When Will We Learn?

When will we learn that drug abuse like alcohol abuse is a medical problem, not a law enforcement problem. Like I've said so many times, we can not arrest our way out of this.... 

Over the past 50 years our nations war on drugs has failed it's intended goal of reducing drug use. Today drugs are more potent, cheaper, and easier to get than when we started 50 years ago. 

This is a time our nation is threatened by terrorists and others who would want to damage America. This is a time we need to come together as a nation and not be divided by something as simple as a plant or pill. 

Hubert Humphrey told us “There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people”. 

Covert operations the use of undercover officers, informants, and snitches have destroyed the trust between law enforcement and many communities.

I learned this from the damage I did while working undercover. Something I tried to make up for as a speaker for LEAP for the past 15 years. I still have problems talking about the damage I caused even today. I did talk about it in this 2006 documentary Damage Done the Drug War Odyssey 

Sadly nothing has changed.... America the home of the brave and land of the free still imprisons more of it's own citizens than any other country. While the United States has about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners. More of our own citizens than countries like Thailand, Cuba, Rwanda, and Russia. Really..   Prison Populations by Nation 

Now President Trump is ramping up the war on drugs again. As War on Drugs Again Declared Failure, Trump's UN Event Dismissed as 'Splashy' Backward-Thinking

I use a couple lyrics from the 1984 song Smugglers Blues to point out that sadly nothing has changed.

You see it in the headlines, you hear it every day

They say they're gonna stop it, but it doesn't go away

They move it through Miami and sell it in L.A. 

They hide it up in Telluride, I mean it's here to stay

It's propping up the governments in Columbia and Peru You ask any D.E.A. man, he'll say there's nothing we can do

 From the office of the president right down to me and you Me and you

It's a losing proposition, but one you can't refuse. 

It's the politics of contraband, it's the smugglers' blues Smuggler's blues

In the same 50 years we have reduced tobacco use by half. Cigarettes used to be everywhere in American society. Fifty years ago, 42.4 percent of U.S. adults smoked. Since then, that figure has declined by more than half, reaching a record low 17.8 percent in 2014.

We did that without SWAT teams, without putting anyone in prison, without destroying any lives or families. We did it by making it not socially acceptable......

We need to stop all this madness? When will we learn that drug abuse like alcohol abuse is a medical problem, not a law enforcement problem. When will we look at history as well as science and learn from both.

Like I've said so many times, we can not arrest our way out of this....