Email
Print
by 
The book Twenty-Five Reason To Legalize Drugs, We Really Lost This War is coming out January 2008. As a newby attorney, I strongly agree with the author, Stephen H. Frye, MD. Here in the good ole US of A, we imprison at a rate six times greater than the Dutch. The reason? All the people in jail or prison for crimes that should not be crimes. The proof? The Dutch have indisputably and unequivocally proven that drug decriminalization and legalization works and is remarkably effective. The incarceration rate related to drugs in the US is 12 times higher than the Netherlands. Dr. Frye is correct “The drug war kills people, not the drugs.†Opiate use such as heroin was actually declining until the US passed the Harrison Act. Before drugs were outlawed, cocaine was at only one-fifth of the use it is at today. There is only one motivation to keep drugs illegal. It is profit. Extraordinary profits triggered and driven solely by drugs being illegal. Illegality created media and political attention that provided the incentive for drug dealers to get more people addicted driving up the numbers of their captive customer base.
Aside from the increase in enormous legal problems in increases in each court’s caseload from the needless war on drugs, the social costs have been staggering. Every aspect of crime was increased when drugs were made illegal. In the twenty-eight years since, murders have averaged an increase of 9,000 a year for a total of 252,000 people dead. Drug offenses increased an average of 1,539,000 a year for a total of 43,092,000 people. Imprisonments increased an average of 1,809,000 a year for a total of 50,652,000 more people in our jails and prisons. Assaults increased an average of 1,464,000 a year for a total of 40,992,000 people. And on and on.
I, and my colleagues are looking forward to this book. Hopefully it will turn the tide and we as a country will adopt what Holland has so successfully proven. The stranglehold burden on lawyers and our courts will be lifted. The drug dealer, the middle-man, the only one who currently benefits, will be eliminated. The savings to taxpayers is enormous. Add to that savings the sales tax collected off the legal sale of the drugs.
WORLD - OPINION
Credit:
Copyright © 2010 Kent J.
25 Reasons To Legalize Drugs
Credit: We Really Lost This War
Copyright © 2010 Kent J.
Print
Report abuseAbout the Writer
Want to write articles too? Sign up & become a writer!21 comments on 25 Reasons To Legalize Drugs
Log In To Vote
Score: 14
By Jen and Tonic
on December 05, 2007 at 05:03 pm
The "forbidden fruit" aspect of drugs in this country really does contribute to the problems we've faced with them. Much of how this country views drugs is all in semantics. Think about the term "war on drugs" for a second. It makes it seem as though this is something terrorizing our country to the point that we must go after it military-style. Our politicians are claiming they didn't inhale to escape bad press when running for office.
Other countries do not have this. I'd love if a presidential candidate was accused of smoking pot and came back with, "Hell yeah I did. I was high as a motherf***** kite that night." Anybody who has ever been to a rap concert knows there is no willpower in the world that would stop you from inhaling. Pssssssh.
Report abuse
Report abuse
Log In To Vote
Score: 14
By Steven Lane
on December 05, 2007 at 07:43 pm
I have sat in many an Amsterdam coffee shop, and been given a "menu" of multiple "mota's" or hashish in many flavors. There is porn in the windows and girls in barber chairs, but I never ever felt any sense of danger. I have real problems anyone making adult decisions for me. In 60 years I have never stuck a needle in my arm, smoked or snorted (excluding powdered cocaine) any hard drugs........That was my decision..... My only regrets as far as drugs go are simple, "Gee, I wish I had all the money I spent in the 80's in my quest of a deviated septum back." Crack cocaine, Heroin and Meth have and continue to devastate many lives and education and treatment should be the answer to that, certainly not jail.
Log In To Vote
Score: -3
By Dawnfire
on December 06, 2007 at 05:39 am
I have been a drug addict. I know what it is like and I know that legalizing drugs will only make things worse. More deaths, more people taking drugs and more crime to fund their habits.
Log In To Vote
Score: 11
By Rose Mountain
on December 06, 2007 at 01:25 pm
Great article and information.
Sadly some corporations would jump at the chance to legally sell drugs. I saw a documentary recently that the drink Coca Cola originally had cocaine in it, (it wasn't just a myth).
But most importantly I wish our country would focus on WHY so many citizens feel the need to drink such heavy amounts of alcohol and do drugs enough to numb the pain which includes prescription drugs. And why do people engage in other activities to cover over their pain.
This is a mainstream thing. Look at the increases when the US is at war or when the economy is so hard that people have trouble staying afloat. Why do people have to work just to make ends meet, why do they feel compelled to work to buy the newest car. Why do people work to forget their painful marriages.
Look at the child abuse statistics approx 1 out of every 4 girls and 1 out of every 5/6 boys, and this has been going on for decades if not centuries. Wounded patterns move from one generation to the next.
Look at the centuries of slavery in this country, and the killing of Native Americans.
There's no way that one can harm, abuse, kill others and not have it affect them too. So our country needs healing badly, but the good news is that most people know it.
Log In To Vote
Score: 10
By Rose Mountain
on December 06, 2007 at 02:29 pm
I forgot to say--
I agree we need to legalize drugs, stop putting people in jail for doing drugs, selling drugs, and many other activities that are best healed in other ways. Stop treating people as criminals. There's segments in our culture that are still fixated on crime & punishment. And leaders know how to use the strategy of divide and conquer, which is a way to find someone to blame for our problems instead of healing and embracing those who need healing beginning with many leaders in this country.
