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While Americans are just 5% of the world’s population, we house almost 25% of the world’s prisoners, making us No. 1 in something, anyway. As Arianna Huffington says in the film, either we are a uniquely evil people – and let’s not rule that out, prima facie! – or we have some uniquely awful laws and social policies.
Anyone in any position of power who still supports the war on drugs today has either been corrupted by the unending flow of taxpayer billions, technological toys and bogus prestige – into local police departments, the FBI, the DEA, the Border Patrol and who knows where else – or is simply a coward. That accounts for the political elite in both parties, which with only a handful of exceptions has continued to fund the militarization of police work at an accelerating rate. Democrats may be less willing to talk tough or be perceived as racist than Republicans are, but Bill Clinton pursued the war on drugs just as avidly as either President Bush, and Obama has not notably slowed things down.
But it’s going to take large-scale publish pushback to set national drug policy on a more rational footing, and that’s where an entertaining, anecdotal package like “How to Make Money Selling Drugs” comes in, which apparently cashes in on producer Grenier’s access to celebrities. (He was the star of HBO’s “Entourage” for seven seasons.)
Does the drug trade produce all kinds of corollary crime and violence that is not victimless? Definitely. Do drugs like cocaine, heroin and crystal meth have negative public health consequences? Of course. But to state what should be glaringly obvious to anyone who’s not a total idiot, alcohol and tobacco have devastating effects on public health, almost certainly worse than all the illegal drugs put together. Regulation, heavy taxation and stigmatization have done a reasonably good job of reducing the harm from smoking. Our society remains confused about where to draw the line on alcohol abuse and how to educate young people, but at least vigorous DWI laws have stemmed the most obvious tide of booze-fueled death.
As Cooke’s film points out, cocaine and heroin were legal until our society went Prohibition-happy in the early 20th century, at least partly out of fear that such drugs encouraged white women to copulate with “Negroes and entertainers.” But the argument against the legalization or decriminalization of all drugs isn’t much more sophisticated than that today. Is it possible that in such an environment some goody-two-shoes honor student in Kansas gets hooked on coke who would never otherwise have tried it? (As opposed to the Jägermeister that person is likelier to consume today.) I guess so, but the larger point is that any negative consequences of legal drugs cannot possibly equal the social devastation and moral and financial bankruptcy of the drug war. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars to transform our police departments into extralegal terror squads and our society into a prison-state whose apartheid policies are largely invisible to the middle class, and are no less vicious because they’re not written down. All in the name of a Prohibition policy that, to quote former Baltimore cop and Maryland state trooper Neill Franklin, is bad for public safety and will never work"
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/06/americas-drug-war-either-we-are-a-uniquely-evil-people-or-we-have-some-uniquely-awful-laws-and-social-policies/