seen from abroad, as a non-resident alien with a tad less insular view, the present 'war on drugs' waged by the us gvt. seems to benefit just two players :
-the drug cartels, who benefit from the resulting seller's market. -the military/industrial complex and it's partners, the entrenched political bureaucrats. (the term was coined by president eisenhower, to describe the arms/defense mafia already evident at the time) the 'fight against drugs' just make them more expensive, not harder to get. and it does creates the right 'atmosphere' for billions to be spent 'fighting' it. if a fraction of this money were spent on educating potential users, or helping people get out of drugs, and stay out, the us drug problem would find its only possible solution : reduced demand. as president arias of costa rica (only country in the world without an army; their constitution bans it) said some years back, 'it is surprising that when it comes to weapons, the us claims they make and sell them to third world countries to satisfy the demand, whereas when it comes to drugs they forget demand and concentrate of the supply side...' it's just a big political lie, nothing else. holland depenalized drugs years ago, and has seen crime rates drop, and hard drug use go down too. no politician in the us ever mentions this. as a previous posting mentioned, prohibition only made the present day mafia possible by supplying the unlimited growth funding it required. and it also made most americans into criminals, as they found illegal ways around the constitutional amendment, to satisfy their desire for beer, or whisky. these were common, everyday folks like you or me, who just wanted to have a drink. yet, to the law makers, and the law-enforcement agencies, they were criminals, felons of the worst kind. just a an occasional pot smoker today is considered a criminal, a felon of the worst kind. kennedy's dad made his fortune trading scotch via canada, afterwards smuggled into the us. at the time he was the us ambassador to the uk. nice sideline. and al capone started his (in)famous career distributing......BEER. you know, like bud does... so let's quit this cynical 'holier than thou' attitude and remember noam chomsky's words : "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." Noam Chomsky the money spent on 'fighting drugs' only helps the 'warlords', and the 'druglords'. with our money, of course...( i pay taxes in the us, so i can include myself) maybe they should start dropping glyfosate on tobacco and barley crops in the us, to reduce production of these drugs too... but then, that might upset a few senators... and come to think of it, bourbon's made from corn, right..... off topic, but definitely of interest to all, i think. sorry for the use of bandwidth. ricardo g. carlstein aka dick. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> Make good on the promise you made at graduation to keep in touch. Classmates.com has over 14 million registered high school alumni--chances are you'll find your friends! http://us.click.yahoo.com/n4HqaC/DMUCAA/4ihDAA/FZTVlB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
