iHaveNet.com
40 Years Later: America's Failed War on Drugs | United States
Online Breaking News Headlines Single Source to Headlines Breaking News Current Events Top Stories. Find out what is happening in News & the World. Check out iHaveNet.com for the latest news & current events articles plus Movie Reviews, Wolfgang Puck Recipes, NFL Previews Analysis and Politics. Your Single Source to News Articles, Current Events & Reviews.
  • HOME
  • WORLD
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Balkans
    • Caucasas
    • Central Asia
    • Eastern Europe
    • Europe
    • Indian Subcontinent
    • Latin America
    • Middle East
    • North Africa
    • Scandinavia
    • Southeast Asia
    • United Kingdom
    • United States
    • Argentina
    • Australia
    • Austria
    • Benelux
    • Brazil
    • Canada
    • China
    • France
    • Germany
    • Greece
    • Hungary
    • India
    • Indonesia
    • Ireland
    • Israel
    • Italy
    • Japan
    • Korea
    • Mexico
    • New Zealand
    • Pakistan
    • Philippines
    • Poland
    • Russia
    • South Africa
    • Spain
    • Taiwan
    • Turkey
    • United States
  • USA
    • ECONOMICS
    • EDUCATION
    • ENVIRONMENT
    • FOREIGN POLICY
    • POLITICS
    • OPINION
    • TRADE
    • Atlanta
    • Baltimore
    • Bay Area
    • Boston
    • Chicago
    • Cleveland
    • DC Area
    • Dallas
    • Denver
    • Detroit
    • Houston
    • Los Angeles
    • Miami
    • New York
    • Philadelphia
    • Phoenix
    • Pittsburgh
    • Portland
    • San Diego
    • Seattle
    • Silicon Valley
    • Saint Louis
    • Tampa
    • Twin Cities
  • BUSINESS
    • FEATURES
    • eBUSINESS
    • HUMAN RESOURCES
    • MANAGEMENT
    • MARKETING
    • ENTREPRENEUR
    • SMALL BUSINESS
    • STOCK MARKETS
    • Agriculture
    • Airline
    • Auto
    • Beverage
    • Biotech
    • Book
    • Broadcast
    • Cable
    • Chemical
    • Clothing
    • Construction
    • Defense
    • Durable
    • Engineering
    • Electronics
    • Firearms
    • Food
    • Gaming
    • Healthcare
    • Hospitality
    • Leisure
    • Logistics
    • Metals
    • Mining
    • Movie
    • Music
    • Newspaper
    • Nondurable
    • Oil & Gas
    • Packaging
    • Pharmaceutic
    • Plastics
    • Real Estate
    • Retail
    • Shipping
    • Sports
    • Steelmaking
    • Textiles
    • Tobacco
    • Transportation
    • Travel
    • Utilities
  • WEALTH
    • CAREERS
    • INVESTING
    • PERSONAL FINANCE
    • REAL ESTATE
    • MARKETS
    • BUSINESS
  • STOCKS
    • ECONOMY
    • EMERGING MARKETS
    • STOCKS
    • FED WATCH
    • TECH STOCKS
    • BIOTECHS
    • COMMODITIES
    • MUTUAL FUNDS / ETFs
    • MERGERS / ACQUISITIONS
    • IPOs
    • 3M (MMM)
    • AT&T (T)
    • AIG (AIG)
    • Alcoa (AA)
    • Altria (MO)
    • American Express (AXP)
    • Apple (AAPL)
    • Bank of America (BAC)
    • Boeing (BA)
    • Caterpillar (CAT)
    • Chevron (CVX)
    • Cisco (CSCO)
    • Citigroup (C)
    • Coca Cola (KO)
    • Dell (DELL)
    • DuPont (DD)
    • Eastman Kodak (EK)
    • ExxonMobil (XOM)
    • FedEx (FDX)
    • General Electric (GE)
    • General Motors (GM)
    • Google (GOOG)
    • Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)
    • Home Depot (HD)
    • Honeywell (HON)
    • IBM (IBM)
    • Intel (INTC)
    • Int'l Paper (IP)
    • JP Morgan Chase (JPM)
    • J & J (JNJ)
    • McDonalds (MCD)
    • Merck (MRK)
    • Microsoft (MSFT)
    • P & G (PG)
    • United Tech (UTX)
    • Wal-Mart (WMT)
    • Walt Disney (DIS)
  • TECH
    • ADVANCED
    • FEATURES
    • INTERNET
    • INTERNET FEATURES
    • CYBERCULTURE
    • eCOMMERCE
    • mp3
    • SECURITY
    • GAMES
    • HANDHELD
    • SOFTWARE
    • PERSONAL
    • WIRELESS
  • HEALTH
    • AGING
    • ALTERNATIVE
    • AILMENTS
    • DRUGS
    • FITNESS
    • GENETICS
    • CHILDREN'S
    • MEN'S
    • WOMEN'S
  • LIFESTYLE
    • AUTOS
    • HOBBIES
    • EDUCATION
    • FAMILY
    • FASHION
    • FOOD
    • HOME DECOR
    • RELATIONSHIPS
    • PARENTING
    • PETS
    • TRAVEL
    • WOMEN
  • ENTERTAINMENT
    • BOOKS
    • TELEVISION
    • MUSIC
    • THE ARTS
    • MOVIES
    • CULTURE
  • SPORTS
    • BASEBALL
    • BASKETBALL
    • COLLEGES
    • FOOTBALL
    • GOLF
    • HOCKEY
    • OLYMPICS
    • SOCCER
    • TENNIS
  • Subscribe to RSS Feeds EMAIL ALERT Subscriptions from iHaveNet.com RSS
    • RSS | Politics
    • RSS | Recipes
    • RSS | NFL Football
    • RSS | Movie Reviews

