Help end the War on Drugs with Avaaz!

Colibri

listermint wrote: »

I beg to differ, your purchase is propagating people getting murdered for money to control the drug trade. So currently, no its not a victimless crime.

The only reason people are getting murdered? Drugs are illegal. Drugs are big money!

HavingCrack

listermint wrote: »

I beg to differ, your purchase is propagating people getting murdered for money to control the drug trade. So currently, no its not a victimless crime.

I think he was referring more to the actual 'act' of consuming drugs rather than the violence that occurs to control the sale and supply of the substances. If I buy a line of cocaine off a drug dealer and snort it at home on my own I am not 'directly' harming anyone except myself.

Now only a fool would not realise that the cocaine you have bought did not originate in South America where it is fought over by violent cartels who regularly kill innocent bystanders. In turn it is shipped to Africa and Europe and goes via Spain, the Netherlands and the UK before arriving here. Violence is associated with all its stages. However, you are not directly involved in the violence.

Chuck Stone

listermint wrote: »

I beg to differ, your purchase is propagating people getting murdered for money to control the drug trade. So currently, no its not a victimless crime.

Wrong.

People who get killed in drug related disputes are killed because of the vast amounts of money changing hands because of it's illegality and lack of regulation.

People who sell drugs cannot work out disputes by invoking property rights. They cannot go to the police or courts and say 'He owes me money' what is the result? Disputes are settled by violence.

It's the illegality that causes victims. Not some random guy who likes a joint at the weekend.

HavingCrack

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Absolutely. But calling it a 'war on drugs' is not helpful imo. People are either for freedom and non-violence or they are against it.

People who support the so called 'war on drugs' are for violence (kidnap and imprisonment of drug users) and against freedom (the freedom to do what you want with your body and time).

It's really quite simple if given a little thought.

Oh I would agree with you 100%, no doubt about it. I was merely pointing out that not all police are proponents of the drug "war".

I do feel we need a carrot and a stick approach to the problem. Legalisation of marijuana and MDMA and decriminalisination of other drugs would be a start along with a coherent public health strategy similar to Portugal's. Posession of drugs is no longer a crime. However a zero tolerance policy is neccessary for major drug traffickers I feel. ANy violent attempts by drug dealers to attack the legal retailers of their former products must be punished severely. Perhaps other drugs may be legalised very gradually over time once addiciton levels drop significantly and violence from drug gangs decreases. As I said, a carrot and stick approach.

Colibri

HavingCrack wrote: »

I do feel we need a carrot and a stick approach to the problem. Legalisation of marijuana and MDMA and decriminalisination of other drugs would be a start along with a coherent public health strategy similar to Portugal's. Posession of drugs is no longer a crime. However a zero tolerance policy is neccessary for major drug traffickers I feel. ANy violent attempts by drug dealers to attack the legal retailers of their former products must be punished severely. Perhaps other drugs may be legalised very gradually over time once addiciton levels drop significantly and violence from drug gangs decreases. As I said, a carrot and stick approach.

This should happen in full legalisation too

TheZohanS

HavingCrack wrote: »

In fairness an awful lot of police officers in the worst affected US cities such as Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago are in favour of decriminalising drugs and making them a public health issue rather than a criminal one. Unfortunately I know very few guards with similar views.

I know quite a few gardai that hold that view on drugs, but they'd never come straight out and say it to all and sundry because it would be used as a stick to beat them and their job is to withhold the law, not to legislate.

The gardai have better things to be doing with their time than filling in paperwork and taking time out to appear in court for minor drug offences, it wastes resources.

HavingCrack

TheZohan wrote: »

I know quite a few gardai that hold that view on drugs, but they'd never come straight out and say it to all and sundry because it would be used as a stick to beat them and their job is to withhold the law, not to legislate.

The gardai have better things to be doing with their time than filling in paperwork and taking time out to appear in court for minor drug offences, it wastes resources.

Fair enough, I can respect that point of view. I would not expect a garda to risk their job for it. Unfortunately getting our legislature to change anything with the conservative Kenny in charge is very unlikely. It isn't even a topic for discussion within his party according to a relatively high up member I know.

Fukuyama

Chuck Stone wrote: »

I disagree. Calling it a war makes it sound as if there are good guys and bad guys.

Uninfomed people think the 'good guys' are the side which are 'protecting' them i.e. the police, the prosecutors, the prison officers etc.

There is only one question to be asked and answered when it comes to drug taking.

Do people support the initiation of violence? In this case it's the kidnapping and imprisonment of people who choose to take drugs - a victimless 'crime'.

Either you're for violence or you're not. Simple as.

I think you're a little deluded to think there isn't a War on Drugs.

