Already we have ex-Presidents Vicente Fox (Mexico), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), Cesar Gaviria (Colombia), and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brasil) calling for legalization and the end of the war on drugs.
Add ex-Premier Felipe Conzalez of Spain to the list.
Spanish ex-premier calls for legalising drugs worldwide
Spain’s former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez Tuesday called for an international treaty to legalise drugs as a way to end the deadly wars between trafficking cartels. […]
Gonzalez, who was Socialist prime minister from 1982 to 1996, noted the consequences of Prohibition against alcohol in the United States in the early 20th century, when gangsters caused “thousands of deaths.”
“When did this violence end? Not when they put the heads of the crime gangs in prison for tax fraud, but when Prohibition ended and the sale of alcohol was legal,” he said.
He acknowleged that “no country can take this decision (to legalise drugs) unilaterally without an extremely serious (political) cost for its leaders.
“What is needed therefore is an international treaty that is respected by all,” he said.
I’m extremely pleased that legalization is getting this degree of international attention and interest. Still, sure would be nice if some leaders would grow a pair while in office.
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I believe ex-Presidents,like the ex-cops and judicial people in LEAP,are the honest and conscientious people serving in governments all over the world that are standing up because they have realized that the laws against drugs have done more damage to our society than the drugs ever could.
I’ve often had the thought that there is actually some kind of cabal of power that has a ‘man behind the curtain.’ Leaders that rise to the level of governor or president are ‘given the word’ once sworn into office. Arnold seemed to have alluded to it after he became governor of California. We’ve seen Mr. Obama do an almost 180 degree turn in his attitude. Slick Willie letting go of the health care for all idea shortly after being sworn, etc, etc. Of course W didn’t do such a change since he was already in line with the secret government.
BTW I frequently scoff at people who promote silly ‘man behind the curtain’ explanations of governance. So everyone is welcome to scoff at me for presenting such a ridiculous theory. I’ll even go over to the mirror and join you in scoffing me.
Well, maybe with enough of this happening, we’ll see exactly that.
The rest of the planet didn’t seem to have any problems with drugs (with the exception of Great Britain importing Indian-grown opium down Chinese throats in the 19th century as economic warfare) until Uncle same started getting imperial ambitions in the Pacific. Things were a lot quieter and less bloody back then. But with the rise of the American colossus and the advent of the ‘American Century’, it was inevitable that American Puritanical irrationalities would stain our international polices, and part of that stain was drug prohibition. So we forced the rest of the world to dance to our (crazed) tune.
Well, things have changed mightily since then, and Uncle isn’t the only band in town. it’s a multi-polar world now, a much less richer world witht eh American Meltdown affecting the rest of the planet, and a lot of other nations and blocs don’t afford our high-priced, useless DrugWar. They want out. And they will get out, one way or another.
These ex-heads of state speaking out are a bellwether of things to come. Expect to see more of this as Prop19 advances. For the other countries know full well the importance of this…and how it will ultimately bring down the Berlin Wall of drug prohibition internationally.
Duncan, you might find this interesting.
I bet they get some real good buds for the Bilderburger conference.
“In receiving these awards it demonstrates a strong collaborate effort amongst our local Law Enforcement Agencies, District Attorney’s Office and the Mexican Drug Cartels,†sheriff Milton Wright said.
http://tinyurl.com/2vrlgbz
Don’t worry Slick Willie and shrubya won’t be seeing the light. Someone should ask Jimmy Carter about it.
given that it’s nearly impossible to get four people to agree on what to have for lunch, i can only laugh at stories of the grand cabal behind the curtain.
never attribute to malice that which is best explained by stupidity.
Yet corporations martial and coordinate the efforts of tens of thousands of workers. Go Figgur.
Yeah would be nice if some of these ex-prezs now seeing the light were American 🙁
“Spain’s former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez Tuesday called for an international treaty to legalise drugs as a way to end the deadly wars between trafficking cartels. […]”
He forgot to add: “.. as a way to end the deadly wars between trafficking cartels and governments .. “
Essentially this treaty would be government pledging to stop this war on the people , for we are the ones caught inbetween thier wars.