The whole jail system is a sad reflection of our culture and that 3 Strikes You're Out Law is absolutely detrimental and ignorant as if human suffering can be equated to a baseball game. The US prison system encourages alienation, distrust, and legally kills people.
Whereas there's many programs that teach "prisoners" and "juvenile delinquents" how to care again, feel trust and faith again, by working with animals with their unconditional love and working with disabled children who have unconditional love and gratitude to share.
And what about the white-collar corporate crime that hurts millions of Americans in one day, and the US war system now encourges torture and killing innocent people for oil.
We all have much work to do....America is hurting badly.
Log In To Vote
Score: 14
By Jen and Tonic
on December 06, 2007 at 06:39 pm
Dawn: There are alcoholics, so should we ban liquor as well? There are spendaholics and people who gamble too much, but I like money and sometimes I'll put money down at a poker table.
There will always be people who indulge in something a little too much no matter if it is legal or not. I think you make a valid point, but I don't think it would apply to everyone.
Log In To Vote
Score: 10
By Brett M
on December 07, 2007 at 12:18 am
I believe all drugs should be decriminalized. I've been to Holland and seen first hand the much improved society they have over ours.
Log In To Vote
Score: -5
By Joseph M
on December 07, 2007 at 09:38 pm
Having BEEN to Holland and having having been born in, or otherwise LIVED in Holland are nothing alike. Few from there desire to stay there.
Log In To Vote
Score: 10
By Annonymous
on December 08, 2007 at 04:23 pm
I haven't been to Holland but plan to someday.
Is it true what Joseph wrote? "Few from there (Holland) desire to stay there." If so why?
Not only do I agree that drugs should be legal for adults but I would add porn to that. Adults who wish to engage in porn in private is another activity that I feel should be legal.
Log In To Vote
Score: -5
By Annonymous
on December 10, 2007 at 02:50 am
Good God! Rose Mountain's comments are more long-winded than her articles.
Joe is right about Holland. I have no interest in turning this country into that country.
Given that drugs will never be legalized in the USA for a multitude of political, economic, historical and philosophical reasons, this tired old discussion is just mental masturbation.
Log In To Vote
Score: 6
By Morgana
on February 13, 2008 at 06:10 pm
What about "drugs" for religious purposes?
Alternate Visions of the Self: Peyote, a cactus indigenous to Mexico, has buttons, which when chewed have a mild narcotic effect. This produces euphoria, and eventually pleasant hallucinations. The Aztecs already had a religion built around peyote. It was approximately 1700 when peyote reached some of the Apache tribes. The Peyote Cult spread during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One Indian who successfully combined peyote and Christianity was Wisconsin Winnebago Albert Hensley.
In the last decade of the nineteenth century, some Winnebagos adopted the introduction of peyote into their culture. In Hensley's case, it was specifically peyote and Christian beliefs that changed him, and finally resulted in his managing to live in both worlds, to respect the old ways and still become civilized as the white man wanted him to. Hensley believed so much in Christianity, that it was he who introduced the Bible and other Christian elements into the Winnebago peyote ritual. Hensley felt that peyote and Christianity, which in his life had been so successful for him, might be extended to other Indians.
In his 1908 Peyote Conversion Narrative autobiography, Hensley is an active-Peyotist, and speaking more in oral Indian tradition. In his 1916 autobiography, he is still an active-Peyotist, and deliberately manipulative of his belief system to date as his pro-Peyote belief is never indicated. Probably because his audience in the 1916 autobiography was his daughter's school superintendent. He did not seem to have any problem sublimating his beliefs, as his solution was a connection, a unification of the single idea of the self in both autobiographies.
Log In To Vote
Score: 5
By Craig B
on March 21, 2008 at 04:52 pm
Here's the website for this book: http://www.25reasons.org/contact.html
Log In To Vote
Score: 6
By Morgana
on August 09, 2008 at 06:31 pm
We Really Lost This War! “The only way you can die from marijuana is to get arrested and get killed in jail” An Exclusive Interview with Stephen H. Frye, MD
Log In To Vote
Score: 6
By Dr. Steve
on August 12, 2008 at 06:57 pm
Thank you Kent for the great review of my book. I am looking for media connections, radio, TV, newspapers and magazines, to help get the word out. Please check out my web site 25Reasons.org for all 25 reasons. I am also working to develop an Inconvenient Truth type documentary with me giving my lecture and film clips behind it. I really appreciate yours and anyone else's assistance in this huge project to correct an unimaginable injustice that is tragically more racist and damaging to African-Americans than slavery ever was, and is much more devastating and deadly to our children and teens than the drugs themselves.
Log In To Vote
Score: 6
By 'Mean' Mike Duffau
on August 12, 2008 at 07:50 pm
“The drug war kills people, not the drugs.” i agree with that!!!! i wasn't much of a dope smoker, my thing was LSD, acid, or whatever you wanna call it. good times!
Log In To Vote
Score: 6
By Joan Westin
on December 13, 2008 at 06:55 pm
Legalize It - With a recession in sight, the case for legalizing marijuana and taxing it for government revenue seems more practical than ever, http://digg.com/political_opinion/Legalize_It_9
Also in Opinion:
In the Headlines:
Most Read Articles:
- 3 Are We There Yets
- The Broo Back Page Contest
- The Foster Child and the Garbage Bag
- Bloggers Needed Badly to Avoid Sleepless Nights and Hunger
BrooWaha