Fair enough the term was coined by the White House as part of an anti-drug campaign back when the world was led to believe cannabis would cause you to go into a murderous rage, rape your sister and blow your own head off with shot gun. Reefer madness as it were.

Today, the war on drugs involves plenty of live ammunition, deaths, casualties, territorial disputes (both between gangs and gangs and police) and people fleeing from the violence.

In some wars (hell, most wars) both sides are the 'bad guys'. Believe me, it's a war. Try take a stroll through Mexican border towns and tell me otherwise.

strobe

Colibri wrote: »

http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/?fpla



The UN will have a meeting about Drug Policy on the 1st of June. Former heads of state and other important figures will come together to discuss the failed war on drugs and its devastating effects worldwide.

Avaaz is hosting a petition to be signed and given to the commission on the 1st, but they need signatures from everyone who opposes this war on drugs! Do the right thing guys - end violence in Mexico and other countries worldwide, boost economies and educate people


Avaaz started a petition to stop the gay death penalty bill in Uganda. 1.6 million signatures were delivered to the Ugandan Parliament. It helped create awareness - the bill died. This shows that petitions can work - strength is in numbers. I think all the recent protests in the East has proved this!

Sigged.

Chuck Stone

Dean0088 wrote: »

I think you're a little deluded to think there isn't a War on Drugs.

I'm not deluded at at all.

You think it's a war on drugs. Fine.

I think the term is simplistic and unhelpful and the war on drugs is used to distract ppl from what's really happening which is more like a war on people.

Regardless, you won't convince me otherwise nor I you so let's agree to differ.

NoDice

Signed and link posted to FB. Yeah. I went there. :cool:

Colibri

Thanks NoDice:D

NoDice

No no, thank you good sir! *waves from unicorn with monocle in one hand and bong in the other*

jill_valentine

As often as I tend to agree with Avaaz, I'm sick to my arse of all the BIG CAPITAL LETTERS ONLY 24 HOURS TO SAVE SOMETHING spam I've been getting from them now for a while.

My conscience won't let me relegate them to junk though, alas.

Colibri

jill_valentine wrote: »

As often as I tend to agree with Avaaz, I'm sick to my arse of all the BIG CAPITAL LETTERS ONLY 24 HOURS TO SAVE SOMETHING spam I've been getting from them now for a while.

My conscience won't let me relegate them to junk though, alas.

Sign this one and then mark as spam

Hookah

Target almost reached...

http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/

Snowie

I like drugs tho so were does that leave me ?

Chocablock

Went up 22000 in less than an hour...No doubt me putting it as my facebook status contributed greatly :cool:

D.U.M.B

Almost half a million signatures already!

In 72 hours, we could finally see the beginning of the end of the ‘war on drugs’. This expensive war has completely failed to curb the plague of drug addiction, while costing countless lives, devastating communities, and funneling trillions of dollars into violent organized crime networks.

Experts all agree that the most sensible policy is to regulate, but politicians are afraid to touch the issue. In 72 hours, a global commission including former heads of state and foreign policy chiefs of the UN, EU, US, Brazil, Mexico and more will break the taboo and publicly call for new approaches including decriminalization and regulation of drugs.

This could be a once-in-a-generation tipping-point moment -- if enough of us call for an end to this madness. Politicians say they understand that the war on drugs has failed, but claim the public isn't ready for an alternative. Let's show them we not only accept a sane and humane policy -- we demand it. Sign the petition and share with everyone -- when we reach 1/2 million, it will be personally delivered to world leaders by the global commission.

For 50 years current drug policies have failed everyone, everywhere but public debate is stuck in the mud of fear and misinformation. Everyone, even the UN Office on Drugs and Crime which is responsible for enforcing this approach agrees -- deploying militaries and police to burn drug farms, hunting down traffickers, and imprisoning dealers and addicts – is an expensive mistake. And with massive human cost -- from Afghanistan, to Mexico, to the USA the illegal drug trade is destroying countries around the world, while addiction, overdose deaths, and HIV/AIDS infections continue to rise.

Meanwhile, countries with less-harsh enforcement -- like Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Australia -- have not seen the explosion in drug use that proponents of the drug war have darkly predicted. Instead, they have seen significant reductions in drug-related crime, addiction and deaths, and are able to focus squarely on dismantling criminal empires.

Powerful lobbies still stand in the way of change, including military, law enforcement, and prison departments whose budgets are at stake. And politicians fear that voters will throw them out of office if they support alternative approaches, as they will appear weak on law and order. But many former drug Ministers and Heads of State have come out in favour of reform since leaving office, and polls show that citizens across the world know the current approach is a catastrophe. Momentum is gathering towards new improved policies, particularly in regions that are ravaged by the drug trade.

