Whatever happened to the War on Drugs?

[Zooman91]

It's just like that Boondocks cartoon in the newspaper, the government just kinda let it fade away. Maybe we should declare our own little war on drugs.

[Kieran McConville]

Originally posted by Zooman91:
It's just like that Boondocks cartoon in the newspaper, the government just kinda let it fade away. Maybe we should declare our own little war on drugs.

The Onion (oh God, them again?) had a cute answer to that very question:

DRUGS WIN WAR ON DRUGS

[CannibalisticArtist]

D.A.R.E hahahaha

[Knute Rockne]

Originally posted by Zooman91:
It's just like that Boondocks cartoon in the newspaper, the government just kinda let it fade away. Maybe we should declare our own little war on drugs.

Its obvious that you only believe something is being done if you hear it in the media. There are many things that at the top of the list of the media folk. There are other wars that they are worrying about.

-Knute

[Johnny Swallow]

Does anyone actually believe that a war on drugs could be successful?

Some people never learn, generation after generation of youths follow the same path down to destruction. A war against the very people you're trying to protect is one I doubt can be one.

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AIM: JuanSwallow

[Klodomir]

Originally posted by Kieran McConville:
The Onion (oh God, them again?) had a cute answer to that very question:

DRUGS WIN WAR ON DRUGS

Very true. Do you happen to have a link? I'd love to read it, but my search on their site didn't turn up anything useful.

[Kieran McConville]

Originally posted by Klodomir:

Very true. Do you happen to have a link? I'd love to read it, but my search on their site didn't turn up anything useful.

Ah, yes. It's pretty old, so if it's still retained on The Onion site, I could only suggest the society/health-type section of the archives.

[melon]

The war on drugs and the war on terrorism have the same causes: abject poverty. And, for that reason, since it is painfully obvious that it is in the American business interest to keep them poor (who will be there to populate our sweatshops?), we'll never win them.

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

[speedracer]

Originally posted by melon:
The war on drugs and the war on terrorism have the same causes: abject poverty. And, for that reason, since it is painfully obvious that it is in the American business interest to keep them poor (who will be there to populate our sweatshops?), we'll never win them.

Melon

Melon, this is too simplistic. Drugs are as much a cause of poverty as they are a product of it.

[melon]

Oh really? Tell that to the teenage drug runners in Columbia, who make several times more than even their parents ever could legitimately. The "war on drugs" will not win unless we can make legitimate jobs pay. The myth of the happy sweatshop worker is just that...a myth.

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

[speedracer]

Originally posted by melon:
Oh really? Tell that to the teenage drug runners in Columbia, who make several times more than even their parents ever could legitimately. The "war on drugs" will not win unless we can make legitimate jobs pay. The myth of the happy sweatshop worker is just that...a myth.

Melon

I think I misinterpreted what you said...I was referring to poverty in the US. (I assume you meant "Colombia" in your post above.)

Originally posted by CannibalisticArtist:
D.A.R.E hahahaha

This is sad but true. Most kids just make fun of it. When they are older, they do exactly what the kids of the past have done- experiment. Sometimes these anti-drug programs actually draw attention to drugs when they had never thought of them or heard of them before. I have seen this happen. Kids are like kids have always been, many will smoke, drink and try drugs because they think it's 'cool.' I am not saying this is a good thing, no, just that it is the truth and is still true today despite millions, possibly billions being poured into campaigns to condition kids from a young age that substance abuse is bad. I can honestly say I do not know a kid who does not make fun of anti-smoking and anti-drug commercials. Even if they do not smoke or do drugs and don't want to, they still think the commericals are lame. The millions wasted on those campaigns could go to much better use.



[This message has been edited by *Stormy* (edited 01-17-2002).]

[Spiral_Staircase]

Originally posted by melon:
Oh really? Tell that to the teenage drug runners in Columbia, who make several times more than even their parents ever could legitimately. The "war on drugs" will not win unless we can make legitimate jobs pay.

oh really, tell that to my middle-classs friend Eric, who spent his early twenties selling drugs because he could make several times more than he could ever make in a legitimate job.

