There's been a growing recognition, even by drug war supporters, that we're wasting time/lives/resources with the Prohibition of cannabis. The very same laws and tactics we use to fight the War on Drugs are helping keep the industry profitable and lucrative- and in THIS economy, more powerful. Over half of all drug cartel profits come from cannabis.
Traditionally libertarian, conservative, and/or right-wing media outlets such as 'Forbes', WSJ, and 'Reason' have advocated marijuana law reform. Voters in Maine and Colorado townships voted overwhelmingly in favor of cannabis in November 2008. There is a ballot initiative on the 2010 California statewide ballot to legalize cannabis, and Washington state has introduced similar legislation as well. (a diary done today by diarist otto)
Here is WSJ article
Some key excerpts from the article (I know the WSJ is mostly garbage now that News Corp runs it):
In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs," the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.
A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government's war on drugs summed up recently what he's learned from his long career: "This war is not winnable."
Drug war violence, according to this article and others on latimes.com, has claimed around 15,000 lives in recent years. If you support cannabis Prohibition, then you support a policy that contributes to drug cartel violence. It's that simple. Money made from marijuana sales is paying for guns to be imported into Mexico from USA, which is another dirty little secret...America is driving the violence in Mexico with our lax gun control that allows thousands of weapons to go into cartel hands each and every year. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/us/26borders.html) Drugs go north, cash and guns come south.
More:
Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world's most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.
"Economically, there is no argument or solution other than legalization, at least of marijuana," said the top Mexican official matter-of-factly.
Three former conservative Latin America presidents are calling for re-legalization: Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil. Hillary Clinton acknowledged this past year that American demand for drugs is the problem, and it's not simply a supply-side issue. Mexico has already decriminalized small personal amounts of cannabis, cocaine, LSD, etc in order to refocus its efforts. The apocalyptic prophecies of American right-wing politicians about Mexico becoming a hot-spot for thousands of American tourist overdoses in 2009 failed to materialize, unsurprisingly.
How many must die in order for us to tame the beast that this Drug war has created? Rachel Hoffman didn't have to lose her life if it weren't for the Drug war.. Unfortunately, police officers in Florida didn't consider her life to be valuable at all. Drug cartels are absolutely ruthless, willing to murder family members of Mexican military service members.
UPDATE: I've posted two different links to NY Times stories about guns flowing from US to Mexico, which is a fact mentioned in the WSJ article also. One NYT link is in comments, the other in this diary. A telling quote:
Federal agents say about 90 percent of the 12,000 pistols and rifles the Mexican authorities recovered from drug dealers last year and asked to be traced came from dealers in the United States, most of them in Texas and Arizona.
To deny the problem we have with guns being illegally exported is counter-productive, to put it kindly. Again, people are dying every day while we go about our lives (including blog posting).
We're talking about life and death; when will this country wake the f*ck up?
results from my last diary's poll, "Should we follow California and Colorado and put more cannabis ballot initiatives forward?"
yes
95% 93 votes
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no
3% 3 votes
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maybec
1% 1 votes