The war on drugs has been a disaster on many levels, and here’s why

By every measure the war on drugs has been a complete failure, and there are few people outside of Washington who would dispute that. Despite this, Obama’s new budget asks for $27.6 billion for federal drug control programs, a billion more than last year. More lives will be lost, more people will be jailed and more criminals will be rewarded. It is a tragic cycle that is perpetuated by politics and an entrenched serpentine bureaucracy that demands to be fed.

For nearly a century, we have been accosted with propaganda from the government about the dangers of drugs and addiction, and brainwashed into believing that drug users are dangerous “others” or criminals who will sell their babies for a fix. Like I said, this is the propaganda. The truth, however, might shock you.

I read a truly illuminating article at Alternet this morning here. It’s an interview with Johan Hari, author of the book, “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.” What’s fascinating about Hari’s findings after four years of world-wide research is that basically everything we think we know about drug use and abuse and how to deal with it is wrong. The war on drugs, according to Hari, is based on totally false notions of what the problem is and how to deal with it.

If you have any interest in drug policy or the war on drugs, I encourage you to read this article and pass it on.

Our war on terror is the definition of insanity

In the “Tell-me-something-I-don’t-know” category, the title of today’s Washington Post Wonkblog piece is, “After 13 years, 2 wars and trillions in military spending, terrorist attacks are rising sharply.”

Research findings from the Institute of Economics and Peace demonstrate clearly that our war on terror, just like our war on drugs, is not only failing in its primary mission, it is exacerbating the problem. Every bomb we drop, every soldier we send to the Middle East, every puppet dictator we support breeds new militants. Our actions are making the world less safe than it was before 9/11.

Let’s take a look at what we have to show for all of our efforts to stamp out terrorism: A significant increase in terrorist activity worldwide since 2000, a politically destabilized Middle East, the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, trillions of dollars sucked into a black hole, a national surveillance state that is out of control, a drastic rise in the number of Middle Eastern refugees, and a diminished standing in the eyes of the rest of the world. Check, check and check.

So, of course, Obama wants to double the number of troops that are now on the ground in Iraq.

(Forehead slap)

Where's George?

The theme of the Republican National Convention, “We built that,” which is based on a blatant misrepresentation of an Obama statement, should be, “We tried that.”

Conspicuously absent from the speeches up to this point is any mention of two-term president George W. Bush. What’s up with that? Bush implemented many of the policies and plans being pushed by Romney and company today: A tough, shoot-first-ask-questions-later foreign policy, tax cuts for the wealthy, more privatization, more money for the war on drugs, an ongoing assault on public education, using war as a foreign policy tool rather than an act of last resort, more government secrecy, the use of torture, etc., etc. Many of the policies that Romney now champions were already tried by Bush. So why the Bush blackout? Because the Bush presidency was a miserable failure.

Bush took an economic surplus from Clinton and turned it into a black pit of debt eight years later with tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and unlimited defense spending. His tough Texas cowboy personae got us into two wars that we continue to pay for with young people’s lives and enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars. The war on drugs is acknowledged by virtually everyone outside of Washington as a disaster that is causing much more harm than it is preventing, not to mention billions of dollars annually.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Why on God’s green earth would we want a repeat of the Bush years? Folks, we tried it, and it didn’t work. Please, don’t make us go through it again.