I just have to recommend this wonderful primer on “our nation’s jihad against drugs.” Please read all six parts – whenever you get a free minute:
If you want links broken down by parts, here they are:
1. Introduction
2. South America
3. Mexico
4. Afghanistan
5. Chicago
6. Civil Liberties
Here’s an excerpt:
“…we’ve seen a slow progression towards what many of us see in various police states around the world – armed forces charging into homes, the lack of a functioning system for trying people properly, and a massive prison population that now surpasses any other on the planet by far. […]
Like many who’ve had political awakenings during the Bush years, though, I’ve become drawn to the deteriorating situations that we now face as a nation – with our foreign relations, our economy, and the growing divide in America between the haves and the have-nots. I come away from this exploration with a strong belief that the way we treat drugs in our society is a central flaw in many of these failings. […] I certainly can’t say that the drug war is the only factor in these problems, but I’m struck by how it’s not just a major one, but one that we remain totally incapable of discussing openly and honestly. […]
The Constitution itself doesn’t completely settle the debate between a criminal justice approach to drug addiction or a harm reduction approach. Science, past results, and simple common sense does. But the fact that our criminal justice system has so thoroughly eroded our Constitutional rights, and the fact that the people who’ve established this drug war dogma have had to resort to squelching free speech in order to maintain it, should be an awfully strong clue about the damage it’s doing.”