Drug prohibition triggers violence as did alcohol prohibition; history repeats itself. Official lawlessness rules once more, "There's No Justice in the War on Drugs!"

Currently an article that is seriously stirring up the drug policy debate around the world is the cover story of Foreign Policy, a highly influential magazine on international affairs with a global readership. "Legalize it, why it's time to just say no to prohibition." reads their cover headline.

The prohibitionist ideology is not about rational policy; it's definitely not about science, compassion, health or human rights. Drug warriors see their dogma as immune to critical examination, and view people who disagree with contempt, often overzealously silencing dissent as though it were sacrilege and blasphemy. Yet, support for the federal war on drugs is inconsistent with support for individual freedom, constitutional government and the teachings of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

Last Thursday, Oct. 4, there was a US Senate Joint Economic Committee hearing on Mass Incarceration.

"The United States has experienced a sharp increase in its prison population in the past thirty years. From the 1920s to the mid-1970s, the incarceration rate in the United States remained steady at approximately 110 prisoners per 100,000 people. Today, the incarceration rate is 737 inmates per 100,000 residents, comprising 2.1 million persons in federal, state, and local prisons. The United States has 5 percent of the world's population but now has 25 percent of its prisoners. There are approximately 5 million Americans under the supervision of the correctional system, including parole, probation, and other community supervision sanctions.

With such a significant number of the population behind bars, expenditures associated with the prison system have skyrocketed. According to the Urban Institute, "the social and economic costs to the nation are enormous." With 2.25 million people incarcerated in approximately five thousand prisons and jails, the combined expenditures of local governments, state governments, and the federal government for law enforcement and corrections personnel totals over $200 billion.

The JEC will examine why the United States has such a disproportionate share of the world's prison population, as well as ways to address this issue that responsibly balance public safety and the high social and economic costs of imprisonment."

According to a report from the Sentencing project, a half million poor souls are presently incarcerated for drug offenses. Drug abusers need and deserve medical help. Instead we lock them in prison, a breeding ground for crime.

Marijuana prohibition alone costs US taxpayers nearly $42 billion dollars per year in criminal justice costs and in lost tax revenues, according to the study, "Lost Taxes and Other Costs of Marijuana Laws."

Cannabis' criminalization artificially raises the plant’s price and diverts billions of dollars into the black market. According to the report, US consumers spend some $113 billion dollars annually to buy an estimated 31.1 million pounds of pot. This policy, the study estimates causes the government to loses more than $30 billion per year in tax revenue.

U.S. police arrested an estimated 829,625 individuals for making a safer choice (marijuana violations) in 2006, according to the latest FBI annual Uniform Crime Report and 89% of those arrest were for mere possession. That total, the highest ever recorded, made up 44 percent of all drug arrests. The cumulative impact on society from the children orphaned and displaced by this senseless policy is a crying shame.

Meanwhile across the US last year 40% of the murders, almost 60% of the rapes and about half of the aggravated assaults went unsolved! The cumulative effect of this is horrendous. While we police individual recreational and medicinal use of drugs; murderers and violent sexual predators roam free. Law Enforcement keeping the focus on marijuana despite the rise in violent crime is policy bordering on insanity or reefer madness.

"Confronting violence begins in our schools," suggests Texans for Peace." There is a link between pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs and violence including school violence!

Congressional Control of Health Care is Dangerous for Children. "With universal mental health screening being implemented in schools, pharmaceutical companies stand to increase their customer base even more, and many parents are rightfully concerned. Opponents of one such program, called TeenScreen, claim it wrongly diagnoses children as much as 84% of the time, often incorrectly labeling them, resulting in the assigning of medications that can be very damaging. While we are still awaiting evidence that there are benefits to mental health screening programs, evidence that these drugs actually cause violent psychotic episodes is mounting."

"Deliberation vs. Hotlining, no wonder government grows so quickly. One would expect that our representatives in Congress take time to read and understand the bills they pass but surprise, surprise, that is not the case. We the people suffer and pay for the government's wasteful programs and oppressive, unnecessary laws.

Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma elaborates:
"During the 109th Congress (2005-2006), 341 bills and joint resolutions were passed by the Senate. According to the Congressional Research Service, only 21 of those bills received a roll call vote on the Senate floor. That means 94 percent of law making measures that were passed through the Senate were passed by UC or by voice vote. A large majority of these were hotlined and therefore excluded from full and open debate and the amendment process. In the 109th Congress, 1,408 bills, resolutions, or nominations were attempted to be hotlined, with as many as 40 measures being hotlined in a single day."

Downsize big government and save the American dream of self-government free of tyranny and oppression

The blinded by the light of billions in tax and lobby money, bleeding leaders, thus corrupted are blithely unconscious of the societal harm their policies cause. Many of today's leaders seem to have minds like concrete; thoroughly mixed up and permanently set. Our friend Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune gives an excellent example of this phenomena in,"McCain should know the truth about medical marijuana."

Restore justice in America; construct science based drug policies about
saving and rehabilitating instead of ruining lives. Warriors can get their
adrenaline rush catching murderers and violent sexual predators. Many of whom we know are out there, some where. Then our peace keepers will truly be making our neighborhoods safer.