| May 1, 2007 @ 4:35 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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FeliciVagano
Posts: 2,152
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18354778/
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - The street price of cocaine fell in the United States last year as purity rose, the White House drug czar said in a private letter to a senator, indicating increasing supply and seemingly contradicting U.S. claims that $4 billion in aid to Colombia is stemming the flow.....
...The drug czar, John Walters, wrote that retail cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006,
Dropping prices are an indication of robust supply or weakening demand, as is rising purity.
Walters made the disclosure in a January letter to Sen. Charles Grassley, the Republican co-chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
The Washington Office on Latin America, a lobby group, obtained the letter and made it available to The Associated Press.
Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the AP that Walters would not comment on the letter, but Lemaitre described it as "an accurate reflection of our agency's thoughts on the issue." Next Wednesday, President Alvaro Uribe is set to meet with President Bush at the White House to discuss U.S. support for Plan Colombia, the anti-narcotics and counterinsurgent program that has cost American taxpayers more than $4 billion since 2000.
U.S. officials have insisted that Plan Colombia is reducing the quality and availability of cocaine in the United States, which gets 90 percent of its cocaine from Colombia.
But Grassley, in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press, said the letter is "all the proof that anybody needs" that the White House drug office "has gotten quite good at spinning the numbers, but cooking the books doesn't help our efforts to curb cocaine and heroin production and consumption." The numbers cited by Walters contradict upbeat appraisals made by U.S.officials as recently in March -- two months after Walters' letter.
.....Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said despite the existence of the new estimates, senior U.S. Embassy officials provided him with older, more encouraging data during a March visit to Bogota.
"We've given this program a chance to work and clearly this is not producing the results we were promised," he said. "Cocaine is priced as low and purity is as high as it was before Plan Colombia began six years and $5 billion ago." And despite a record fumigation of almost 550 square miles in 2005, 26 percent more land was dedicated to production of the plant used to make cocaine.
The 2006 estimates are to be released in May.
In November 2005, Walters said cocaine prices had risen by 19 percent and purity had dropped by about the same. He touted the development as a sign that the United States had turned the corner in anti-drug efforts. Drug policy experts rejected his assertions at the time, and Grassley called for his dismissal.
Walters' latest letter to Grassley came in response to a request from the Iowa senator.
"When the data show a brief rise in cocaine prices, the drug czar holds a high-profile press conference," said Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy. "But when the trend goes back down again, the drug czar sends it in a letter to one senator. Why is that?"
"You tell me lies, lies, lies/ Sweet little lies/ When I cannot bear the truth/ You tell me lies, lies, lies/ Sweet little lies/ Help me make them all come true."
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| May 1, 2007 @ 5:52 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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eastham
Posts: 7,913
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And heroin production in Afghanistan is back up through the roof.
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| May 9, 2007 @ 10:40 AM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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lacyvsq
Posts: 6,170
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NPR did a series on the war on drugs recently. You can find it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9286922
$40 billion of our taxes buys us what? It seems that whenever our government declares war on problems -- poverty, drugs, terror... -- it only serves to strengthen the enemy.
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| May 9, 2007 @ 11:32 AM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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Kirkish
Posts: 168
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And heroin production in Afghanistan is back up through the roof. Regarding that supply issue, I wonder if it wouldn't be more cost effective for us to BUY all we could at the source and destroy it immediately, rather than waiting for it to come to us.
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| May 9, 2007 @ 4:31 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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raykl
Posts: 566
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Legalize the drugs. You cannot end the usage, some people are just stupid and will use drugs. I figure the gov't can save billions and actually end up making money. Now the pushers would have to find a job so the jails may become less full- another savings. Alcohol and smoking can be addictive- everyone can buy them and it is all legal. Prohibition of anything has never worked and will never work.
Some countries in Europe have done this and I have heard of no large problem by the legalization. Maybe their medical lobby is not as strong as ours?
Bring on the attacks...... 
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| May 9, 2007 @ 4:55 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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lacyvsq
Posts: 6,170
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 I am with you rayki!
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| May 9, 2007 @ 4:58 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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kjac
Posts: 8,163
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Crack Cocaine is one of the most horrible things to have ever happened to our country.
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| May 9, 2007 @ 7:26 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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stormbay
Posts: 695
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Buy tonnes of drugs, give large amounts of 100% pure to all the addicts. Cut of medical help for them and soon no more addicts. I know it won't work. Down here they give them free needles to stop the spread of disease and free methadone, it doesn't work, so why bother I say.
