Advertised as an effective physic control policy, America’s harsh drug laws only give the illusion of progress. Two late reports show, once again, that the arrest and incarceration of hundreds of thousands of nonviolent adult drug offenders have terminated little to stem the use and trafficking of unlawful drugs.
Drug Use. A higher fellow at the George Mason University School of Public Policy, Dr. Jon Gettman’s recent investigate, Consistent, Persistent and Resistant, Marijuana Use in the United States - funded by the Marijuana Policy Project Foundation - finds that the "Bush Administration anti-drug policies have been unsuccessful in reducing the interrogation for and application of marijuana and other illegal drugs."
Further, Gettman reports, the government’s own Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) did not come close to reaching its late goal: the reduction in the use of illegitimate drugs among adults 18 years and older by means of 25 percent between 2002 and 2007. After five years of effort and frequent millions of tax dollars, illicit unsalable article conversion to an act among adults declined by the agency of the agency of less than one percent.
Of the six tax-funded programs designed by the ONDCP to reach its 25 percent reduction goal, the Bush Administration’s Office of Management and Budget found that only one program rated an "adequate" grade. The other five were rated "ineffective" or "results-not-demonstrated."
Drug Trafficking. In its new report, Correcting Course: Lessons from the 1970 Repeal of Mandatory Minimums, the Washington advocacy organization, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, finds that, to date, "No conclusive studies demonstrate any positive impact of federal mandatory minimum sentences on the rate at which drugs are being manufactured, imported, and trafficked throughout the country."
The U.S. Congress rudimentary enacted mandatory sentences for drug offenses in 1951 only to repeal the law in 1970 because it was not reducing drug use. Then, in 1986, the Congress set new mandatory sentences aimed at locking up big-time drug traffickers and, in 1988, expanded the law to lay upon to simple possession of c***k c*****e.
By 2008, more than one-half of the 200,000 federal prisoners were serving time for drug offenses. But instead of filling federal prisons with mix with drugs kingpins, 66 percent of c***k c****e offenders in 2005 were low-level street dealers, lookouts and couriers and only 33 percent were higher-level suppliers. Instead of ending the drug war, mandatory sentences promise to keep prisons full of nonviolent, low state of equality offenders, while unsalable article use continues unabated.
Setting goals in the revery of any reasonable means to achieve those goals is plain dumb, except in Washington. Perhaps the non-performing drug war programs are not really expected to deliver on their publicly stated goals, but continue because they serve a very different purpose. They accord. the politically useful illusion of "controlling" crime and allow morally righteous members of society to pass off their values on the actions of others.
Instead of ending the drug war, each year Washington unsalable article warriors termination a new cycle of optimistic forecasts to keep the illusion alive, to justify another round of funding from American taxpayers.
In the absence of a strategy that can both win the drug war and occur Constitutional and affordability tests, police departments, prison operators and hundreds of thousands of prison guards keep themselves officious wasting money on non-performing programs and arresting more low level drug offenders.
Forget pie-in-the-sky government promises that build false expectations. When the toughest action governments can convey to change individual behavior - sending its citizens to prison - doesn’t work, it is time to try another approach. Building additional prisons volition not reduce drug use in America. Instead, across America, let’sitting build thousands of down-to-earth education and health programs that can in reality remedy individuals in your hometown and mine make informed life-style choices.
News Hawk- Ganjarden http://www.420Magazine.com
Source: The Milford Daily News
Author: Ronald Fraser
Contact: The Milford Daily News
Copyright: 2008 GateHouse Media, Inc.
Website: Fraser: The Illusion Of Progress In The DrugWar
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