedom as the cause rather than admitting that their failed drug war policy itself undermines freedom not only by spreading crime and addiction but also by funding international terrorism that is the ultimate crime against humanity.

The drug war is anti-democratic lawless authoritarianism because it is used instead of democratic institutions of regulation, licensing and taxation.

is now aware, that the drugwar is a fraud. Yet it still goes on? What will finally put this drugwar down? Lack of $$$$$ and an excess of blood.. Same as it ever was, and predictable.Sorry state of affairs,really.Prohibition can never stand the light of day.

drugs cause psychological problems in families (not just in drug users), and that leads to countless other social problems. since it is probable that drug use will increase after legalization (although that in itself is arguable), this is a seemingly reasonable argument against drug legalization, the psychological problems caused by drugs. many sincere thinkers doubt the righteousness of legalization because of this. there is a point you can make to them that should put their doubts to rest, though.

in determining what policies are best for society and for its psychological well being, there is a very useful bottom line: VIOLENCE. The level of violence determines how well off a country is, period. what is the psychological effect of there being a murder in your neighboorhood? even if you didn't know the murderer or the victim; if a few blocks from your house someone was murdered, where would that put you psychologically? would you be calm enough to sit down with a book and get yourself and education?

if we could just end black market violence already, everything else would become healthier and society would flourish in many unpredictable ways.

Instead of doing this, the government keeps oppressing the people and justifying it by saying "we're just a different kind of country".

I killed a pan of warm brownies and a quart of cold milk after smoking pot...