If we can create a worldwide outcry in the next 72 hours to support the bold calls of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, we can overpower the stale excuses for the status quo. Our voices hold the key to change -- Sign the petition and spread the word.

We have a chance to enter the closing chapter of this brutal 'war' that has destroyed millions of lives. Global public opinion will determine if this catastrophic policy is stopped or if politicians shy away from reform. Let's rally urgently to push our hesitating leaders from doubt and fear, over the edge, and into reason.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/

General General

D.U.M.B wrote: »

Almost half a million signatures already!

In 72 hours, we could finally see the beginning of the end of the ‘war on drugs’. This expensive war has completely failed to curb the plague of drug addiction, while costing countless lives, devastating communities, and funneling trillions of dollars into violent organized crime networks.

Experts all agree that the most sensible policy is to regulate, but politicians are afraid to touch the issue. In 72 hours, a global commission including former heads of state and foreign policy chiefs of the UN, EU, US, Brazil, Mexico and more will break the taboo and publicly call for new approaches including decriminalization and regulation of drugs.

This could be a once-in-a-generation tipping-point moment -- if enough of us call for an end to this madness. Politicians say they understand that the war on drugs has failed, but claim the public isn't ready for an alternative. Let's show them we not only accept a sane and humane policy -- we demand it. Sign the petition and share with everyone -- when we reach 1/2 million, it will be personally delivered to world leaders by the global commission.

For 50 years current drug policies have failed everyone, everywhere but public debate is stuck in the mud of fear and misinformation. Everyone, even the UN Office on Drugs and Crime which is responsible for enforcing this approach agrees -- deploying militaries and police to burn drug farms, hunting down traffickers, and imprisoning dealers and addicts – is an expensive mistake. And with massive human cost -- from Afghanistan, to Mexico, to the USA the illegal drug trade is destroying countries around the world, while addiction, overdose deaths, and HIV/AIDS infections continue to rise.

Meanwhile, countries with less-harsh enforcement -- like Switzerland, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Australia -- have not seen the explosion in drug use that proponents of the drug war have darkly predicted. Instead, they have seen significant reductions in drug-related crime, addiction and deaths, and are able to focus squarely on dismantling criminal empires.

Powerful lobbies still stand in the way of change, including military, law enforcement, and prison departments whose budgets are at stake. And politicians fear that voters will throw them out of office if they support alternative approaches, as they will appear weak on law and order. But many former drug Ministers and Heads of State have come out in favour of reform since leaving office, and polls show that citizens across the world know the current approach is a catastrophe. Momentum is gathering towards new improved policies, particularly in regions that are ravaged by the drug trade.

If we can create a worldwide outcry in the next 72 hours to support the bold calls of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, we can overpower the stale excuses for the status quo. Our voices hold the key to change -- Sign the petition and spread the word.

We have a chance to enter the closing chapter of this brutal 'war' that has destroyed millions of lives. Global public opinion will determine if this catastrophic policy is stopped or if politicians shy away from reform. Let's rally urgently to push our hesitating leaders from doubt and fear, over the edge, and into reason.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/

Well, if everyone agrees... then why the petition?

WoollyRedHat

D.U.M.B-Drugs under my bed?

partyatmygaff

General General wrote: »

Well, if everyone agrees... then why the petition?

Probably because they never actually did agree and the petition writer just misrepresented something they may have said at some point in order to make their petition sound more legit.

LCIMayo

Lets hope this opportunity does not slip by. Prohibition does not work and never will work. What has it done for us, created an industry that takes away peoples freedom and created more criminals than its put away.

PROHIBITION MUST END NOW!!!

My name is URL

Global war on drugs "has failed"

The global war on drugs has "failed" according to a new report by group of politicians and former world leaders.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy report calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users.

The panel includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303

mikom

My name is URL wrote: »

Global war on drugs "has failed"



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303

as well as the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and the current Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou.

.

thebigbiffo

This morning in the Indo James Downey writes under the headline 'Time to use the nuclear option in the drugs "war" - legalise them all'.

