For those who support the war on drugs

I'd like to get your opinion on the following linked article. It was published in 1996 by National Review (definitely a conservative magazine) during Clinton's presidency. The article features detailed opinions by 7 relevant people with extensive knowledge of the war on drugs and its consequences. The 7 authors generally do not advocate the complete legalization of drugs, but strongly criticize the opposite extreme (and current policy) of complete prohibition.

If you don't want to read the whole article, note that it is broken into 7 sections (each with a different author). Feel free to read a few sections and comment on those if you like (just let us know which sections you read by number).

http://www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

If you read this article and still support the complete prohibition of drugs, I'd like to know what about the article failed to convince you.

If your mind is changed by the article from supporting the current policy to something else, I'd like to know about that too.

For those who already question the sanity of our current drug policy, I would like your opinion on the quality of this article. I would also like your opinion on what you think individuals can do to persuade the people and government to try a different approach.

Maynard Keenan said:

I HATE the war on drugs.

There are so many more important things. Drug offenders get inane penalties, we spend insane amounts of money on stopping drugs....and yet we can't stop them. Many drugs aren't even that harmful (its impossible to make the case the weed is more dangerous to society than alcohol, which is not only legal but almost universally consumed.)

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Naturally I agree. I keep finding more and more information about the problem that is the war on drugs. I've yet to find any compelling information in support of continuing prohibition.

Here are some links I've recently been exploring for example:

http://www.drugwardistortions.org/

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

I found anothe really great site.

http://www.briancbennett.com/

This piece is brilliant:

http://www.briancbennett.com/writing/waronfat.htm

If we could just get people to read the information out there we ought to be able to change things.

That's ok. I'll keep checking back. Post whenever it's convenient.

quantumspirit said:

How about, instead of all out war, we just take the drug problem on a case by case basis, like any other crime?

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If you mean arresting individuals who commit real crimes while on drugs... yeah that'd be fantastic.

To much for anyone to actually read eh?

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look.