NAACP Passes Historic Resolution to End Drug War
(Los Angeles, CA) – "Today the NAACP passed a historic resolution calling for an end to the "War on Drugs." The resolution was voted on by a majority of delegates at the 102nd NAACP Annual Convention in Los Angeles, CA. The overall message of the resolution is captured by its title: "A Call to End the War on Drugs, Allocate Funding to Investigate Substance Abuse Treatment, Education, and Opportunities in Communities of Color for A Better Tomorrow."
“Today the NAACP has taken a major step towards equity, justice and effective law enforcement,” stated Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP. “These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”
The resolution outlines the facts about the failed drug war, highlighting that the U.S. spends over $40 billion annually on the war on drugs, locking up low-level drug offenders – mostly from communities of color. African Americans are in fact 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same drug-related offense than their white counterparts. "
MP: Seems like a no-brainer.
15 Comments:
Well done! Let's hope they put their considerable publicity machine behind it.
Drug war victims are disproportionately minority.
Yes, spending on treatment and education are needed, because drug abusers are wasting billions of dollars and killing thousands of people.
Lemme see ... "Stop spending on the drug war!" (OK, sounds good) "And instead spend all that money on me and my fellow minority grievance machines!" (Nope. Not workin' for me)
How about we stop the drug war and cut that much money out of the government's spending. Treatment and education are *not* federal matters.
blog-
i think we can have our cake and eat it too.
legalize drugs and we save a fortune on enforcement and incarceration.
put a tax on them, and we pay for treatment etc that only the users pay for.
as mark said, seems like a no brainer.
Legalizing the behavior that wasted billions of dollars and killed thousands of people may create more of that behavior.
peak-
the waste came from making it illegal, not from the drugs.
you could make the exact same argument you just made about the 21st amendment that legalized alcohol again.
remember how that destroyed the US? yeah, me either.
I think it would be cheaper and more effective if the NAACP would cut their ties with the CBC...
Morganovich, drug abusers don't care how much money they cost society and how many people they kill. They just want drugs.
peak-
"drug abusers don't care how much money they cost society and how many people they kill. They just want drugs."
same with drunks. there are far more of them and they are more expensive than drug abusers, especially when you factor in drunken violence and spousal abuse. by your logic, we should ban alcohol again. cigarettes are even worse.
also they are already doing drugs now. drugs are easy to get. the costs are already there. you act like legalization would cause you to become a heroin junkie. there was no meaningful uptick in alcoholism when prohibition was repealed. why is this different?
sounds like you don't want to pay for them.
i don't think you should have to.
legalize drugs and tax them. let the users pay for treatment themselves.
If you talk to anyone under 30, the drug du jour is already legal. You just need to tell your doctor that you have ADHD. What happens to prescription drugs if coke becomes legal? Could I just go to the pot shop and pick some up?
Morganovich says: "legalize drugs and tax them. let the users pay for treatment themselves."
Sure, the government has more important things to spend your money on than helping you.
I think, the data will show:
More people use legal alcohol than all illegal drugs combined.
More people use legal cigarettes than all illegal drugs combined.
More people use legal drugs than all illegal drugs combined.
If you legalize something, you get more of it.
If illegal drug users wanted to save billions of dollars and thousands of lives, they would've quit.
Peak,
I'm completely certain that the number of people who use alcohol is quite a bit lager than those who use illegal drugs.
However, I think if you screen out those who have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner, and use only those who routinely drink solely for the purpose of getting drunk, that number gets a lot closer.
Nobody uses drugs as an accompanying beverage to their meal.
Please go and look at the results with Vancouver's attempt to have regulated "sanctuary" areas for heroine use and the lack of incidence changes.
Bobby,
I think you can find data like that in several cities/countries.....good point.
Peak,
"I think, the data will show:
More people use...etc, etc."
As when you posted this before, you are arguing that drug use is a minor problem compared to a lot of other things.
"If you legalize something, you get more of it."
I recall an adage very similar to that one, but the word used was subsidize, not legalize.
We actually have little experience legalizing things and watching the resulting changes in demand, except for alcohol, and in that instance we didn't get more of it, we just got less crime.
"If illegal drug users wanted to save billions of dollars and thousands of lives, they would've quit."
Actually it's hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives, but the point is the same.
Illegal drug users don't care a fig about those things, but we should.
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