So the Drug Czar is pretty excited. He got to check out some seized drugs when he visited with the Arizona Region of the Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) office. This was a pretty major operation that “netted 15 pounds of methamphetamine, 650 pounds of marijuana, 30 kilograms of cocaine and $800,000 in cash.”
Yep, that’ll win the war.
Let’s see now, we add that to the other drugs that the DEA has seized since 1986 and what do we have…
- 31 thousand pounds of heroin
- 54 thousand pounds of meth
- Over 3 million pounds of cocaine
- Almost 15 million pounds of marijuana*
Well, that’s certainly got to be all of them, right? There can’t be anything left.
And yet.
The supply continues on unaffected.
When it costs so little to produce, traffickers can produce twice as much, three times as much as the demand if they wish, and it doesn’t matter how much you seize, there’s always more that will make it through.
Posing in front of seized drugs is like proudly holding up a bucket of water to fight a flood when the water’s up to your knees.
…
*By the way, the marijuana seized by the DEA would be enough to give every adult in the U.S. an ounce.
So the Drug Czar is pretty excited.
How could you tell? He’s got a face like Madam Speaker. And, with Gil, let’s face it. It don’t take much.
I understand that the DrugWarriors regularly under-report the amounts seized as they are too politically embarrassing, but, jeez, they still try that ploy: attempting to deflect the emotional impact by using pounds when they used to use the word TONS.
As in TONS and TONS and TONS of seized drugs. Tens of TONS, scores of TONS. Year after year after year. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the seized contraband had literally reached megaTON levels.
While the Illicit River flows forcefully into Illicit Bay and the Illicit Ocean of the international consumer…and there’s no end in sight so long as drug prohibition continues. Might as well be King Canute ordering his men to lash the waves to keep the tide from coming in. Pathetic.
so how do i claim my ounce again??
Gil’s visage reminds me of the former Canadian PM Paul Martin.
Mr. Martin was nothing but a caretaker, doomed to be a political janitor and then disappear unremembered. Given that the GAO has, on numerous occasions, given the ONDCP black eyes concerning the overall ineffectiveness of its’ efforts, that description of Martin might wind up being slapped on poor ol’ Gil when push comes to shove economically and Congress looks for easy meat to fiscally butcher.
Gil took the job knowing it was a rolling clusterfrak of a farce. He had to have. He knows from personal experience during his LE career how pointless drug prohibition is. His accepting the job was a perfect pre-retirement move, a sweet, soft feather-bed if ever there was one, but the job still requires you to lie. And when you must swim in a sea of lies, sooner or later you swallow some, and then you start to sink, and no life-preserver can save you. And Gil is sinking. How long it takes for him to reach the bottom where ol Johnny Pee started remains to be seen.
The ONDCP’s Pushing Back blog still doesn’t post comments. Two posts yesterday and still no word on when the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy will come out.
here’s the reader’s digest version of the as yet unreleased ondcp strategy:
———-
drugs are bad
see
we need more money to fight drugs
———-
the rest is just filler ;^)
Cannabis,
The ONDCP doesn’t care what you have to say. They never have. Posting over there is a total waste of one’s time.
The 2010 National Drug Control Strategy is this: “NO, NO, and NO! We’ll keep doing the same thing the same way we’ve always done it! And we don’t care how many ‘saved’ children we have to see killed to do it, either!”
It sounds like you’re expecting something “different.”
Hate seeing pictures like this, hate seeing pictures similar to this on television, hate hearing about taking down a small time dealer, hate hearing about someone going to prison, hate reading about all the deaths in Mexico, hate the continual lies.
Hate that Prohibition still exists.
So they are the basters that got my OZ.
I was reading an article by a Roger Morgan, Exec. Dir., Coalition for a Drug Free California. He makes the following assessment:
“Whereby legalization would cut into profits from growing, processing and selling illegal drugs.”
Read that again and see if it doesn’t display a mental malfunction in the writer. I think the first thing we need to do is see if they have an understanding of “Legal” and “Illegal.”
EZ, that’s not a typo, right? He actually wrote it that way? Really?
(Shaking head) I guess they do understand, and this was a Freudian slip or something. In which case they are doubly damned.
“By the way, the marijuana seized by the DEA would be enough to give every adult in the U.S. an ounce.”
Damn.
Yep, Kap, that’s “copy/paste.” It’s on Linda’s favorite rag that was noted a day or so ago.
Yes, but the context is unclear. I couldn’t fully follow it, as he was referring to a previous article that is not included on the site. I wasn’t sure if perhaps he was saying that that was what the other article was saying.
Kap,you could be right about kerli,and that is who he reminds me of,and the stuttering white house secretary is
Larry,and,you guessed it.
It would be a lot funnier if it didn’t cost us 15 billion dollars a year tho.
I really expect to hear about some serious budget cuts in the next few weeks,as peoples unemployment runs out and our homeless persons population increases by 40% in the next couple of months. In order to avoid it,congress will have to make cuts to something,for the funds to cover the
rest of this year,or print more money. Luckily this will hit in the early summer,because the hardest hit will be the north east,where our congress can drive by the tent cities that will pop up.
“Whereby legalization would cut into profits from growing, processing and selling illegal drugs.â€
What? Soooo…where did they get educated?
Denmark: How bout putting it this way…..
I Hate The US Government.
….Nope not afraid to say it. Im not anti-Government….Im anti-corruption, Anti-greed,Anti-bribery,Anti-bullshit, Anti- stupidity , Anti- tyranny In government.
…But ya ..I hate seeing all that too.
Correct Just me. I’m not anti government, just fed up with the obvious lack of any working brain cells within the cranium of prohibitionists.