JustMe, I’d be tempted to edit that further:
“…as a way to end the false dichotomy of cartels versus governments”
They are symbionts. They are mutually dependent upon each other for survival. There is no real seperation between the two.
I strongly suggest to all and sundry that they visit a public library (if any still remain open) and check out Professor Alfred McCoy’s most recent work “The Politics of Heroin; CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade”
And then understand that the world’s richest people, (banksters to a man and woman) who gather every year in places around the world (as they did in Northern Virginia in 2008) have an enormous stake in maintaining drug prohibition thanks to the laundering of the dirty money that drug prohibition produces. Governments, in turn, use the ‘invisible money’ to fund various covert actions against their supposed opponents…and, of course, their own people.
(We had no less an ‘authority’ that the UN anti-drug chief Mr. Costa briefly mention that it was all that dirty money that kept the big banks afloat in the present crisis.)
Then you can understand why their friends (a.k.a cat’s-paws) in government work so tirelessly to defeat popular referenda and legislation that seek to re-legalize presently illicit drugs. Such is the equivalent of the golden goose for them, and they don’t want a single feather on its’ head disturbed. As the ghost of the late journalist Gary Webb might attest.
LOL! Thats rich. the whole exchange right down the memory hole. Cred=gone. I’ll remember your name, you give a good site a bad rep.
I call out your inconsistency/hypocrisy on deleting only my comments and not the other “irrelevant” ones and you proceed to delete both your response to me and my response you your hypocritical response. Mod powers are great huh? Lose an argument or make an inconsistent/hypocritical statement and you can just send it all down the memory hole like it never happened. Nice.
Chris, I’ll let this post of yours stand.
To recap:
You posted a comment that had nothing to do with drug policy and it got automatically caught in the spam filter because it was full of links. I didn’t bother rescuing it, because it had nothing to do with drug policy. So you accused me of censorship.
Yes, there were posts before yours that got automatically accepted that also didn’t have anything to do with drug policy, but I hadn’t gotten around to deleting them.
So you accused me of selectively deleting yours (untrue) without deleting the other irrelevant posts.
So, fine, I deleted the other irrelevant posts (and the posts that became irrelevant because of the deleting of irrelevant posts), and now you accuse me of having no cred because I did what you told me to do.
If you want to talk about drug policy, you’re welcome here. If you want to be an asshole, I’ll ban you.
You inconsistently said you deleted my comment because it was “not relevant” but failed to delete similarly “irrelevant” comments right above it. Now its that you “haven’t gotten around to it”. Right. Cred shot. For the record I love the site, have commented before, but this is the first time Ive run into a heavy handed, hypocritical, ban/censor happy mod. They exist almost everywhere apparently, even on good sites. You have no cred because you needlessly deleted my comments and only deleted the others when I pointed out the hypocrisy of your reasoning. I pointed that out before but my response was of course deleted.
Ive also dropped links to your site all over the net, in mass emails etc. on an almost daily basis since I found it a few months ago, so don’t take it personal, just ease up on the micromanaging of comments. Its completely unnecessary. It was 5 harmless links and a very short comment, there was no need for you to delete it. Unless of course the content bothered you. If so just admit it. If not calm down, the comment wasn’t long and it was harmless.
Let me say this for the fifth time. I didn’t delete your comment. The automatic spam filter caught it and prevented it from showing (it often does that with comments that have excessive links — I usually try to look and see if someone’s got caught in there that should have been displayed, but not always). I saw yours in there, but at that point, I didn’t bother to approve it since it wasn’t relevant.
If your comment had not been caught by the spam filter, I probably would have let it slide, because I didn’t care enough to micromanage the comments. The only reason I got involved in this at all is because the spam filter caught your comment and you accused me of censorship.