ECONOMICS | EDUCATION | ENVIRONMENT | FOREIGN POLICY | POLITICS | OPINION | TRADE

U.S. CITIES:  

HOME > USA

40 Years Later: America's Failed War on Drugs
Jesse Jackson

 

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

How do you end America's longest war that is an abject failure? No, not Afghanistan. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the day Richard Nixon launched the "War on Drugs." And now, four decades later, it would be impossible to invent a more complete failure.

About $1 trillion has been spent on the war. Millions of citizens who pose no threat to anyone have been incarcerated in prison. Some 2.3 million now overcrowd America's prisons -- 25 percent of whom have been arrested for nonviolent drug crimes. Our neighbors to the south -- Mexico and Columbia -- are being torn about by gang violence and corruption. In Afghanistan, where our soldiers risk their lives, fully one-third to one-half of the entire economy is generated by the opium and heroin trade. All of this is in reaction to nonviolent acts that were not even crimes a century ago.

Yet despite this, drugs are just as available as and cheaper than they were 40 years ago. As the U.S. drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske concluded: "In the grand scheme, it has not been successful. Forty years later, the concern about drugs and the drug problem is, if anything, magnified, intensified

And the war's casualties are mounting. The war on drugs turned, early on, into a new Jim Crow offensive against people of color. Although whites abuse drugs at higher rates than African-Americans, African-American are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of whites for drug offensives. Millions have been deprived of the right to vote for being convicted of nonviolent crimes. Hundreds of thousands have died and millions suffered because the drug war made treating addiction as a public health problem more difficult.

Now the state fiscal crisis is forcing states -- even states as conservative as Texas -- to empty overcrowded prisons and seek alternatives to incarceration. Yet the war goes on, the money is wasted, the violence and corruption escalates, and more lives are ruined.

In a new report, the Global Commission on Drug Policy calls for admitting that the war is a failure and turning instead to dealing with drugs as a public health problem.

I have spent decades talking with young men and women about the perils of drugs, in classrooms, in church basements, in prisons and jails and on the street. The scourge of drugs is destructive of lives and of hope. But so, too, is the war against drugs.

