The price that Americans are paying for the drug war has become an issue in these times of severe federal, state, and local budget deficits. Some of these costs can be found within the Economics link at Drug War Facts and have been distilled into the flyer, “The Federal, State, and Local Price of the Drug War.”

Consider these costs, remembering that each point represents a direct quote from the linked authoritative source:

$714 billion – That’s the current Federal budget deficit as of April 2010.

$48.7 billion – That was total estimated cost of U.S. drug prohibition in 2008.

$6.2 billion– That’s the price America paid to imprison drug offenders in 2007.

$2 billion – That’s what was spent on counternarcotics programs in Afghanistan from 2005-2009. This, of course, excludes the cost of the war.

$1.4 billion – That’s how much revenue California is losing or really the funds that the state could collect if it taxed marijuana.

Please note that these costs were also the subject of the first of a new series of audio segments for Drug War Facts on the Drug Truth Network, with this first segment airing on May 3, 2010.

Pubdate: Tue, 18 May 2010
Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
Copyright: 2010 HuffingtonPost com, Inc.
Author: Ryan Grim
Note: Ryan Grim is the author of This Is Your Country On Drugs
Referenced: SSDP’s State-by-State Report http://ssdp.org/states/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Mark+Souder

SOUDER, LEADING DRUG WARRIOR, ASKS FORGIVENESS FOR SINS

Mark Souder resigned his congressional seat on Tuesday, confessing to an affair with a staffer and ending an eight-term career as a Republican from Indiana.

In stepping down, he asked God for forgiveness in a rambling, all-caps public statement.  “I SINNED AGAINST GOD, MY WIFE AND MY FAMILY BY HAVING A MUTUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH A PART-TIME MEMBER OF MY STAFF,” he wrote.  “MY COMFORT IS THAT GOD IS A GRACIOUS AND FORGIVING GOD TO THOSE WHO SINCERELY SEEK HIS FORGIVENESS AS I DO.”

Forgiveness, however, is not a quality that Souder shares with his Lord.  No Republican has been more outspoken in Congress in his moral condemnation of Americans who use illicit drugs.  In order to punish such sinning, Souder championed and vigorously defended perhaps the least forgiving law on the federal books: the denial of federal student aid for any student convicted of drug possession, no matter how minor.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n369/a04.html

Pubdate: Mon, 17 May 2010
Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
Copyright: 2010 HuffingtonPost com, Inc.
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Author: Ethan Nadelmann
Note: Ethan Nadelmann is the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. www.drugpolicy.org
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0A1XTlJAio

Sting, Soros, Montel and More

WE ARE THE DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE

I’ve often felt in years past that our struggle to end the drug war is relentlessly uphill.  But that’s changing now, sometimes more quickly than even I can believe.  The principal reason is us, by which I mean every person who grasps the lunacy of drug policies in this country and throughout much of the world, and who takes some action – no matter how small – to advance a better way.

It’s time now for DPA – the Drug Policy Alliance – to launch a new organizational identity that fully expresses each of our roles as agents of change.

This change represents the once-unimaginable progress that you and I have made over the past decade to bring drug policy reform that much closer to the tipping point.  Now is the time to make drug policy reform more personal – creating an even greater sense of moral urgency, connecting the dots with more allies, and building on the common interests of everyone who makes up this movement.  We can keep chipping away at the drug war but it won’t really end until a critical mass of people, communities and elected officials demand a new way of dealing with drugs in our society.  That’s why we are the Drug Policy Alliance.

I’m often asked, “Who is this growing drug policy reform movement?”

We vary of course in what brings us to this cause.  We are people who care about fundamental freedoms, civil liberties and human rights.  We are people who care about social and economic justice.  We are people who want to end racism.  We are people who want addiction treated as a health issue rather than a criminal justice problem.  We are people who want honest drug education for our youth that fosters trust rather than fear.  And every one of us – no matter our reason – believes that the war on drugs is not the way to deal with the reality of drugs in our society.  That’s why we are the Drug Policy Alliance.

[snip]

P.S.  Today we’re introducing a new video featuring Sting, George Soros and Montel Williams.  Each of them – like so many of us – believes that our drug policies must be grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n368/a09.html

Pubdate: Tue, 18 May 2010
Source: Modesto Bee, The (CA)
Copyright: 2010 The Modesto Bee
Contact: [email protected]
Author: Merrill Balassone
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

RULING HURTS IN MODESTO NEEDLE EXCHANGE CASE

A judge ruled Monday that two people arrested for handing out clean syringes to drug users and collecting dirty ones will be barred from telling a jury they did so to help prevent a public health emergency.

Kristy Tribuzio, 36, and Brian Robinson, 38, face up to a year in jail after undercover officers said they caught the two operating an unauthorized needle exchange in a south Modesto park in April 2009.

Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Ricardo Cordova said the pair had other options that were legal, such as lobbying local officials to change the law.  In September 2008, the county Board of Supervisors voted against legalizing needle exchange programs over the recommendation of county health officials.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n368.a11.html

Pubdate: Mon, 17 May 2010
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A13
Copyright: 2010 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Author: Jorge G. Castaneda
Note: Jorge G. Castaneda was foreign secretary of Mexico from 2000 to 2003 in the government of Vicente Fox. He teaches international relations at New York University and is a fellow at the New America Foundation.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

TIME FOR A RESET IN U.S.-MEXICAN RELATIONS

Mexican President Felipe Calderon will make his first full-fledged visit to Washington this week since taking office 3 1/2 years ago.  Given the issues facing their countries, Calderon and President Obama might be tempted to nickel-and-dime their encounter.  But the time is a ripe for a “big idea,” not unlike what NAFTA — warts and all — was when it was proposed in 1990.  Instead of narrowing everything down to drugs, security and how the United States can best back Mexico’s war, the two countries should “de-narcoticize” their relationship and make their goal Mexico’s development and transformation into a middle-class society.

Calderon has been battered by the effects of the international economic crisis at home ( Mexico’s economy shrank 6.5 percent last year ); by 23,000 deaths in the drug war ( 257 deaths in early May constituted the highest weekly toll since 2007 ); by opposition intransigence to reforms and institutional gridlock; this past weekend, by the kidnapping and possible death of the most influential figure of his party for the past two decades; and by Arizona’s new immigration law, which is seen in Mexico as anti-Mexican.  With the 2012 Mexican presidential campaign already underway, Calderon, on his way to lame-duck status, would probably be content with raising a few specific issues ( trucking, American gun-running into Mexico ), obtaining a categorical restatement of U.S.  support for Mexico’s fight against organized crime and one more acknowledgement of U.S.  responsibility for drug use.

[snip]

Consider the border.  On paper, the two governments want freer flows of legal goods, services and people but much tighter control over illicit flows: people and drugs from south to north, guns, chemicals and “blood money” from north to south.  But what about the reality of Arizona, where the Obama administration may have to send the National Guard and against which Mexico has issued a travel advisory? Pressure is also growing on Calderon to legalize marijuana if California does so in November.  Can these contradictory points be dealt with one by one?

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n367.a07.html

Author: Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writer

US DRUG WAR HAS MET NONE OF ITS GOALS

MEXICO CITY- After 40 years, the United States’ war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

Even U.S.  drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked.

“In the grand scheme, it has not been successful,” Kerlikowske told The Associated Press.  “Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.”

This week President Obama promised to “reduce drug use and the great damage it causes” with a new national policy that he said treats drug use more as a public health issue and focuses on prevention and treatment.

Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars and in percentage terms; this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n363.a11.html