This past July, after citing a litany of social problems that they attribute to the war on drugs, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed the following resolution:
“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors believes the war on drugs has failed and calls for a New Bottom Line in U.S. drug policy, a public health approach that concentrates more fully on reducing the negative consequences associated with drug abuse, while ensuring that our policies do not exacerbate these problems or create new social problems of their own; establishes quantifiable, short- and long-term objectives for drug policy; saves taxpayer money; and holds state and federal agencies accountable…” U.S. mayors call for end to drug war
America’s mayors are the drug war front line elected executives who must mop up the blood in our streets and repair the social damage done to urban America by the federal prohibition against regulating distribution to the $ 144 billion U.S. consumer demand for intoxicant drugs.
This week Baltimore City Councilman Jack Young called for hearings into ending the war on drugs.
“City councilman pushes to end war on drugs” that:
“Baltimore City Councilman Jack Young is taking his war against the “war on drugs” one step farther.
On Monday, Young said he will introduce a resolution seeking a hearing — with testimony from the Baltimore Police Department and the city Health Department — to open a dialogue on what he said is a failed strategy against illegal drugs.
“Like I’ve said before — what we’ve done is not working,” he said.
“We need to have a dialogue about taking the profit motive out of drug dealing and ending the so-called war on drugs.”
Absolutely! 100% right Councilman Young.
In August The Humboldt County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution, 4-0 with one abstention, to call on their representatives in the U.S. congress to support the legalization of marijuana.
In response to the Commissioners their member of congress, Congressman Mike Thompson, responded that legalization of cannabis “is a real long shot at this time.”
Thompson’s stultified perspective reflects the observation in the Op/Ed, “The Lost War” by Misha Glenny in the Washington Post in August that enumerated the national security and public safety threats imposed on America by the drug prohibition and that also reduces the fundamental security of the entire free world. Glenny noted:
“The trade in illegal narcotics begets violence, poverty and tragedy. And wherever I went around the world, gangsters, cops, victims, academics and politicians delivered the same message: The war on drugs is the underlying cause of the misery. Everywhere, that is, except Washington, where a powerful bipartisan consensus has turned the issue into a political third rail.”
A political third rail that is getting American children murdered in our streets every day while funding the anarchy of gangsterism and terrorism.