We must use the 40th anniversary of a failed war to call that war into question. What if we treated drug addiction like alcohol addiction as a public health problem? Marijuana accounts for one-half of all drug arrests in the U.S.; decriminalizing it would save millions that could be used to treat addicts rather than arrest kids. Alternatives to incarceration should be preferred for those who pose no threat to others. Harsh mandatory and minimum sentences should be repealed. Why not take drug addiction out of the criminal justice system and treat it in the public health system? It surely would be better to spend the money not on locking people up, but on clinics that might treat their illnesses.

Ending the "War on Drugs" doesn't mean we abandon the effort to regulate them, to teach children of their dangers, or to treat those who are hooked. But it does mean we don't waste millions more lives and billions more dollars on a war that cannot be won.

The drug war has been waged by both parties. Politicians have postured tough on crime, competing to invent the harshest punishments. Money was no object. An entire prison complex -- with powerful private interests -- has grown up to warehouse the prisoners of the war. But now, 40 years later, isn't it time to put aside the posturing, and have a fundamental debate about alternatives to this failed war?

 

Read the latest political news.

 

SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend

 

  • Where Does Garbage Go?
  • 40 Years Later: America's Failed War on Drugs
  • 10 Places with the Oldest Population
  • Assault on Common Sense at Jefferson Memorial
  • United States Has Trust Issues With China
  • Executive Pay Zooming Skyward Again
  • Insider Trading Scandal Shows the Audacity of Greed
  • 10 Best Cities for Public Transportation
  • 7 Ways the United States Population is Changing
  • FEMA's Fugate: Tornadoes Could Be Second Worst Ever
  • Putting $4 Gas In Perspective
  • On Gas Prices Obama Should Lead or Get Out of the Way
  • Why Congress Cannot Fix Your Gas Prices Pain
  • A Thorny Porny Issue for New York Public Library
  • Do Americans Care About Climate Change Anymore?
  • The Sacred and the Dead
  • Cooling on Global Warming
  • Year Later, Little in Gulf Has Changed
  • GOP Pushes Back on EPA Carbon Regulation
  • The New Sophists
  • The Good News About Gas
  • Redefining the Global Warming Debate
  • Cut Your Carbon Footprint and Save Money With New Gadgets
  • Global Warming Conference Faces Meltdown
  • A 'Never Mind' Energy Policy
  • Globalizing the Energy Revolution
  • Fighting Hunger in Des Moines
  • Planning a Green Vacation
  • Hydraulic Pressures: Into the Age of Water Scarcity?
  • Green Your Back-to-School Shopping
  • Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Epoch-Changing Decision from the EPA
  • Planet-friendly Parties
  • China's Coal Addiction
  • Electric Cars May Not Make the World Greener

Receive Political Commentary Enter your email address:



Delivered by FeedBurner and iHaveNet.com

 

Available at Amazon.com:

Hot Time in the Old Town: The Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt

American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People

Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.How the Working Poor Became Big Business

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy

The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics

Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks

The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

Courage Grows Strong at the Wound

40 Years Later: America's Failed War on Drugs

 

(c) 2011 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

 

Recommend

Search Powered By Google

Google Search   

Job & Career Search

career & job search                    job title, keywords, company, location

ADVERTISEMENT

POLITICS

Subscribe to Politics

Delivered by FeedBurner


Political Commentary

Advertisement

ADVERTISEMENT

Advertisement

Your Ad Here
Your Ad Here
  • HOME
  • WORLD
  • USA
  • BUSINESS
  • WEALTH
  • STOCKS
  • TECH
  • HEALTH
  • LIFESTYLE
  • ENTERTAINMENT
  • SPORTS

2010 Elections: 40 Years Later: America's Failed War on Drugs

  • Services:
  • RSS Feeds
  • Shopping
  • Email Alerts
  • Site Map
  • Privacy