Categories:

Dear Drug War Chronicle Reader: The graphic to the left is from the web site of the Lima, Ohio, SWAT team. In January 2008, the team stormed the home of Tarika Wilson and Anthony Terry during an ordinary drug investigation. A member of the SWAT team shot and killed Wilson -- an unarmed 26-year old -- also blowing a finger off the one-year old son she was holding. Another member of the SWAT team killed two family dogs on a different floor. The police department removed the graphic from the web site following the incident. Wilson's killer was charged with two misdemeanors, acquitted, and continues to work for the Lima police department, though not for the SWAT team. Created for emergency or very high-intensity situations (snipers, hostages and the like), today SWAT teams deploy more than 50,000 times per year, mostly in low-level drug raids. This is dangerous and wrong, as the killing of Wilson, the maiming of her child, and the image the SWAT team chose to represent itself before things went bad all demonstrate. Please watch our online video

Share this
Jim Grady's picture
May 29 2009 - 6:21pm

Warehouse dirrect designer handbags

Hey. You have to recognize when the right place and the right time fuse and take advantage of that opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can't sit back and wait. Help me! I find sites on the topic: Warehouse dirrect designer handbags. I found only this - glass Beads pandora style. If you buy it from me,i give you more face book advertising coupon for free. Replica handbags factory oulet wholesale and retail louis vuitton gucci mulberry and other designer replica purses. THX :rolleyes:, Onkar from Ireland.

REMOVE POT

REMOVE POT PROHIBITION

Misinformation for the purpose of perpetuating a lie is wrong. Most of us were told this by our parents. And yet, today we allow government officials to twist the truth to suit their agenda.
Case in point: Marijuana laws. These laws were not created to protect society at large, but rather to protect the interests of those who profit from marijuana's illegality. The feds seem to have the biggest need to see that this plant remains against the law regardless of the fact that individual states and the populace within see it differently.

Nevada voters have consistently been in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. I suppose that may be the reason Washington, D.C., sent Drug Czar John Walters to Nevada to lobby against our local initiative back in ˜06. In fact, we were voting to do the right thing”literally legalize this plant (up to an ounce for those people 21 and older).

Support for the initiative came from many sources. Perhaps the most telling was the outspoken conformation from some 32 churches. Why? Rabbi Myra Soifer of Temple Sinai explained it: “General moral concern about drugs plays in the hands of those opposed to this question. But we're also morally concerned about justice, and we believe that Question 7 is an appropriate way to regulate the use of small amounts of marijuana by adults.” She went on to say that marijuana should join alcohol and tobacco as a drug that the government regulates to prevent excess.

The solution is obvious to all but the fat cats who suck on the teat of illegality. It comes down to greed.

• The drug war is financed by taxpayers.

• The pharmaceutical industry has a keen interest in keeping pot illegal.

• Many companies benefit financially from marijuana's illegality?

• Job security for the drug warriors.

Here's the reality: “One of marijuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety. It has little effect on major physiological functions. There is no known case of a lethal overdose. ¦ Marijuana is also far less addictive and less subject to abuse than many drugs now used as muscle relaxants, hypnotics, and analgesics.” This quote comes from the Journal of the American Medical Association commentary.
The evidence is all very clear, and if only we stop being bullied by the federal government, we can make a difference here in Nevada.

Think of the serious damage done to society attributed to the annual arrest of 400,000 mostly young people on marijuana charges. I was naïve to believe that once people understood that marijuana was much less harmful than drugs that are already legal, the laws against it would be repealed. To this day that has not happened.

America's Way Out Of

America's Way Out Of Afghanistan

As long as the United States and other drug consuming countries pursue a prohibitionist strategy, a massively profitable black market premium exists that makes for the cultivation of drug crops.

Like it or not, the growing of opium poppies, which is the source of heroin, is an enormous part of Afghanistan's economy ” roughly half of the country's annual gross domestic product. As long as the United States and other drug consuming countries pursue a prohibitionist strategy, a massively profitable black market premium exists that makes the cultivation of drug crops far more lucrative than food crops in Afghanistan or any other drug source country. For many Afghan farmers, growing opium poppies is the difference between prosperity and destitution.

The sale of these not currently taxed and not currently regulated drugs finances Al Qaeda and Taliban forces. We Really Lost This War!

If government properly defines property rights, then people are forced to pay for any negative externalities they impose on others. Therefore, the argument is made that market transactions produce efficient outcomes, although not always fair ones. In fact, seldom are they fair. I believe that an unfair outcome is not an efficient one. Not paying one's fair share of taxes is unfair.

There are property rights in every resource, including drugs irrationally currently illegal. The assumption is that one does not have the right to act on anything that is not their property. Either government assigns the property rights to an individual or household or a company, or we assign them to the government. A common property resource is one that no one specifically owns, therefore, does that mean everyone owns it? Drugs irrationally currently illegal fall outside all current rules for property. Hence the bloody ravages of turf wars between drug lords. Does that mean that here everyone via government takes on the role of deciding common property rights? The government affects the economy and culture when it defines or assigns property rights, taxes, subsidizes, and regulates. Via regulation, government has increasingly taken over common property such as water and air. So why not the drugs irrationally currently illegal?

Who owns the oceans? The assumption is that beyond country's territory claims, the ocean is common property. Everybody uses it and nobody maintains it. Similar to the vast profits made off drugs irrationally currently illegal. A lot of people are making money off drugs irrationally currently illegal but not paying for it.

Normative economics is a form of economics. It makes judgments on various policies and the desirability of each. The conclusions in normative economics rest on value-judgments, facts, and theories. Normative economics is an assertion of what ought to be. It is an analysis that includes value judgment about economic policies. Normative economics relates to whether things are good or bad.

Like all economics, it is based on the assumption that human individuals or groups of human individuals uniformly pursue their own individual interests. People either adapt to circumstances, or try to modify the circumstances to achieve their goals and objectives. Normative economic statements are always in the format of as it should be, or it ought to be. An example is when mortgage interest rates drop. When they do then the qualifying loan amount rises, so we ought to drop mortgage interest rates so more people can qualify to own their own home. Another example is consumer refusal to purchase anything whale carcass related because we ought not to eat the flesh of another sentient being. Consumers accept that consuming a sentient creature is immoral and stop doing it. Normative economics has individual human feelings of preference or desire in it. Therefore, it is a value-judgment-based analysis.

I think it ought to be that drugs irrationally currently illegal must immediately be legalized, regulated and taxed. That one simple cost effective change would remove just about all of the current financing for terrorists. Legalizing, regulating and taxing all drugs is America's only way out of Afghanistan.

http://www.broowaha.com/articles/5172/americas-way-out-of-afghanistan