Saddens me, that authority figures do so much harm to decent individuals over their “illegal” drug chant.
Saddens me when these bozo’s parade around with pictures of their drug busts and continue to deceive people.
ezrydn,
Honestly, I’m not sure if I’m expecting something different or just making an observation. Either way we’re seeing the same, sad results on drug policy issues as the last administration. I was hoping for better, but I know that hope doesn’t change things, hard work does.
“By the way, the marijuana seized by the DEA would be enough to give every adult in the U.S. an ounce.â€
Uuuuum. So when are they gonna, like, mail it, Dude?
The police should stop wasting everyone’s time and money in an infantile treasure-hunt like search for illicit drugs.
These bouts of self-congratulation when police find some hidden stash, as though it’s some kind of remarkable achievement, are utterly absurd.
“Look how good we are at finding the hidden things!”
Kaptinemo-
You have referenced your experience a few times with sporadic details. I’m curious as to what your experience was, or is. If you haven’t already, or don’t mind explaining your experience, I’d like to know. If not, that’s fine. Thanks in advance either way if you explain or not.
And, you have stated that eventually money will dwindle (as is the case to some extent) and thus costs will be too much to tolerate in such a ridiculous drug war. Now, I see this happening, as does some others on a local level, but do you really think this will happen on a federal level? Considering the costs on the federal level haven’t decreased, will it? If so, soon? (I hope).
I like your writing, just would like some clarification so I can understand things better when I read your writings.
Everytime prohibitionists open their mouths, 5 people die in Mexico.
“You have referenced your experience a few times with sporadic details. I’m curious as to what your experience was, or is. If you haven’t already, or don’t mind explaining your experience, I’d like to know. If not, that’s fine. Thanks in advance either way if you explain or not.”
Tall order, and I’m, sure I can fill it. Given that everything on the ‘Net generally stays on the ‘Net, I’ve only provided cursory personal details. If you want to know about the nature of money, of banking, etc. I can direct you to several very good sources that can explain far better than I can why ultimately drug prohibition will be ‘retired’ because of fiscal reasons. Will that suffice?
Sorry, I meant to say That it was a tall order and I’m NOT sure I can fill it.
Kap–
I appreciate your response. I was just curious about your personal experience that you have referenced on occasion. I’ve read many things about the banking/money situation, but I fail to see an end to prohibition because of fiscal reasons–that would make too much sense.
What will suffice is just a brief synopsis of your situation. You can email me directly if you want- same name with hotmail as the addy. Like I stated, just curious.
Radioairbag; Alcohol prohibition in the US run from 1919 to 1933
Now google ‘The Great Wall Street Crash’ and see when that happened!
You’ll forgive me, but having had the Beast’s sickening breath in my face before, and been ripped, no matter how lightly, by its’ claws, I’ve learned to be doubly cautious about stranger’s entreaties for personal information. As should anyone living in what amounts to a smiley-faced, crypto-fascist regime…which the accoutrements of drug prohibition are symptoms of.
Besides, to paraphrase a character from a favorite BBC series, isn’t what a man says more important than who that man is?
Appropriate response kaptinemo. Even this ole woman knows not to blindly trust anyone who’s behind a computer screen.
The 800,000 dollars they got with this bust, is there a credible way to track where every dime of it goes?
And too I think Arizona is feeling the squeeze being surrounded on the west side by states with medical mj and efforts to legalize, therefore they’re gasping for what could possibly be their last breath.
“…they’re gasping for what could possibly be their last breath.”
Considering how much LE operations have become dependent upon civil forfeiture, and how civil forfeiture was resurrected courtesy of RICO, and how RICO itself was dependent upon the DrugWar, it becomes obvious just how terrified DrugWarriors are of losing the opportunity to be modern-day ‘highwaymen’.
With civil forfeiture, the illusion of not having to pester the taxpayer for more money to run their operations could be maintained…as if the public wasn’t in fact paying for the predations of the police in lawsuits against them for those very acts.
But with the re-legalization of cannabis looming on the horizon (with the concomitant threat of having the financial lynch-pin of cannabis arrests being pulled and decoupling their largest gravy train) the use of forfeiture will also subsequently diminish. Which means police forces everywhere will have to return to begging, hat-in-hand, to the taxpayer for their operational budgets. And that taxpayer is not only already strapped, but is showing signs of becoming less tolerant of the waste of what they’ve already paid out.
Once more, we have a historical precedent to guide us. History does repeat itself, sometimes with dreadful predictability. A pity that those attempting to legislate morality via drug prohibitions rarely demonstrate they read those histories of other attempts to do so, for if they did, they’d have known from the get-go the pointlessness of trying. It would’ve saved the rest of us ‘lesser mortals’ a lot of grief…
Oh, and one more thing:
Because the DrugWar has had its’ most negative impact upon the civil rights of minorities, as was its’ original intent, when the money for prosecuting the DrugWar dries up, minorities may find a lessening of the oppressive tactics used against them occurring.
But this may also lead to an improvement in the protection of civil liberties across the board for all, as it becomes clear what powered the engine behind so much anti-Constitutional legislation that has abridged the rights of all American citizens really was.
Needless to say, many of those who enjoyed the protections and immunities afforded by the drug laws for their encroachments upon the rights and freedoms of their fellow citizens are not going to like being stripped of those protections.
They may even find themselves on the very same short, sharp and sh*t-smeared end of the stick they’ve been savagely poking their fellow citizens with, when a serious review of the effects of those laws is finally made, and the citizens learn of just how much their rights and lives were abridged on the basis of an ancient racial bigotry enshrined into national policy.
As my old sensei told me over and over, “Karma delayed is karma magnified.” And a century of bad karma is gonna hurt when it’s time to pay up…