He wasn't poor. But that didn't mean that easy $$ wasn't appealing to him.

Legitimate jobs will never pay more than drug jobs unless we can reduce the demand for drugs.

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"The Edge is a great singer. Let's get the Edge up here." - Bono, 9/23/97, Sarajevo

"Brian Eno. Edge." - Bono, 09/12/95, Modena

"Edge." - Bono, 05/01/2001, Minneapolis

"You made my day, now you have to sleep in it." - TMBG

[This message has been edited by Spiral_Staircase (edited 01-17-2002).]

[speedracer]

Originally posted by melon:
Oh really? Tell that to the teenage drug runners in Columbia, who make several times more than even their parents ever could legitimately. The "war on drugs" will not win unless we can make legitimate jobs pay. The myth of the happy sweatshop worker is just that...a myth.

Melon

And about poverty in Colombia...

Not to say that low wages for coffee bean harvesters in Colombia aren't a problem, but
supposing that Colombia did become a less poor nation, it is conceivable that as more and more people gave up dealing drugs for legitimate work, the demand and hence the salary for drug dealers would rise correspondingly. (This generalizes the statement made by Spiral_Staircase.)

[This message has been edited by speedracer (edited 01-17-2002).]

Legitimate jobs will never pay more than drug jobs unless we can reduce the demand for drugs.

Sadly this is true. It's like the bootleggers back in the days of prohibition. What about all those gangland shootings in Chicago in those days, doesn't that kind of remind you of drive-bys and drug related killings today? Once booze was legalized again, it stopped, though moonshining on a small scale does continue to this day in some places!



[This message has been edited by *Stormy* (edited 01-17-2002).]

[CannibalisticArtist]

anybody notice that in one of the early TRUTH ads one girl's name was '420grl"??? i thought that was a hilarious little touch.

drugs have always been and always will be around. it's sad to see people dying from heroin, but it's even worse to see people becoming alcholics or killing and dying under the influence. the war on drugs is/was purely financial. cigs? alcohol? holland?

[joyfulgirl]

It's also sad to see the serious problems my mother's arthritis prescription medication causes her while I can't legally smoke a relatively benign herb. Most of what's in the average American medicine cabinet is more dangerous than marijuana. It astonishes me that marijuana is still an issue in this country.

[speedracer]

Originally posted by joyfulgirl:
It's also sad to see the serious problems my mother's arthritis prescription medication causes her while I can't legally smoke a relatively benign herb. Most of what's in the average American medicine cabinet is more dangerous than marijuana. It astonishes me that marijuana is still an issue in this country.

What???

If Afroman has taught us anything, it's that marijuana use will

-make you apathetic
-make you lazy
-make you do poorly in school
-get you fired
-make you make chicken-like noises
-get you in trouble with alimony and child support
-get you injured in police chases
-make you gamble your money away and default on your car loans
-destroy your sex life
-make you lose your home
-destroy your recording career
-impair your language skills
-make you do bad impressions of 50's doo-wop singers

Anyone else think it should be legalized?

[joyfulgirl]

Well, I at least have been addressing my chicken-like noises in therapy.

[bonoman]

Has anyone else noticed that the US always has to be waring againist something. Drugs, Sex, Terrorism...

The US thinks they are the great GOOD and must be fighting evil. Even though drugs at a small level are nowhere evil.

At a small level drugs can be very usefull and medicanal. Weed is one of the most harmless drugs. But Countries keep trying to fight againist when they should be focusing on the drugs that are expensive and that give the dealers much more money. Fighting weed at a large level is a waste of time. It will NEVER be contained or limited. Its actually comical the money that is thrown at the War on Drugs. It was the laughing stock of the world. Drugs will never go away. We must all accept it. But what we shouldnt accept is the availability of hard drugs (cocaine, crack, herion, speed, meth) these are the drugs that kill. The drugs that suck you in the first time. The drugs that cost much more and that are more profitable for the manufactures.

If i had my way we would de-criminalize weed and focus directly on the drugs that are actually harmfull.

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Running to Stand Still-"you gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice."

"we're not burning out we're burning up...we're the loudest folk band in the world!"-Bono