ON WISCONSIN
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Borking the Courts
UK extreme weather; Sec. Chu talks efficiency; 'Agent Orange Corn'?; PLUS: Slow-jamming the news, slow-walking climate change...
ONLINE ELECTION HACKED IN CA
CONNECTICUT ABOLISHES DEATH PENALTY
The Anchorage Mayor and the Election Clerk
90-Year Old Fighting to Vote Under PA GOP Photo ID Law
WAUKESHAME: Nickolaus' Failures; E-Vote Concerns
Corporate Media's Climate Change Failure
ANCHORAGE ELECTION FAILURE
WI Supremes Refuse to Overturn Blocks on Photo ID Law
VT Senate Says No to Corporate Personhood; Obama Should Too
What's the Problem with ALEC? We Are.
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FACT: Gas Higher Under Bush Than Obama
It Isn't Journalism: Woeful MSM Coverage of Wisconsin's Supreme Court Election 'Recount'
Guest Editorial Series by Ernest A. Canning
Even a glimpse at the statistics leads knowledgeable sources, like Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, to describe the 'War on Drugs' as a "failed prohibitionist policy."
"Over the last 40 years, more than 45 million drug-related arrests have cost an estimated $1 trillion," Amy Goodman reported on Democracy Now! "Yet drugs are cheaper, purer and more available today than ever."
And that's just in the U.S.
According to the United Nations' 2011 World Drug Report [PDF], "in 2009, between 149 and 272 million people...aged 15-64 used illicit substances at least once in the previous year." The UN estimated that Cannabis was "consumed by between 125 and 203 million people worldwide in 2009," adding:
But Nadelmann's description of the 'War on Drugs' as a "failed prohibitionist policy" is derived from the supposition that the 'War on Drugs', at least here in the U.S., was actually formulated with a desire to suppress or eliminate drug abuse.
In PART 1 of this series, we examined the question of whether the U.S. Government's effort to challenge legalization of marijuana in California and elsewhere was akin to shutting down the competition, given the CIA's long-documented history of profiting from the world-wide drug trade. In PART 2 we posited that an end to the 'War on Drugs' could deliver a devastating blow to the bottom line of American corporations who have come to depend upon the Prison Industrial Complex in the U.S. and its huge pool of slave laborers --- most, non-violent drug offenders.
So now, we must examine the hypothesis that, if accurate, should rock us all to our core.
What if the horrific consequences of the worldwide drug trade, which, per the UN 2011 World Drug Report, includes an annual death toll of 200,000, are precisely what President Nixon and the covert branches of U.S. Empire had in mind when formulating a policy that would enhance the domination of the 1% over the 99%? Are we now living in a form of Aldus Huxley's Brave New World in which "Failure is Success" can be added to the three slogans from George Orwell's 1984 --- "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery" and "Ignorance is Strength" --- a world in which a vote against legalization is actually a vote in favor of illicit distribution by organized crime and their allies in the CIA?...
It's bad enough that CNN surrendered what little credibility it had as a "news" organization by adopting the name and sponsorship of a mega-billionaire Koch Brothers' funded and controlled, pseudo-grass-roots organization to partner with on Monday's GOP Presidential debate in California.