It's all about money. Who provides all the needles, medications for the recovery of overdoses, methadone. The same companies that make morphine and every other pharmaceutical. Governments and their pharmaceutical backers, don't want things to change health wise, there's to much money in it for them. If they didn't have substance abuse in all aspects of life, they would go broke. They keep it going and make money from both the abusers and health systems. 
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| May 9, 2007 @ 7:34 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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Heaveninawildflower
Posts: 18,615
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Legalize the drugs. You cannot end the usage, some people are just stupid and will use drugs. I figure the gov't can save billions and actually end up making money. Now the pushers would have to find a job so the jails may become less full- another savings. Alcohol and smoking can be addictive- everyone can buy them and it is all legal. Prohibition of anything has never worked and will never work.
Yaaaaaaaaaay!! Sanity!!!
When you try to legislate morality, you only enrich the immoral...every single time.
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| May 9, 2007 @ 7:37 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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lacyvsq
Posts: 6,170
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You bet! Legalizing drugs would be like finding a cure for cancer. What about all the money spent on research and treatment and care? And marketing for charities?
The pharm and criminal justice and medical industries are some of the most powerful lobbies in the country.
Let's keep relatively natural drugs illegal so we can stiff people for the synthetic derivatives available only by doctor prescription,
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| May 9, 2007 @ 9:12 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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waterfire
Posts: 2,946
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Legalize the drugs
Ditto on that
I have been bitching about this since the 80s. We could actually help people instead of looking the other way or putting them in jail. 
teen years I smoked weed does not count 
[Edited on 5/9/2007 10:30 PM]
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| May 9, 2007 @ 11:07 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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raykl
Posts: 566
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Down here they give them free needles to stop the spread of disease and free methadone
I was not refering to Methadone Clinics- we have them in the US also. I mean legalize all narcotics. Sears once sold drugs in their catalogues. Coke originally contained coke. Opium dens once existed (I do miss this). I am refering to actual "drug" stores run by the gov't and sold for much less than the drug dealers on the street.
This would eliminate many problems and free up manpower to do more important functions. We spend billions to try and prevent idiots from killing themselves with drugs? Let Darwinism work!!!
Pot is natures Prozac, but the drug companies will forever fight its legalization.
They would outlaw natures own aspirin if they could do it. Why take aspirin when a manufactred substitute generates more income? (I know some have stomach problems with aspirin). These are the same people who buy Tilex because of the advertisements (it is just Clorox + water+ perfume....read the ingredients).
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| May 10, 2007 @ 2:51 AM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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stormbay
Posts: 695
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I was not refering to Methadone Clinics- we have them in the US also. I mean legalize all narcotics. Sears once sold drugs in their catalogues. Coke originally contained coke. Opium dens once existed (I do miss this). I am refering to actual "drug" stores run by the gov't and sold for much less than the drug dealers on the street.
This would eliminate many problems and free up manpower to do more important functions. We spend billions to try and prevent idiots from killing themselves with drugs? Let Darwinism work!!!
Pot is natures Prozac, but the drug companies will forever fight its legalization.
They would outlaw natures own aspirin if they could do it. Why take aspirin when a manufactred substitute generates more income? (I know some have stomach problems with aspirin). These are the same people who buy Tilex because of the advertisements (it is just Clorox + water+ perfume....read the ingredient
Sorry, I was just having a bit of a light hearted dig. I agree, that all naturally grown drugs should be decriminalised, as long as you grow them yourself. Selling them should be banned, unless strictly supervised. I fully understand and support the great benefits hemp has, it surpasses any pharmaceutical in regard to pain and nausea and used in the proper way, is brilliant with most mental and physical conditions.
I also believe that it should be heroin and not morphine that's used in palliative care and situations that involve heavy pain and terminal situations. Methadone clinics, should be shut down, they just exasperate the problems and give good returns to the pharmaceutical conglomerates.
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| May 10, 2007 @ 5:41 AM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..) |
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lacyvsq
Posts: 6,170
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The NPR article above said:
Currently, the biggest drug use in America stems from homegrown marijuana and prescription drugs. Interestingly, the rest of the series never again mentions the prescription drugs or homegrown marajuana. It is so much sexier to talk about heroin or crack cocaine. ...and of course it is not biting the hand that feeds...big pharm...
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| May 10, 2007 @ 4:00 PM |
we are winning the war on drugs.....( sarcasm..)
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misschoos
Posts: 1,481
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