OFFICIAL: the world has lost the war on drugs. The formal surrender came last week in the form of a report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy, probably the most authoritative body ever set up to study the subject.
Its members include the former UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, the British businessman Richard Branson and the former US secretary of state, George Shultz. They also include three ex-presidents, of Brazil, Switzerland and Colombia. They know all about drugs in Colombia. Come to think of it, we know too much about them here and everywhere else.
But this knowledge has not been well-absorbed, especially in Ireland. Like the rest of the world, we have been waging this war for 40 years or thereabouts, and frantically refusing to believe the evidence.
I first heard the proposal to legalise not just cannabis but heroin, cocaine -- the lot -- more than 30 years ago. I was horrified. It took me a long time to conclude that decriminalisation was the only answer. Millions of others have come to the same conclusion over the same period. Many millions more refused to change their minds, mainly because they simply refused to look at the evidence.
Since the "war" began, sales have rocketed. The cost of trying to control them, much less reduce them, has rocketed in tandem. It is now estimated at $100bn (€70bn) a year.
I am a bit suspicious of this too-round figure, partly because it is exactly the same as the estimate for the annual profits from trafficking women and children for purposes of prostitution. Given the nature of things, these are not areas where you can expect to get exact figures. But I would guess that, if anything, they are underestimates.
As to the profits made from the trade in illegal drugs, they are undoubtedly far higher, and they are being successfully laundered around the globe, buried in bank accounts or invested in legitimate business.
We have all read accounts of how the Latin American super-criminal Pablo Escobar died, shot down as he tried to escape across a rooftop. But that was far from typical. Much more commonly, the criminal lords live in luxury and security in places like the Riviera, certain that their skins are as safe as their bank accounts.
At a lower level, the turf wars grow in ferocity and the murder rate mounts. Think of Limerick, and multiply the crime rate there by scores of thousands. The murder rate in one small Central American country exceeds that for the entire European Union of 27 countries. Whole cities in Mexico have fallen under the control of the gangsters.
And that's not all. For many years I thought that the drug lords would move on to the territorial plane, seeking to take over sovereign countries. I was right only up to a point. I thought they would establish footholds, for example, in small and remote island groups. They found a better way -- from their viewpoint. They corrupted sovereign governments in more considerable countries, including strategic countries like Afghanistan. A recipe for never-ending conflicts and instability.
Almost everywhere, the political reaction to every twist in this appalling story has been to spend more and more money on police, prisons, sniffer dogs and naval patrols. This could not have happened unless those involved, especially the politicians, had succeeded in closing their minds firmly to the facts and the implications.
They thereby ignored the insight of Sigmund Freud, who said that doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result was a sign of insanity.
They also ignored the warnings, and proposals, of people who had actually thought seriously about the subject. In 1989, Milton Friedman wrote a letter to the US government's "drugs czar", Bill Bennett, in which he put the matter elegantly: "The very measures you favour are a major source of the evils you deplore."
Interesting that those words came from a guru of the economic right. In Ireland, excitable "conservatives" tend to think that calls for drugs legalisation are the product of some left-liberal conspiracy. Not at all. They are not even part of the liberal agenda. They originate with sensible people who merely face up to reality.
One way to demonstrate good sense and grasp of reality is to look for precedents and take example from them. The relevant precedent in the present case is of course prohibition in the United States.
In the campaign to ban sales of alcoholic drink, crazy women had smashed up pubs with axes in the hope of saving the bodies and souls of the misguided customers. What they achieved instead was the greatest boost ever to gangsterism -- until the drugs war. Joe Kennedy founded a vast fortune on bootlegging, and his spare cash helped his son to become president of the United States.
Prohibition had a curious class aspect. Sales of beer went through the floor, while sales of wine and spirits rose. I suppose the bootleggers profited from importing stuff that is more valuable per litre, as well as from high mark-ups. Very likely, too, they developed good relations with their affluent customers. But working men were deprived of their favourite tipple.
When Dublin experienced its first "heroin epidemic", American journalists noted that heroin was regarded as a working-class drug here but a middle-class drug in the United States. I don't know if that had any real significance at the time, but it surely can have none now, with cocaine so widely available to all classes.
What does have significance is the courage and intelligence, or lack of same, among our politicians. It isn't much to ask. The argument was won and long ago, and now the Global Commission tells us the war has been lost as well. Time to acknowledge the facts.
- James Downey
Irish Independent

It's great to see a well known and respected columnist unconditionally support the findings of the Global Commission on Drugs Policy. I would love to say this will spark a national debate on our own drugs policies but it wont...but at least we're moving - even if it is at a snails pace - towards rational thinking being accepted on this issue.

biko

Turn Dublin into Hamsterdam. Save the rest of the country.

thebigbiffo

biko wrote: »

Turn Dublin into Hamsterdam. Save the rest of the country.

Hamsterdam worked!! I'd love to see a completely enclosed community where serious junkies can **** themselves up as much as they wanted without bothering the rest of us...it would need to be staffed by professional health workers which is where the diversion of cash from policing should really go. Those people who wanted treatment could get it easily and those who didn't want it needn't be out begging and thieving for their fix.